penelope chee

My parents found a giant San Francisco tour van for sale. The inside had seats for a dozen people touring San Francisco each day. They bought the van so my dad could rest. He had lung cancer. Mom helped my father take out the seats to create a bed in the back of the van. While my mother was teaching Math, my father could drive to the redwood forests, ocean beach, and over the Golden Gate Bridge. After my father died, my mother left to see her family. She had the green van painted deep in the emerald forests west of downtown Santa Rosa.

“Your mother picked the colors. Not me. She picked them.” The painter said when my friend and I drove to pick up my mother's green van. The dysfunctional color of the van made it the most popular vehicle in high school. After football games, students fought to ride inside as I cruised the van down Santa Rosa Avenue. Dozens of cars would follow us. Girls left their boyfriends vehicles to ride with us to the beaches near Bodega Bay. Ski trip to Reno weren't uncommon. Spring Break vacations to Santa Cruz had us returning to Santa Rosa at 3:00 o’clock in the morning. Many students left Santa Rosa for the first time on trips to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, Avenue of the Giants, and Chinatown in Fisherman's Wharf. We fished up north, surfed along the Pacific Ocean, and rode canoes along the Russian River.