When Howard’s parents brought him and his 4 siblings to Yosemite National Park, he wore a tie, which was well-documented by his father’s photos of the family standing in front of cascading waterfalls.
After college, without even thinking about it, he joined the Army with a couple of friends and ended up in
Vietnam. He was so mild mannered, the officers never sent him out to battle, they kept him on the base working as a medical assistant.
When Onta, the prostitute he engaged in Bangkok during his first R&R, told him she was pregnant, he married her. When it turned out she wasn’t pregnant; that she had lied, he meekly brought her home to California anyway.
He never used his BS in botany for a professional job. Instead, on weekends and evenings, he worked in his gardening business, maintaining suburbanites’ lawns and flower beds, which was just what his father did. On weekdays, he worked in the county water district’s landscaping department, where he received good pay and excellent benefits – like a pension and long-term care insurance – things he never thought about needing.
From the beginning, Onta had no interest in American life, she barely learned to speak or write English and never learned to write a check. The only grocery shopping did was at the Thai market and she only cooked spicy Thai food, which Howard didn’t like. He mostly ate at Subway. Onta gambled so ferociously, he had to remortgage their house 3 times.
Over the decades, everyone in the family silently watched this tragic life unfold. His brother, Bruce, was the only family member brave and forthright enough to bluntly and repeatedly talk to Howard about how much of his hard-earned cash Onta had wasted, about how her gambling was solid ground for divorcing her.
Howard always said he didn’t want to do it.