Farewell
Phuong
Don McKeown, 8/13/2022
Phuong A. Spedding left this world way too early at the age of 54 on August 4th, 2022. I will remember him fondly as a loyal friend, and as smart, funny, fun loving, and hard working. Below I recall some of my most poignant memories of my times with him. I'd love to hear similar recollections or corrections of my tales from others. I'm sure he'd bloody my prose with his red editing pen, but I'll do my best to meet his literary standards and to honor his memory.
Phuong was from Vietnam Nam and came to this country when he was maybe four. Whether true or not, I would tell people I knew Phuong before he could speak English. He lived three houses down from me. My earliest memory of Phuong was him sitting on the side of the street looking around while I rode my bike. I don't recall the details of how we started hanging out, but I have a mass of hazy pleasant memories of playing, going to The Pool, biking, playing in the snow, etc. While we went to Walt Disney Elementary School and Pennsbury High School, Phuong was a year behind me, so there are fewer memories from school.
We had many great adventures together in Boy Scouts. Troop 53 amazingly went camping every month. We had so many awesome trips I can't recount them all here. Every summer the troop would spend a week at summer camp. Once during summer camp at Ockanickon, Phuong, some others, and I were walking down a road talking, and Phuong suddenly stopped me. Directly ahead of me maybe two feet was a copperhead snake sunning itself. He saved me at least a trip to the ER. Back then, first aid for a venomous snake bite was to use a razor, cut Xs over the punctures, and suck the venom out. He may have saved me from that fun experience as well!
Maybe one of the most amazing Boy Scout trips was backpacking the PA Appalachian Trail between Wind Gap and Water Gap. That was a tough maybe 14-mile hike for us kids, but the views at the Delaware Water Gap were worth it. Another one that stands out was canoeing in Wharton State Forest in South New Jersey. The contrast between the cedar water streams, white sand, and pines was beautiful.
I was always impressed that Phuong earned his Eagle Scout, the highest honor in Boy Scouts. He didn't make a drama about earning it. I don't ever remember him telling he was going to go for it. He just buckled down and got it done. It was an amazing accomplishment.
Phuong was a voracious reader of sci-fi. I didn't get into sci-fi much, but I'm very happy he introduced me to Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" and the Star Trek book "The Last Reflection." Later, maybe sometime after college, we shared an appreciation of non-sci-fi such as Raymond Carver's short stories and "Bright Lights, Big City." I feel like we should have shared an interest in Charles Bukowski, but we both liked the movie Barfly, about Bukowski's life. Speaking of movies, Phuong also introduced me to Highlander, and we'd often work "there can be only one" into our conversations. Now there is sadly only one. I crashed at Jeff's place after Phuong's services, and we watched Highlander in honor of him.
Phuong loved music and would say stuff like, check out the percussion on that Peter Gabriel album, or check out the second side of that Billy Squier album, or you gotta check out that song Under Pressure. And I was happy that I did. Thankfully he liked Rush, and I happily recall him really liking songs such as Red Barchetta. We also shared a love of The Who and Led Zep.
We saw our first real concert together- Billy Squier at The Spectrum in Philly (I've no idea what it's called now). I remember Phuong telling me that he had heard about wild things happening at these concerts like people jumping off the bleachers and such. I don't know where he got these stories, but I was a little scared and excited. Of course, nothing even remotely like that happened. We had a great time experiencing our first concert together. As adults, we went to other concerts, but the most memorable was meeting Phuong in West Chester to see the Grateful Dead. I'm not much of a Dead Head, but I had to experience a Dead show. And, shall we say, it was a concert experience like no other!
Phuong went to West Chester University and earned a BA in English and Writing. He proudly published a fine short story and poem in the Daedelus literary magazine of Westchester. I still have those editions and made PDFs of them:
Phuong met Claire at West Chester. She was probably his best friend from West Chester. These are Phuong's pictures displayed at his memorial service:
Sadly, when I was trying to track her down to inform her of Phuong's passing, I learned that she passed way in 2020.
Once, Phuong and I went with Claire to some sort of hippie camping festival. Here are some pics from that event I have:
That's Claire working the grill. That's Phuong in the foreground, flat on his back delivering humorous commentary as Claire slaved over the searing hot grill. Phuong brought the chicken frozen solid, and it seemed to take hours to cook.
I also recall either a stove or lantern falling down a hill and catching fire. I was ready to run into the woods, worried it was going to explode, but Phuong bravely picked it up and somehow put the fire out. That was the Eagle Scout in him!
Phuong, Claire, and I had many other great times together. A great New Year's party at her Old City apartment comes to mind. At Maitin's fantastic 4th of July party, I watched from his insane deck an outrageous fireworks waterfall coming off the Ben Franklin bridge (something like this image). I recall The Dead's live version of "Fire on the Mountain" playing as the perfect soundtrack, but then again, that could have been in my head! RIP, Claire. Thank you for the good times.
The Spedding family owned a cool little house in Ocean City NJ. It was a very distinctive last holdout among a bunch of big, generic newly built houses. A bunch of us had a great time there.
The Speddings owned another cool property at Moore's Beach. Phuong and I enjoyed hanging out in this beautiful, remote place. These are pictures displayed at Phuong's memorial:
One summer- I think it was for the 4th of July- Dave's girlfriend's mother got us a free room in Atlantic City. So of course, we packed at least 8 people into that room. Phuong and I somehow ended up in a bar on the boardwalk that was open all night. I think the bartender was done with us when I started playing Rush on the video jukebox. He gave us Bloody Mary's to go, and we drank them on a sand dune while watching a beautiful sunrise.
Phuong lived in New Hope PA for a time. He had a cool little apartment near the main drag. These are some pictures from a party Phuong had there. I liked his friends a lot and had a good time.
Phuong's official memorial is here: https://www.mykeeper.com/profile/PhuongSpedding/ . Please head over there and share your recollections.