By John E. Carey
Peace and Freedom
May 5, 2007
First a story to provide an uplifting moment to your day. Then a reality check in the “we’re all human” tradition.
Diep came here from her native Vietnam to live late last year, around Thanksgiving time. Diep is 65 years young and she was joining her Mother (in her nineties) and Diep’s sisters who are about Diep’s age. They have all lived here for a long time.
Diep immediately found a job at Sears. Her manager told me he was worried about her English language skills so he assigned her to the stock room.
He looked a little pale after I mentioned that in Vietnam, Diep taught English and as American Astronauts were first walking on the moon, Diep was here in Washington DC taking some classes. She had beaten all the competition and was awarded with some schooling in America.
Diep is now on the sales floor at Sears and she is outselling and out charming everyone. She takes tremendous pride in all her work and she is constantly helping people with cusytomer service needs.
Diep has now decided she loses too much time riding the bus to and from work so at the age of 65 she’s learning to drive for the first time in her life. She’s enrolled in a driving class and getting instruction in the intense traffic of northern Virginia.
So add Diep to the list of American immigrants that I admire and take delight in.
Now the “we’re all human” part.
While I was out driving today I got trapped behind a car with a big yellow sign on top that says “Student Driver.” The car was going 25 MPH in a 45 MPH zone so I figure the driver is some terrified immigrant like Diep doing one of her first road tests.
When I pulled along side the student driver car to see who was at the wheel I could see that there was only one middle aged woman in the car. She was looking into the rear view mirror and applying lip stick!There’s your 16 year old’s driving teacher, gang! Holy Cow!
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