This short story series submission is from Ming Louie Stein of Port Moody.
It’s not that he saved anyone from a burning building. There were no medals pinned to his breast pocket. He couldn’t swim, skate or play baseball. He was one egg in a carton of 12 with no distinguishable markings.
Then it was over. Anti-climactic. The rush left him in a cold sweat. He tossed the ratty ticket and program into the trash.When father and mother first settled in Vancouver, he had little choice but to work in the Chinese kitchens. Unhappy with his job, he took many breaks loitering in the alleys to smoke. He knew this was going nowhere. Limited in English and marketable skills, there weren’t many options.
The Bayshore Inn’s barbershop had a proper shoeshine chair set up high on a pedestal. 3 The chair was only ever empty long enough to eat a sandwich, but the last shoe-shiner reluctantly quit and left for Kelowna on a personal matter. Father’s earnings and tips would be his own. The barbershop charged a reasonable rent for the chair. Part of his contract was to thoroughly clean the barbershop on Sundays to a spotless gleam.
During the years as a shoeshiner, father had learned a few things. The changes, though gradual over time, were evident in the choices he made. Significantly, he stopped playing mahjong and betting on the horses. Even more impressive, he quit smoking. I was thirteen at the time, and acknowledged that this required extensive willpower on his part.
He decidedly signed up for the Culinary Arts program at the Vancouver Vocational 5 Institute. After months of being free of gambling and cigarettes, father told us, “I need a clean body and a clean mind to accompany a clean environment to learn culinary arts.”
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