People|Nick & his stories
This is Nicholas Lorenzo Prince, aka Nick. His hippie friends call him Pagan, and we know him as the owner of Prince Bay Farm. There’s a lot about him in his 75 – no, 50 something years of life. Here, I picked out his most typical recurring actions that makes Nick “Nick.”
He talks a lot. One of the most popular topics at the dinner table is Nick’s younger wild days. Once he starts, it’s hard for him to stop. One of his volunteers was trying to ask him a question right before he was about to eat, but Nick stopped him. “No, ask me after dinner. I want to eat my food HOT.”
He loves sharing his stories about his hippie days. After all, those younger wild days are so far away. Re-telling them keeps them fresh and alive. When he’s contemplating on what to say next/fill up the awkward silence, he’d say “so” in a deep voice, or “yay” in a short, flat cartoony voice, or “neener neener.”
neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener
Look close – his nose piercing’s still there.
He farts a lot.
He showed every Chinese volunteer a classic dad trick. He would hold up his little finger and cry,
“Ow ow ow I’ve got a cramp, pull on my finger!”
As soon as the volunteer’s finger touches his, he lets out a thunderous fart. One of his volunteer wrote in her blog about Nick’s magic finger.
“Nick has a magic finger. Every time you pull on it, he farts.” Nick quoted.
I, needless to say, was one of the victims of his “magic finger farts” along with many other farts. The loud but innocuous ones, the loud AND deadly ones, the ones that pop out of nowhere during a movie session, or just some other random ones that happen to track me down in the weirdest hours.
He also convinced one of the girls that I was the one who farted, but for the sake of honesty of this blog…. I solemnly swear that I did not fart (audibly, or that I remember) on his farm!
neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener
The cook ready to charge…
He reads a lot.
His friends call him “Nickipedia” because he reads so much that he knows everything. Apparently, he knows a lot about his farm, but he also know so much about other aspects of life. As a science major, he did tell me that chickens poo, pee and lay eggs through the same hole… He also taught me things about China that I didn’t know. Nick had had 51 Chinese volunteers before me and loves China very much. He often jokes, “If China starts a war with the US, here at Prince Bay Farm everything will be fine, because Nick loves China, and China loves Nick…”
There’s a thing about speaking in third person. It sounds serious, but it really just sounds funny…
When he was picking me up from the airport, he told me about his stacks of books at home. I thought he was exaggerating, but no… books were literally everywhere. In the room I stayed in, the closet was stashed with books instead of clothes; at the end of the staircase is a bookcase filled with books; outside of Nick’s room is another bookcase with lots of books…
When I was a kid, I imagined myself making a Guinness World Records by reading all the books in the world, then Harvard University is going to present me an award. How did I put these two together must be due to some weird happenstance since I was walking in Harvard courtyard at the time. But yeah… it’s not exactly possible, but the least you could do is try and catch up. Like Nick.
neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener neener
With Snoddy Dawg.
He taught me so much about life.
“Wanna know the meaning of life?” Nick asked me the first day I arrived.
“Sure. What is it?” I replied.
“Spell guru.”
“G-U-R-U.”
“Gee, you are you. Be yourself. That’s the meaning of life.”
That’s probably the most philosophical thing Nick has ever said to me. It doesn’t really make sense, but it also sorta does.
Age is a weird thing for Nick. He is a kid trapped in an aging body, but sometimes – very rarely – he also acts his age. When he looks at me with his twinkling blue eyes contrasted with his tanned skin, I immediately think of Santa Claus, aka Saint Nicholas. He looks different at every age – at leas in comparison to the pictures he showed me. Every time before graduation, my friends would tell me to “keep being sunny,” but I retorted: “Imagine if I’m 70+ and I’m still acting like a kid, that wouldn’t be age appropriate.” But seeing Nick, I realized – hmm, who cares?! Have fun while it lasts. Carpe diem.
I think Nick is secretly proud that he brought out the craziness in me. Little does he know, I was born a crazy girl
We go there once a week!!!!
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