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obligated to you, Martin, to set the record straight. Do you want to know the full story?”
    I nodded. Last Tuesday night I was a bowler. On Wednesday, my dad talked to me like a son, gave me a mission and breathed his last breath. Thursday, I stood up against my mother and arranged the funeral. Saturday, I received a picture of my father singing at church. Sunday, the funeral home gave me my dad’s ashes. And now on Monday, I was being confronted with the foreign past of my parents. The narrow view I held of them completely shattered before my own eyes – my dad and a smiling Vietnamese girl – and my mom and a young assistant pastor. Life was simpler as a bowler. Eating spicy tacos and downing Cherry Coke at the bowling alley with my K-Mart team made me happy. I loved Tuesdays, but it now seemed that I would never face another normal Tuesday the rest of my life. And for some reason, I felt okay with that. I eagerly waited for more revelations from Reverend Fox. It was all so sordid, yet splendid. I felt alive. I felt important.
    “As I said at the funeral, I arrived here in 1960. I was twenty-one years old and just out of seminary. Reverend Coonsley was the senior pastor, and he took me under his wings and set me to work right away doing various different duties for the church and congregation. One of my main tasks was working with the youth. That’s how I got to know your father who was only ten years old when I came. Your dad consistently served in whatever capacity he was asked. He ushered during the Sunday evening service. He volunteered to hoist the flag every Sunday morning. After church, I would often help him re-fold the flag into a perfectly tight little triangle. Over the years, we became close, and I suppose it would be fair to say that he came to look up to me as a big brother. Those were good years. I learned a lot about service and faith and… well, all that doesn’t really matter.”
    He leaned back in his office chair.
    “Now, of course you know that your mother is two years older than your dad. Your dad met her in town one day. He was seventeen. She attended the local business school. She planned on taking a two year course in office related work. Your dad worked weekends over at Stevenson’s Feed Supply – that place is long gone. Your mom took up an internship in the office there a few hours a week to practice what she had been learning at school. Did your parents ever talk to you about how they met?”
    “No. Never. Not one single word,” I said marveling at the tale he weaved.
    “So they started dating and were together for about a year when your dad finally decided to join the army and go to Vietnam and fight. I admired your dad a great deal for how he got your mom involved in the church. Now as far as I know, your mom didn’t come from a church going background. That didn’t deter your father. Actually, he insisted that she come to church with him and his mom, and she did so very faithfully. She loved kids and started helping with the youth. She was great. She taught them songs that she had only recently learned herself. She quizzed them over their memory verses during Sunday school. So they were both very involved in church and with each other. This was right around the time of the Tet offensive in Vietnam. The war created a huge amount of division in the country. Did you ever learn about the Tet offensive?”
    I wanted to say ‘yes’, but I had no idea what he was talking about.
    “No.”
    “Tet is what the Vietnamese call their New Year. On the eve of Vietnam’s largest celebration, the Viet Cong launched coordinated attacks against more than forty different targets all throughout South Vietnam. The coverage that came through on TV made everything look chaotic. Our government had been continually telling us that our soldiers were winning the war. They had daily casualty counts that told us how many VC had died the previous day. But then suddenly, the VC pulled off these