No More Dodging Vietnam

Our around-the-world year ended in a Vietnamese setting, with karaoke and ballroom dancing at the TiB athletic club across from the Tempelhof Airport baseball diamond. The party started at 8 p.m. on December 30, and we did not leave the floor until after midnight so I think it can be counted as one of the three or four smashingest New Year’s Eves I have experienced in the better part of a lifetime.

My photographic skills may be nothing to brag about, as revealed by the speck on the skirt of my perennially blonde wife, but they are better than my dancing shoes. Luckily, my colleague Tri Trieu, formerly of Da Nang, who invited us to the ball, turned out to be an excellent no-charge gigolo. I am on the verge of a resolution not to wait to next year again to take some lessons in fancy footwork. I fancy the Miss Saigon in the pink skirt back in the rear as my teacher.

I am the one who dared to bare his muscle. The other guy is Sonny Cartlidge, and he is smiling at the moment, but you should have seen his face at the end of the match. The contest was held at the end of September 2006 at the Málaga Restaurant on Lalor Street in Hamilton near the border with Trenton. We wanted to see if Trenton has Hispanic restaurants that beat Taco Bell any dia, as our councilman-pastor maintained in his campaign. The food and music were great and we got our peseta's worth.