Maybe not everyone will attain the same goals, but why can’t everyone be given the ability to do so?
When we were politely locked into our hotel in Delhi nine months later due to the street uprisings, the desk manager profusely apologized to us…
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My language and culture—nothing? Savage me, as you sit there reading books to sail, ignoring heaven and nature…
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Of all the places I lived, the beach was closest on Guam. I remember white sand on northern island beaches burning my feet, and those same feet running tourist crowded expanses to the promise of cool, aquamarine lagoons…
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Sex can be rice crackers, crumbs in the corners of the bag…
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March 11, 2011. Just an ordinary day. Then earth fell away beneath us…
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Time is a very culture-centric topic that my father taught me well across the countries we lived in. On Guam, people were usually an hour late on an island that was 20 minutes wide to drive…
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My perceptions on sex have been hammered and scratched and polished. Although I still admit to catching myself admiring ankles from time to time…
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What is more iconic as a childhood memory than ice cream?
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The rest of preflight runs pretty smoothly. Our passengers are happy and in good moods. They want to get the plane up and to their tropical destination as soon as possible...
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In my native Spain, children at age six could drink 1/4 strength wine. At 16, you went to full strength. In Hawai’i when I was flying, it was “Hey, bruddha, can you drink with us?” Likewise, on Guam, the test would be handing someone a 5 dollar bill and asking them to go buy a 6-pack of beer...
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The second or third day after the earthquake, I sat in my apartment and realized the training my family and I did in Germany was no different from the onboard aircraft evacuation training I went through over the years. "Take nothing that will slow you down. Run, run far and don't look back..."
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Spare me the cake and candles and let me celebrate how I like it best...
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People will say one nation or region is more friendly than another. I honestly can say I think that people are pretty much the same all over the world. So if you are an asshole in Baltimore, moving to another country won’t magically transform you into everyone’s hero...
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It was just after Nagano was chosen for the winter olympics that I suddenly was Mr. Popular. Did I have a spare bedroom? Could I show people around? “Paul, let’s talk after the reunion.” I left before the introductions were even made. That was the end of my high school connections...
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I can choose how Japanese I am: I never leave my chopsticks standing up in a bowl of rice because that is a funeral practice here and I avoid the number 4 like the plague in food service...
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My passports have always been issued from abroad. In the 1980s my passports were changed to blue "Z" instead of the standard blue. I was treated like a second class citizen each time I “returned” to the US and travelling in my 20's through Europe with it in the Cold War was sheer hell on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain...
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When you were on Guam in the 1970s, you were at the edge, staring down into the abyss. We were a 5-hour flight from the West Coast to Hawaii and then another 8 hours till solid ground. Packages took 3 to 4 weeks by shipping if they caught the right boat...
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I'd like life to be a big, red, round, spinning Chinese table - take what you want now and keep the rest for later. Unfortunately, it is more like walking through a patch of cold sword-grass on the way out from...
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"Your worst nightmare," should be the dreamy response - delivered deadpan, low voiced and with super intense scary music in the background. But alas, life is never as Hollywood would have us believe it is, or should be...
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