Chapter One Chin Lung Art Gallery It was 1962 when Dad and his twin brother, Joey, opened their retail store on the corner of Thirteenth and F Street in Washington DC. The three-story building had the best show windows in town. Only three blocks away was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW and its very famous house. Inside the house was a man named Kennedy, who was busy dealing with an incident called the Cuban missile crisis. Three years later on a Saturday in April, my father insisted that I go downtown with him and work at the store. I was six years old. The only time I had visited Washington DC was when I straddled my dad’s shoulder’s and witnessed beautiful white horses pulling President Kennedy’s coffin draped with an American flag down Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a sad day; so many people cried. Mom dressed me up in a white long sleeve shirt with a red bow tie and a red vest that had some kind of emblem printed on the left side. My pants were perfectly ironed, and my shoes were shined. My head didn’t have a hair out of place thanks to Dad’s Vitalis. Yesterday, Mom had taken me to the barbershop on Edmondson Avenue. That place was neat; they had real monkeys in their windows. My older brother Howard had always shared his experiences of working at the store and how it felt to break the ice, to make your first sale. I guessed it was going to be my time to share now. After I got dressed, I started thinking about the day to come and got really antsy. It was the first time that I’d get to see dad’s store in the city. I was excited. I sat down at the kitchen table with Dad while Abuela, my grandmother, served the both of us bagels with cream cheese. Abuela was intelligent, sweet, and soft. Her hair had always been gray since I could remember. She wore 1950s prescription glasses attached to a chain that dangled down. Even with the chain attached around her neck, she’d still sometimes wonder where her glasses were.
Chin Lung Art Gallery
It was 1962 when Dad and his twin brother, Joey, opened their retail store on the corner of Thirteenth and F Street in Washington DC. The three-story building had the best show windows in town. Only three blocks away was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW and its very famous house. Inside the house was a man named Kennedy, who was busy dealing with an incident called the Cuban missile crisis.
Three years later on a Saturday in April, my father insisted that I go downtown with him and work at the store. I was six years old. The only time I had visited Washington DC was when I straddled my dad’s shoulder’s and witnessed beautiful white horses pulling President Kennedy’s coffin draped with an American flag down Pennsylvania Avenue. It was a sad day; so many people cried. Mom dressed me up in a white long sleeve shirt with a red bow tie and a red vest that had some kind of emblem printed on the left side. My pants were perfectly ironed, and my shoes were shined. My head didn’t have a hair out of place thanks to Dad’s Vitalis.
Yesterday, Mom had taken me to the barbershop on Edmondson Avenue. That place was neat; they had real monkeys in their windows. My older brother Howard had always shared his experiences of working at the store and how it felt to break the ice, to make your first sale. I guessed it was going to be my time to share now. After I got dressed, I started thinking about the day to come and got really antsy. It was the first time that I’d get to see dad’s store in the city. I was excited. I sat down at the kitchen table with Dad while Abuela, my grandmother, served the both of us bagels with cream cheese. Abuela was intelligent, sweet, and soft. Her hair had always been gray since I could remember. She wore 1950s prescription glasses attached to a chain that dangled down. Even with the chain attached around her neck, she’d still sometimes wonder where her glasses were.