Today I picked up my dad from the Veteran's Assistance office today after he had a check-up. He gets government assistance because he served in the Vietnam War as an engineer. And I'm grateful for that since he can't really work and I can't help him out yet either.


On my way there, that quintessential Vietnam war song by Buffalo Springfield came on the oldies radio station and my eyes got kind of misty.




I've heard that song so many times before and understood, I thought, what it means and what time it was written and all. But, this time I got sad, I guess, because before I picked my up my dad, I had gotten frustrated with him since he is a little slower than he was when I was a kid. He left his car keys under the hood of his car, so we had to call a locksmith later in the afternoon and that's why I had to take him to the VA office. And here I am, his daughter picking him up from a building riddled with handicapped parking spaces and a waiting room filled with veterans who fought in a war like that. And whose kids might not be all that nice to them all the time.

I know we are currently a country at war, but I feel so removed from it. Today I thought whenever I watch reality television or read about movie reviews, I couldn't help thinking my dad's twenties were very much different from my own. I told him that when I went to pick him up that Buffalo Springfield song came on the radio. He didn't know which one I meant so I played it for him on my phone (that he has no idea how to use) and all he said was "Oh right, a song from the sixties."

He doesn't talk about his experience back then, but once he told me he saw real strong men go white and cower when they all had to parachute out of an airplane. He left out the part about how he felt. It makes me feel silly when I make a painting about an irrational fear going to the grocery store.

Well, when I moved back to Texas he let me stay with him for a while to get on my feet and settled. I found these photos he had taken when he was in Vietnam from a camera he bought. They were just kind of in a crumpled pile with a bunch of other junk that he didn't think was important. But I kept them.