Made in China

When I was ten my parents sent my brother and me to scout camp. This was in the summer of 1979 when bell bottoms and cut off jeans were still the rage. One day, I was heading to the mess hall when a camp counselor informed me that New York Yankees catcher Thurman Munson had been killed in a plane crash. why I remember this I cannot say. Perhaps death has always fascinated me. It's finality and swift and often times arbitrary end to a once vibrant and healthy life is hard to contemplate. Anyway, turning the dead catcher aside, I found the rest of my troop and we ate heartily. At Camp that summer was a gangly youth from China named Ben. He was probably 5 or 6 years older than me. I believe that he was a foriegn exchange student, but am not sure if he was from Red China or Taiwan. If I were to guess, 33 years later, I would have to say Taiwan, only because of the travel restrictions on the former. Anyhow, everyone, including me, wanted to be Ben's friend. He was a popular guy. The kids at this camp were of mostly English, French, Danish, Finnish and Irish stock along with a smattering of other mostly European ethnic groups. Basically, we were some of the whitest kids on the planet. Needless to say, Ben, hailing from China was a somewhat cultural oddity and was therefore well received at the camp. Everyone wanted to know about China. After eating I can remember leaving the mess hall and started walking back to our campsite with a couple of friends when I noticed a large group of kids gathering around some picnic tables ina shady crop of trees. Curious, I ventured over to see what all of the hullabaloo was about. It was Ben relating some of his experiences in China while his culturally deprived audience, now including me was held spellbound by some of his tales. Near the end of our stay at camp that summer, Ben made each of us a tee shirt with an iron-on logo written in both Chinese and English that said "Scouts of China."

     China has been in the news a lot lately. I no longer have a television, so I get my news from the internet, usually from the BBC or some other news outlet. Apparently the United States is running a trade deficit with China. This is no real shock. just look at the clothes you are wearing, or the toys that your kids are playing with. It might say "Made in China" or "Hecho en China" Sometimes it says "Made in China" but "Assembled in the U.S.A." and there is a little U.S. flag next to it. What is this suppose to mean? We support communism, but have pride in us? Who knows...I quit guessing what kind of tricks these corporatist sharks throw at us. Oh well...so be it, a few corporatists making buku buck through slave labor. I guess that is the American way. So what if small business can't compete. It's their problem for being small. Survival of the fittest...human nature. Oh you can also throw in a few laws that make it virtually impossible for a small business to compete; tax laws, zoning laws, unfair trade laws, building codes and regulations etc..etc...Oh and don't forget the kid with the lemonade stand in front of his house that's against the law too. Anyway, there stands China, a behemoth, a billion strong and growing. The land of the Great Wall, the Ming Dynasty, Ghengis Khan and Egg Foo Yung. I have nothing against the chinese people, they are merely doing the best they can under a despotic regime. But that is another story.

                                      Thurman Munson (1946-1979)    

     It has been 33 years since that week at scout camp. 33 years since Thurman Munson and his pork chop sideburns met his maker, and 33 years since Ben was a superstar for a bunch of kids at a now forgotten scout camp. I wore my yellow tee shirt with blue lettering with pride. At first it fit large on me, but as I got older it sort of molded to my skinny frame. After a while stretch marks began to show in places until it became almost transparent. Eventually, one day, my tee shirt disappeared. I did not notice it's passing. One day when I was about 16 I can remember looking for something under the kitchen sink, and presto! there it was in all it's yellow glory, now somewhat discolored, indignant but proud relic of my past having found a new life as a cleaning rag. It was my introduction to another culture beside my own, my Chinese tee shirt probably made in the U.S.A. These days I have plenty of Chinese tee shirts, one of them even has a picture of the U.S. flag on it. Oh well...such are the times. I don't know what ever happened to Ben. For all I know he could have been that guy that walked out in front of that tank in Tiananmen Square back in 1989. He would have been about the right age. Of course that is an absurd assertion. As far as Thurman Munson...I don't even know how the hell he made his way into this post. Perhaps Curt Gowdy was something of a prophet when he called the last play of the 1978 World Series. "popped up behind the plate....going back Munson...throws his mask away...he's there...it's all over! it's all over!"

Time continues to roll on...