Soap Boxes and Remembering

You'd be genuinely surprised what you can find laying around the house if you look hard enough. Buried beneath all the clutter and useless ornaments we have lying all over the place are some real gems. We've all been there. You're looking for something, and shuffling through all odd knick knacks, when you come across something that catches your eye. Something that triggers an emotional response in your head so unmistakeable, you just have to stop and check it out. For me, it was the soap box in the back of my dads office cabinet. I hadn't seen that rotting cardboard box for years. Anyone else would have passed it off for trash, but the minute I saw that faded blue logo on the old water stained, ripped-up cardboard, I knew I had come across something big.

Ever since we moved into the house 6 years ago I had been trying to track down this old soap box. My family had kept it for as long as I could remember. Inside were hundreds upon hundreds of 3x5 pictures dating back to the 1940s up till about 2001. It was the night before Nick and I left for Costa Rica that I happened across the old soap box. I stopped packing my things and gingerly brought the box out onto the floor. The sides were caked in dust, and as I brought the box to the floor, the dust cloud that followed its descent sent my cat fleeing for the next room.

Inside I found relics of my parents teenager years, my brothers highschool graduation pictures, pictures of my grand father and his taxi, our old house in Matawan, my old dog Spikey, the proverbial baby pictures, and so much more. By the time I had finished going through them all, the floor was covered in pictures. Little 3x5 windows into the past.

I always tell the photography club members on the first meeting of the year " Your camera is a time machine. With it, you litterally have the ability to freeze time, to capture a moment, and superimpose it on a piece of film (nowadays a memory card). And one day many years from that time, you'll pick up that one picture and remember. The feelings you felt, the things you said, and the thoughts you thunk [i know thats not a word] will all come rushing back to you. You'll relive that moment. And you'll travel through time." It gets them thinking. And its true. Distant memories of Chinese New Year parties, and seeing the Grand Canyon 13 years ago came rushing back. All of a sudden I could feel the helicopter blades throbbing again. I remembered looking down and seeing the vast, breath taking gorges, being completely awestruck, and feeling so small. I remembered rolling a giant rock up to the edge of a cliff, and feeling the rush of happiness and childish glee as I watched it plumet thousands of feet into the river below. I remembered the checkered picnic table cloth, and my uncles wire framed glasses. I remembered the cactuses, and the blazing bright blue sky. I just stared at the picture for awhile and remembered.

Images of my childhood jumpstarted those distant memories that had long since laid dormant in the back of my head. I remembered the firemens parade in Matawan, and always losing the fireman costume pagent to these twins who had real fire suits. It was a big deal to me back then. Every year the local fire department would take the kids for rides on the fire trucks, let us honk the horns, and climb all over. And after that we would go to the community center, or maybe it was the fire house, and the kids would dress up in firemen suits from halloween stores or mother's sowing machines, and compete to get their picture taken with the big (i forget his name) fire prevention dalmation, who was really just a man in a suit. I never won, but that was irrelevant, since the fire trucks parked in my Dads commuter lot, and I got the private tour every year. Those twins would have been so jealous.

There were pictures of my Grandpa, who passed away in 2005. I never knew him well. But for a long time he stayed with us at our house in Mawatan. I remember seeing him out the big glass dining room window everyday, just standing by the fence where our backyard met the lake. Some days he would be doing these weird excersizes, other days he would feed the ducks. Mostly he'd just stand by the water and look out across the lake. When it got cold, he put wood in a furnace. I never understood why. He didn't even stand by it. I guess he just liked to burn wood.

I'm very thankful my brother got into photography. It not only got me interested in it, but it kept our excursions well documented. Nick always brought his camera when we went fishing. We never caught much back then. I remember for two whole summers, Nick and I went down to this pier in Lawrence harbor. We'd cut up bait, cast out and sit on the pier and talk, or I would try to catch the little rock crabs scurrying across the big boulders, and Nick would hit a golf ball on the sand. For two years we caught nothing, but still, every saturday, week after week, we were there. Our paitence finally paid off. I can't remember the date. I think it was some time in August. For some reason, that day, every single bluefish on the east coast it seemed, decided to school up next to our pier. For two years we went without seeing a single fish till that day. We filled a garbage bag full, and the next saturday, like nothing had happened, it was dead calm. We never did catch anything there again.

I didn't know it at the time, but spikey would pass away 4 days after I found the soap box, while I was in Costa Rica. I found out over facebook. It was late in the evening, and I walked out to the beach alone to watch the sun dip below the horizon. I thought of my old dog. I remember the day we got him. My cousin and I had been clamoring for a puppy for years, and this one day in December, when I was in the second grade, I opened the back door to see a tiny german shepard puppy. We named him Spike, and he was the best dog anyone could ask for. I remember a few weeks after we got him he followed me onto the bus. My mom came running after him and carried him home. He got into all sort of shennanigans. One day he jumped the fence, and we though he mauled some commuter in the lot. It turned out the commuter was a dog trainer, and he had Spike sitting on his haunches begging for a treat. There was the time Spike fought the groudhog. The two had been archrivals ever since we moved into the Broad Street house. I remember seeing a cloud of dust over by the shed as Spike and the groundhog went at it. I ran out to stop the fight but by then the groundhog had won. Spikey had a little cut on his ear, and the groundhog made it back under the shed. I always thought his pride had taken a hit after that.

One thing I really noticed was how different my parents looked. It wasn't just that they looked younger. They were happier. They dont smile as much now. In the old photographs I saw young Nancys and Sunnys, with beards and skirts. They looked as though they were enjoying themselves. I could see the warmth in their faces. The spark of youthfulness, of un-worried minds and big ambitions. What happened? They're colder now. And they fight every now and then. They dont talk much, save for business. I wish they'd open up the soap box and remember.

I spent the rest of the night leafing though stacks of 3x5s. My head was inundated with memories, that I relived with each new picture. It was remarkable. I'm glad I found that box. It's a time machine, really. You should try it sometime. I hope its not just me. I guess I really value the past. We speak highly of times gone by. Better times I guess you could say. There were no midterms or SAT results. No job searches or expenses to pay. Thank God the camera was invented. Until we invent a real one, it's the best time machine we've got.

Music I'm Listening to Right Now:

Favor - Rocco Deluca and The Burden

Assignments and My Writing / Vacation

Assigments and My Writing

I like english. I like using fancy words and sounding smart while I adjust my glasses. But it seems as though I've developed a complex to doing school work. When I used to write these blogs for myself, I'd flow. The words would fly off my finger tips, and I'd genuinely enjoy my own writing. More and more nowadays, when I put pen to the paper, or fingers to the keys to write an assignment, be it English, History, or Western Civ, I freeze up. I don't know what to write, and I second guess the ideas that come to mind until I forget them altogether. Maybe it's because I'm over scrutinizing my own work because I know it's going to be graded. Or maybe it just seems a little too futile to me - that "Why should I even do this, how's it ever going to practically benefit me?" attitude. Maybe it's just I'm making excuses because I don't want to admit I'm lazy. Although the latter probably rings the truest, there is still some truth to the other two. The the end result of them all, is what I feel is sub-standard writing. I didn't post anything the last two blogging weeks, but I did write a few posts. After reading them over and over again I felt they were missing a certain aspect of my old blogs that I just couldn't name. I'd write them, read them over, be dissatisfied, make changes, be dissatisfied, and repeat and repeat and repeat. I ended up just not posting. I'm not saying I don't want to write, I think it's, since my writing is now regulated, it's not genuine anymore. And however hard I try to make it genuine, when I re read it, I sound like a used car salesman in one of those flashy commercials, trying desperately to pass off junk with with gaudy ads, giant billboards and those annoying tall balloon people that bend and snap.

And I hate those commercials.

I think Mr. Jannetti summed it up pretty well today. I went back into his classroom after the last bell rang. I had come in earlier to get a progress report from him, but he was teaching so I decided to come back later so as not to interrupt him. After handing me my 66 average, he gave me the usual "youre too bright to be getting this, stop being lazy" speech I get so often, but then he stopped. Instead he said something that really hit me hard.

"You know what, Chong, it's not that you're lazy. You bust your ass doing other things, but you just don't care about school."

I thought about it. There's a lot of truth in between those quotation marks.

Vacation

First off, please forgive me for the sour tone. When I typed out the first post here I promised myself not to make this a place to complain and whine. I've had a rough day and I needed to get that out. So heres the story of my winter break vacation I wrote a few days ago for a change of mood. Enjoy

Wow. I really cannot believe it's only been 19 days since my brother and I left the sunny shores of Costa Rica. It feels like a months since I've been touched by a ray of sunlight that wasn't below 40 degrees. I miss it more that I could ever tell you. It really was paradise. Every morning I'd wake up to 80 degrees and clear skies, go outside and stretch my arms wide as the sun's warmth enveloped my whole body. It was bliss.

We spent five day's in Quepos, on the Central Pacific Coast. Quepos isn't too fancy, and it's far from what someone might call a resort, but nonetheless to me, it was tropical paradise. In the day's leading up to my departure from the sub freezing continential US, I dreamed day, night, and class, of blazing sun, white sand, and a care free mind. Well, it got. For five days straight the only thing I cared about was not picking the best thing on the menu for dinner. There wasn't a single Dad to harrass me, nor a Mother to nag. Bliss, I tell you.

We flew in on Christmas day, and after a smaller twin engine turbo prop dropped us off at a nearby airstrip, we settled into by the beach hotel, and caught a cab into town for Christmas Dinner.

The Food

Lets talk about the food. Thanks to my Cornell-educated, Corporate America-employed, amazing big brother, I ate like a king for five nights straight. Quepos being a coastal town, and myself being a seafood lover, I was heaven. I don't know where to start.

Every place we went, we sampled the Ceviche (pronounced [seh-vee-shay]) It was like a salsa made with fresh fish, shrimp, scallop, herbs and a bunch of other things, with a base of lemon juice, and who know's what thrown in. All I can say was it was pretty damn amazing.

We went to a different restaurant every night. Along the road between The National Park (Where we stayed) and Quepos, there are a number of American owned restaurants (with american prices) that cater to the tourists Staying in the area. My favorite was Agua Azul. I had this half sushi half cooked yellowfin tuna, in light soy sauce type concotion (served in a martini glass!), followed by Pan Seared Wahoo (a fish) on a bed of sausage rice for my entree, washed down with an ice cold Imperial (the local beer) and topped off with this chocolate brownie that rivaled any one of Max Brenner's chocolatier creations.

That was just one night. I could write about each dinner, but honestly, I'm already salivating, and the thought of what my mom managed to cook up compared to what I ate there is just too painful. And I'd probably wite more than I did in 30 Hours of Awesomeness.

Now, my brother is a smart man. And any one of his cubicle cohorts would have smiled when they saw the color coded, daily time schecule activity spreadsheet he put together on Excell. Each day we had booked a different activity, some days two, with some beach chill time thrown inbetween. Day one, we surfed.

Surfing

The ocean where we were was pretty flat for the most part, although the heavy foam long boards we rented were more than enough to catch the most miniscule of waves. Nick booked a lesson in the afternoon, and at around 11, our guide came to pick us up at the hotel. He spoke surprisingly good english. His name was george, and he was a senior in highschool. He told us about his mother who lived in California, and how he hoped to make enough money to visit her there one day. Which was weird because on the way home he mentioned that she worked in Agua Azul. He was a little sketchy to say the least, but his anti-tourist attitude was less apparent than with some of the other locals. You could tell by their at times poorly feigned smiles that they detested the tourists who came and raised the prices, and turned their economy into an almost entirely tourist based - back to surfing.

It felt so great to finally get back up on a board. They're weren't any killer 15 footers, or crowded line ups, or dead flatness. It was just nice relaxing surfing. For a while I laid down with my back on the big foam longboard, and just took in the sun while the Pacific rocked me slowly into a half sleep.

Fishing

The dawn of day 2 brought with it perhaps the most memorable, and the most anticipated activity we had planned. Our trip was centerd around this activity, and as the I hastily devoured my Opción #2 breakfast of sunny side eggs, black bean rice, and fried plantains (zomg so delicious), I listened closely for the crunching of gravel, that would come from the truck sent by Luna Tours Sport fishing to pick us up that morning. To tangle with the billfish.

We hooked up with 2 Sailfish, 1 Marlin, and a Mahi Mahi. I was up on the fly-bridge with Captain Mario when the first sail hit. I had been gloomily scanning the ocean, watching for any indication of a strike on the baits and teasers we were trolling behind us. An hour had passed without fish, my eyes were weary, and my morale wearier. My stony gaze was fixed on the far starboard bait, when from the corner of my eye, a tall bill shot from the water and dipped back down near the port side bait had once been. It took a moment for my action starved brain to register what had just happend. "FISH ON!!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs as I dove under the railing of the fly bridge and onto the deck. Captain Mario got on the radio and called in "Pescado! Pescado! Pescado!" to the other boats. I got in the fighting chair, and the deckhand, Gabriel, handed me the rod.

Oh. My. Goodness. Let me tell you, I have never put a more beautiful, hard fighting, awe inspiring fish in the boat that that Sail. He pulled like a train, and I watched on in terrified amazement as all 7 feet of him shot completely out of the water again and again, as he so vailiantly tried to spit the hook. It took me 20 minutes, and numerous reel screaming runs, to get him to the boat. Gabriel Grabbed him by the bill and put him in my lap for a picture. I'll never forget the color on that fish. It was more beautiful than any painting I'd ever seen. To be honest the only thing that could rival that color was the Costa Rican Sunset. We let him go, to fight another day

Nick lost the Marlin and another Sailfish before he put that Mahi Mahi up there to the boat. Oh man he tasted good for dinner.

The day wasn't limited to fishing however. During the 8 or so hours we spent trolling the deep waters, the Pacific was teaming with life everywhere you looked. I saw a flying fish for the very first time, not a half hour out the harbor, it was nuts. These little torpedo shaped fish, about as long as a pencil, and as think as a broom stick would erupt from the water and sail like gliders just above the surface. They were everywhere on the way out. We came across several large green turtles, as well as incredible numbers of dolphins and pilot whales. Whenever a pod of dolphins was sighted, Captain Mario would call them out, and I'd grab the camera and climb down to the bow. Like clock work, each pod would intercept the boat, and swim and play right up against the bow. Standing on the gunwhale, I swear, I could have reached out and touched them. It was amazing.

Ziplining and Jet Skiing

I won't spend to much time talking about ziplining. I'll admit it was pretty fun, and I did have a good time, but in the long run it just left me tired, sweaty, and dirty. We did get some cool pictures though.

Hand's down, the absolute most exhilarating thing we did in Costa Rica, was jet skiing. Since the same tour company that offered the zipplining tour also offered a jetskiing tour, we stayed at their office in Quepos for a half hour before getting picked up and dropped off at the harbor.

We met our guide at the docks, he explained the saftey rules and how to drive the skiis, and before long we were off. We didn't take any pictures unfortunately, since we were getting completely soaked and traveling at speeds in excess of 50 miles an hour, there was no time to line up a good shot. If you ask anyone who knows me they'll tell you I love driving. It's why I take flying lessons, its why I count the days, hours, minutes, and seconds till the day I get my license. Driving, whatever the vehicle, to me, is one of the ultimate freedoms. I think it's the ability to go wherever you want, and fast, that makes it so appealing to me. And this Yamaha jet skii was FAST.

The first time I really punched the throttle, I was squeezing those handle bars for dear life as the inertia sucked me back. I stood up to let my knees to absorb the bounce of each wave that catapulted the whole skii into the air. A few times I caught air for a whole second or two at 50 miles per hour. I relive it in my head every time I think about it. The jet skii would be screaming over the surface of the water. All of a sudden I'd watch as a big swell shot under neath me, and in slow motion I can can still feel the whole thing lifting up in my gut, the saltwater hits my face, and the noise from the motor goes quiet as the intake valve leaves the water for those few precious seconds. I feel weightless, as the skii and I soar through the air. Then the skii comes crashing down, and my whole body pushes downward and I feel like I'm falling, but the thrill is just so think I squeeze the throttle down for a few more seconds, savor every last bit of the raw, wild adrenaline.

ATVing

Although not nearly as wild as jet skiing, riding atv's through the country side was cool. We got paired with a group of parents with young children - slow riders. For me and Nick, this was a bad thing. After the jaw breaking speed of the Jet Skii's the day before we were hooked on the rush of adrenaline. Needless to say we hung back every now and then to let the group get some distance between us. Then we floored it and held on.

Eventually we got a little too comfortable going at speed, and we started weaving side to side, fish tailing. I'd let Nick catch up to me only to fish tail infront of him, and kick up a cloud of dust for him to pass through. I'll let this video to the rest of the typing.

We spent the last day just chilling on the white sand in the national park. The water was cool, and the sun blazing. It wasn't like Jersey sun. I cooked real good haha. Well I'm all written out now, so I'll leave you with one last picture, and we'll call it a night.

Music I'm listening to right now:

The Backseat - The Gaslight Anthem