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Mrs. Gump

The other weekend I went to a nail salon to get a pedicure and I just listened to the manicurist talk. She talked and told me her life story. She is originally from Vietnam and grew up in the north. Around the time of the Vietnam war her family split and she went down south. She was then married to a Vietnamese general. She came to America with him, lived in Texas for some years and then divorced him. In Texas she had her own business. She then proceeded to tell me that her friend invited her to start a business in Virginia. It was a sewing business and she was actually a contractor for the Army- she would sew on names/insignia! She then got remarried and went to Louisiana where she was in the textile industry. Her business was thriving until Hurricane Katrina. She was set up a little north of New Orleans and with the news of the storm coming she got out just in the nick of time. However she was stuck in a car in traffic for a couple of days before ultimately arriving in Houston again. She worked for a little there and then she ended up in Hawaii because she got remarried there. She was in Oahu however her husband worked in all the islands so she sort of settled down in Maui... where she owns a hair and nail salon. Very cool story! And the point is... keep talking to people. Listen to them and learn from them. 

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