Augmented Post

Sometimes I have more to say:


This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


When times are tough figure out how to make lemonade.




A few years after the USA pull-out of South Vietnam I was invited to dinner at a Vietnamese family's home for dinner. The patriarch of the family told the story of the family's history and how they had made it to American soil. They were Chinese actually who had left China after the change to communist rule. They had moved to North Vietnam and lived there until it too became communist. They then moved to South Vietnam. When the United States left and the country was under communist rule he wanted to emigrate to the the USA but he said that for each family member it cost a bar of gold (a kilogram, if I remember correctly). They were not a rich family so he started looking for something he could do which would make a lot of money in as short a period of time as possible. He noticed that since the Americans had left there was a shortage of cigarettes. There was no shortage of tobacco because it was grown locally but there was no cigarette paper supply so he learned how to make it. There was a great demand for his product and he made enough money to buy their way out of the country.


Once in America they began doing well because each family member had at least one job, the children were encouraged to do well in school and they celebrated their freedom.


That is making lemonade when handed lemons.