The Vietnam War made me a Nerd: Bicycle Tour Continues

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Scott Smoot rides in Hanoi today, where Vietnamese culture blends with relics of French colonial grandeur. On Hanoi's busy streets, the only rule for cyclists and pedestrians seems to be "look out." I take the sidewalk whenever I can.

Hanoi was a world away from Chicago where my family lived in 1968, but the Vietnam War was only a quarter-turn of the TV dial from my favorite shows about super-powered characters in capes and gloves. I had to pass through grainy footage of explosions and injured soldiers. I knew from radio news that "Hanoi" was somehow a threat to the US. Then the Vietnam War hit close to home, not even an hour's drive up Halstead Street, where police clubbed and gassed anti-war protesters in the summer of '68. I lay awake nights, afraid that the Vietnamese would come to get us, or that I would be drafted to go over there. I was nine years old.

Mom told me that I wouldn't have to worry if I made good grades in school. "They don't draft students who have scholarships."

That sealed my future. My third grade teacher had told Mom there was something wrong with me. Mrs. Lee observed that I was wrapped in fantasy while everyone else did their classwork. Even during recess, when the other little boys played sports, I was being the Joker or the Penguin.

But in fourth grade, I got straight A's. I was on student council. Mrs. Finkle thought I was gifted and exempted me from assignments so that I could teach reading and spelling to my classmate Glen from the trailer park -- an experience that made teaching my second-favorite career choice. (First choice was being a guest star on Bewitched.)

In the years that followed, I became an Honor Roll student at a prestigious school, recipient of the Angier B. Duke Scholarship, graduate with distinction in English, and teacher for 40 more years.

Hanoi is the latest stop on my virtual world-tour of places that have had an impact on my life. Since September 2025, I've biked 1200 miles on trails around Atlanta, the distance from the middle of India to Vietnam's capital.

Of related interest

• See my page Boomer Basement to find much more about Joker, Bewitched, and all the furniture of this Baby Boomer's inner world.
• My poetry blog includes a couple of poems that relate to that elementary school period. See Wingtips and Ghost Story.
• I found it hard NOT to put down a very uncomfortable but wonderful novel by an author whose family brought him here from Vietnam during the ignominious US withdrawal. See my reflection on The Sympathizer.

Miles YTD 760 || 2nd World Tour Total 21,851 miles since June 2020 || Next Stop: Japan

←← | ← || Use the arrows to follow the entire tour from the start.