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Saigon Landmarks: Cercle Sportif – 1958

Cercle Sportif in 1958. Tennis anyone?!

Cercle Sportif 1958

If you look really hard, you can see Frank and I … over by the pool sipping Lemon Nod … and enjoying the French girls …  🙂

Bob

14 comments to Saigon Landmarks: Cercle Sportif – 1958

  • Sondra Shankey-Ewell

    Bob – I tried to log-on to blog. Doesn’t recognize me. Re-register?

  • Admin

    Sondra – See the email I just sent you regarding login.

    Thanks for letting me know about the problem.

    Bob

  • I lived in Saigon from ’61 to ’63 but was only in 2nd -4th grade. My older brothers (Burt – “B.G.” and Bob -“Bobby” Parker were in High School (61-62). I’m in Saigon now (for only 2 more days) trying to figure out where the ACS was and where my house at 26 Tu Duc street is located. Thanks for any help

  • Admin

    Steve, the old American Community School is now “The War Remnants Museum”.

    Sorry I can’t help you with locating your old house, as all the streets have changed. But, you might try using ‘Google Earth’ mapping tool to located it as best you can … the street area, as best your memory serves you … then physically viewing that area. I read someplace you old house has been converted to a small hotel(late 1990s). But, don’t know that for a fact … or if it is still true today.

    Sorry, I can’t be of more help.

    Does anyone else have any information to assist Steve???

    Bob

  • Admin

    Steve here is a link to an old map of Saigon … which shows Tu Duc street on it. At top of map look for the words “PHU-NHUAN” follow the ‘dotted’ line from there ‘down’ to just below the first ‘cross’ dotted line … bingo … Tu Duc street. Hope this helps you find your old house. 🙂

    http://www.chairborneranger.com/images/maps/saigonstreetmap01.htm

    Bob

  • "Chip" (Chalmers Benedict Wood II)

    Hi Old Saigon Kids friends,

    Wow, the Cercle! Great picture, and memories leap to mind from the distant past as if an endless ‘Whack a Mole’ game. I lived in Saigon the summers of ’58 & ’59 at 40 Phung Kai Quan, a block from the old cemetery. My first job was building model airplanes with a Vietnamese Air force propaganda guy out by Ton Son Nhut, and flying them for the Viet parents and kids that would come to watch on Sundays. Anybody remember that?

    Who has more pictures? I’m writing a book that will included that era in spades, so please leap to the fore old Saigon Kids. See, part of the theme covers the types of people we SKs became, our sorrows, joys, defeats, and victories (etc) from the time we returned home, to today, with Vietnam now doing rather better than, say, it was at Tet, ’68. We were YEARS ahead of “the curve” back home, and that will be a valuable experience-base for the rest of our lives. And yep, it will make some homees, angry, jealous, and so on for ever. Well, we can educate them, and the ones that absolutely refuse to learn… 😉 That’s the pivot upon which our stories teeters. So please don’t be shy. My email address is Chalmers[@]asia.com . I live in China now, and doing great. Hope you are too.

    Best Wishes to ALL Saigon Kids. In certain areas of world history, there is not another group even slightly as experienced as us, give or take: THEREIN WE RULE! No kidding. Think about that. 😉

    Sincerely,
    “Chip”
    Chalmers Benedict Wood II
    Anybody actually remember me? I was a funny-looking, very shy, and painfully quiet kid back then… 😉

    • Brian Cox

      Hi Chip,

      My family was in Saigon from 1963-65 and my father with USAID there until 1969. I do have some photos if you still need them. I’m also writing a book that will touch on some of those times and being a Foreign Service brat. We were members of the Cercle Sportif and my father Dan Cox and brother Danny played tennis while I learned to swim in the pool.

      Cheers,
      Brian Cox
      briandrake9@aim.com

    • Gene Taylor

      Chip, we were there from 1955-57. Had my dad’s slides digitized and can email to you. I have a “reverse angle” of that tennis courts photo taken from pool area. Also other pics including President Diem’s motorcade roaring by our house. Just email me at frogtaylor@aol.com. Lived on Cong Ly. When we arrived in 55 the name of street was Rue General deGaulle. When are you publishing book?
      Gene

  • Julie

    Yes we were a member of the Cerc and I still have my Dad’s ID. Am going to Saigon this Sun. Nov. 20 and will visit. Can we swim in that big pool?

  • Mary Timmes Shanabruch

    My Dad and Big Minh used to play tennis at the Cerc during the noon day sun, when only mad dogs and Englishmen were said to out.

  • Rich Tilson

    My family(US Foreign Service) was stationed in Saigon from 1954 to 1958. I learned how to swim at the Circle Sportif as a 6 yr old. I remember eating their great ham sandwiches. My brother and me had great childhood memories from our stay in Saigon.

    • Gene Taylor

      Rich, we came to Saigon when I was 8 years old. Went to 3rd and 4th grades in same Quonset huts you did. Dad in army. Swam many hours at pool and learned to play tennis at Cercle courts. One day the Cercle manager tried to keep my dad off courts because the shorts he was wearing weren’t white.

  • Sandy Brady Christiansen

    Brian,
    Where you and your family in Vientiane, Laos in 1970-1971?

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