The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. I have replayed the memories and relive those moments to this day.Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Since then, I have reminisced about that one week in summer. My parents invested so much into the trip and I was fortunate to reap in the rewards. I retraced my steps and walked across the campus for the last time in solitude. The last Mass on a Sunday morning marked the end. Bubble tea was refreshing and enjoying it with my family was something worth videotaping. CDs were being sold, as well as religious statues, rosaries, t-shirts, Asian fans, and more. I felt care-free when I visited the booths under open canvas tents with thousands of other people. Sight of the familiar Asian ice cream stand with flavors of jackfruit and mango took me back to my childhood, making me forget for a split second that I was a teenager. There were smells of roasted pork, fresh noodles, and funnel cake. I listened to jokes and songs sung by famous Vietnamese celebrities on the speakers. The Mass services were relaxing and soothing, especially the hymns of the choir.įood and festivities kept things interesting for me. Boy and girl scouts carried plastic light sabers when priests served the Eucharist at night. Flags of blue, yellow, and red lined the aisle leading to the altar. During the open Masses outside on the lawn, my family and I sat Indian-style on our traditional Asian carpet. At one point, my sister, Theresa, adopted a pet caterpillar she kept captive in a plastic cup. Every time any of us teens found a cicada shell, we’d terrorize our mother into hysterics until she reached for the broom and swiped at us. Though we were not technically in the wild, we encountered bugs and squirrels. We even buried a make-shift time capsule. We were sarcastic, holding things lightly, and competitive in a good-natured sense. There were no fights, no conflicts or arguments. My siblings and I were teenagers, having a grand time together. I didn’t really have an affinity for them before then. It was thrilling to play card games, UNO, and Phase 10. I do not know how, but he did, and we arrived at our destination on an early morning. How my father was able to drive away without a single bug entering the vehicle. When the objects landed on the hood of the car, it was then that we realized they were grasshoppers and scores of other insects. It was as if my mother, my siblings, and I were in a nucleus with thousands of little electrons flying all around us. My father was pumping gas outside and completely disregarded the bits of unidentified matter clinging to his apparel. At one gas station, my siblings and I noticed clouds of tiny objects in motion outside the vehicle. Early in our journey, we solved a mystery. I should have known things would be a little interesting from the night my family embarked on its annual escapade 723 miles to the north of Louisiana. It wasn’t until three summers ago that I found out how fun camping could be if I carried with me a different perspective. I spent every first week of August as I normally did with blank eyes and a dazed mindset cooped up in a tent pitched along an avenue. Electric poles scattered between trees provide campers with sockets to plug in conveniences, such as whirring fans or rice cookers. No, the campgrounds are surrounded by houses and apartments.
Marian Days was not camping by traditional terms. One week in the outdoors might have been unbearable if the congregation did not provide bathroom facilities or if Wal-Mart was not within two minutes away.
The eleven-hour traveling time by car to and from the campsite didn’t help either. The humid mornings, scorching hot afternoons, and sticky, cold nights in August were not exactly incentives. The idea of camping with my family has always made me cringe. It’s an annual four-day event called Marian Days, where Vietnamese-Americans make a pilgrimage to practice the Roman Catholic faith, pitching tents and parking RVs on 28 acres known as the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix. Vacationing in Carthage, Missouri was not something that just popped in my father’s head.
0 kommentar(er)
