I Know These Kids From Somewhere

Dalat was one of my favorite cities in Vietnam and this just might be my favorite picture. Unlike most of my assignments, I wasn’t working with any particular unit. I was only writing about the city, about a university in the city and about how the city was trying to stay as far away as possible from the war.

This boy and girl followed me most of the day and pretty much forced me to take their picture. I really didn’t think I had anything until I got back to Long Binh and took a closer look. What I saw was my sister and myself twenty years earlier. The two of us were inseparable—whether in Rochester or in Lowell, Massachusetts visiting our mother’s family. As the first two grandchildren on mom’s side it goes without saying that the two of us were the subject of countless photographs.

Each one captured us standing next to each other, sitting next to each other, lying in the sand on the beach next to each other or poking our heads out of a car window. We posed on steps, in doorways, in front of picnic tables and behind any prop put in front of us.

Even in those simpler times my sister wouldn’t be walking the streets in pajamas and I’m not even sure if they had flip-flops in those days and even at that young age she was too stylish to go with this particular buttoning arrangement. On the other hand, I can say with certainty that this was my style from the beginning. The only shirts I ever remember were striped shirts and sneakers were the only shoes I ever remembered wearing.

But what I like most about the picture is that this boy and girl, and I assume they were brother and sister, were joined at the shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and ankle.
There is no denying that these two kids had captured our pose.