A Man & His Stick Part 4: Limping the 9, I'll Wait Another Time

Why I Hate Skaters (Skater Jeff Hartman)

16 year old, Jeff Hartman rocked a Thrasher T-shirt.

In 1990, every skateboard owner wore the same ugly gray shirt.

Jeff Hartman's dirty shorts drooped nearly to the tops of his ankles.

Jeff Hartman had a beard. He should have had a beard.

He was 16 years old, but in seventh grade.

I knew Jeff Hartman was a douche-bag. I didn’t have the balls to kick his ass though.

So, I had to just hope he never bothered me.

Why I Loved The Underdog(Somalian Adoptee Mohammed Mohammed)

Mohammed Mohammed wore a turtle neck. He looked like a child marathon runner. It sounds racist. But, he looked like a child marathon runner. Sorry.

Mohammed Mohammed didn’t wear a turtle neck to disguise the hickeys. His foster parents gave him the shirt.

Mohammed Mohammed spoke a few words of English. He usually just said things like, Thank You.

Mohammed Mohammed confused 90 percent of the student population at Nazareth Junior High School in 1990

He confused the students so much because our parents never saw a black kid, nonetheless a kid from Somalia.

Mohammed Mohammed and Jeff Hartman’s  scheduled fight kicked off our early dismissal day.

Why The Skater Was  a Douche-Bag

Jeff Hartman was twice the size of Mohammed Mohammed.

Who the fuck knows how old Mohammed Mohammed was? Mohammed Mohammed wasn't big.

The fight twisted for the worse when 30 of Jeff Hartman’s friends decided to chase after Mohammed Mohammed also..

Mohammed Mohammed didn’t seem that scared. I imagine he faced similar situations before.

I knew the fight was wrong. I was too chicken shit to make it stop however.

I felt the same compassion for him as I did when I watched Ralphie from The Christmas Story get his ass kicked. I had a lot of compassion for Ralphie.

At Nazareth Junior High School, this was the extent of my culture sensitivity training.

8 km out of 42km Coffee Break Cultural Sensitivity cont’d…)

On this Saturday morning, 8 kilometers into a 50 planned km walk, I looked right, at the bottom of what felt like a lot of hills.

Roughly 3 km back, I stopped at a straw hut looking place. 

Nobody would call it a straw hut. Sometimes, I discount traditional beach culture here.

I guess it could still be a straw hut.

At the straw hut place, with roadside snacks, I appreciated the company.  

Four older Taiwanese people, and two stray dogs relaxed under their straw hut. I also relaxed under the straw hut.

I told the four older Taiwanese people where I was walking. They only encouraged. They didn't scold me and belittle me for doing something challenging.

I didn’t tell the dogs where I was going. That would be dumb. I just mostly whistled, and stared at the dogs.

With lovely company, I still mostly sat there and drank my can of Taiwan beer. I didn’t say much

In part 2, I bitched about how Taiwanese people never want to have much of a conversation beyond how much money do you make, do you have a car, etc…

If I don’t like something about other people, it is because I don’t like that same thing about myself.

As I sat at the base of this hill, a mansion overlooked the coffee shop. It seemed weird to have a hill with a mansion (in the middle), a forest(at the top), and a coffee shop at the bottom.

The guy serving the coffee looked a bit Filipino & Hawaiian. He spoke English with what sounded like a Filipino accent..

In Nazareth, PA, we don’t get much cultural sensitivity training. We just watch kids between two races fight, and try to figure out what is right. So, I panicked.

I didn’t know if I should speak English or Chinese. I had no idea where he was from.

I wanted to ask him.

But, six months ago, a Youtube video surfaced making fun of the stupid things white people say to Asians.

Social media dumbs us down a bit. 

My FB friends, especially in Taiwan, started cyber-tisking and wagging their fingers at people crying in arms that we should stop doing what the video said.

I would bet a million dollars the cyber tiskers didn’t even watch the video. They saw it had a million views. They read the comments. Then, they cyber-tisked without any substance.

I watched the video. It made fun of things like when white people are surprised that an Asian person speaks English without an accent.

I had the stupid video in the back of my head. I just kept trying to remember what questions, and in what way I shouldn’t ask the questions.

So, I just said. I am interested. Where are you from?

Luckily, he just told me he is Aboriginal. 

I always want to ask Aboriginal so many questions. I stuck to just treating him like a normal person.

As The Brutal Day Passed

My right foot burned. It felt like it was popping out of my sandal. I shouldn't have worn sandals.

I always remember how my dad use to get Gout flare ups. Gout causes sudden pain, burning, and flare-ups.

If you have ever seen a grown man, crawling on all fours for longer than a week, gout would scare the shit out of you too.

I started to limp.

Sunburn doesn’t usually bother me. But, the sunburn started to hurt.

As the day passed, I used police stations for rest stops. The Dawu police station mind-fucked me. I thought I was near my destination. I still had 13 kilometers to go.

As the day passed, my legs were also chaffed.  When I say my legs, I mean my balls.

This hurt like hell. This happened several years ago. I put Ben Gay on my balls by accident. I learned from this mistake. I didn't do it again.

As the day passed, people cheered as I came into the first rest stop on this walk. I had been walking for over 35 km.   

As the day passed, I walked on the highway. Sometimes, I jumped into the little ditch on the side of the highway if the noise from the trucks coming behind me scared me. 

As the day passed, cars & scooters honked and gestured like a 5 year old gestures for a truck driver to beep his horn. 

I waved my stick at them instead. I didn’t need my stick for stray dogs.

At the only rest stop, the majority traveled by scooter.  Another pack traveled by bicycle.

The bicycle pack cheered the loudest as I limped in. They still annoyed me because they told me six times in five minutes, “Today is too hot.”

As the day passed, kindness floated in abundance.  An old lady, at the pharmacy didn’t have Aspirin, so she cooked me dinner instead. After 7 pm in her town of Longxi, restaurants close.  

When I couldn’t walk any further (after 43km), the old guy at the noodle shop drove me to the train station instead of calling a taxi.

As the day passed, I sat at my Air B& B, in Longxi. The stars looked the same as the last time I camped along a river bed.

As the day passed, I walked 43 km in a 12 hour period. During that 43km stretch, I fantasized often about organizing another walk like this to benefit the Pack Sanctuary. The Pack Sanctuary is an animal shelter in Sanzhi, Taiwan. My friends has saved over 1,000 street dogs.

 I also fantasized about organizing a mountain clean up. I realized I am addicted to that feeling of starting something that might fail. 

I also realized I don’t follow through on a lot of things I want to start out of fear.

As the day ended, I knew I couldn’t go on the next day. I didn’t have a why.