On the other hand, there was Julia, Jean’s younger sister. Julia was perhaps a little younger than I. I have just one recollection of the two of us—a game she and I were playing on a warm day, venturing to use an open, grassy slope beside one of the seminary buildings. I think it was some kind of war game, and I was a wounded casualty; we were of the post-World War I generation. What I have in memory, once more, is an impression of sun, of closeness to earth and grass, and of a wide, cloud-sailed sky beyond the spire on that seminary building. I was a bit uncomfortable, though, with the game, feeling that it was childish.
Two other recollections may show my bashful eagerness to fit into this world full of other children, after the isolation of our recent childhood in the Taegu Station compound. One of these involved the elementary school, which was on Nassau Street. There were some rather tough kids, of Irish parentage, who occasionally took notice of a student as obviously different as I was. And in our grade, there was also a boy who was quite chubby, also a target for them. In one recess period, when we were all in the school yard, the Irish kids brought the two of us together, trying to get us into a fist fight. We didn’t want to fight, nor had any reason to, but were being boisterously egged on and didn’t want to seem cowardly or weak. Quickly, a ring of onlookers gathered around, which made us even more conscious of needing to fight acceptably.
Of course, a teacher intervened, and within a day or two, I was with Mother in the principal’s office. The principal had an idea that she could get the other boy and me to have some training with proper boxing gloves by the school’s athletic director and put on an exhibition match to demonstrate our real manliness. It was an exotic idea, and nothing came of it. Yet I do give that principal credit—at this long remove—for wishing to enhance our self-esteem and to show up those bullying toughies.
There were playful, prankish moments as winter gave way to spring on the university campus, with large, delicately transient magnolia blooms here and there. On a warm Saturday we found that from our third-floor balcony we could take aim with a water pistol at cars passing below with convertible roofs folded back. And in the long evenings, joining with other kids as dusk was coming on, we could run and hide and call each other “out,” among the shadowy houses. It was a good time, but brief.
As soon as school was over, our family needed to start on a deliberate trip back to Korea. The deliberate part was because Dad again had a plan. With some gifts he had carefully gathered, he had bought a Silver Anniversary Buick—the beautiful 1929 model. Was this extravagant? In appearance, it wasn’t exactly a “missionary” car. Dad’s reasoning was that a Ford could not be expected to hold up on Korea’s rutted roads for seven or eight years, until the next furlough. Perhaps the heavier, more solidly built Buick might do so. His next project was to equip this car with a carrier in front for a large picnic cooler and a rack on one side for a tent and some sleeping bags. His plan was that we would camp our way across the United States, from east to west, saving on lodging, while we enjoyed the countryside.
Along the Lincoln Highway, as on other principal routes, there were occasional tourist camps that might offer an area for tents, plus a cluster of cabins, plain and spare, with men’s and women’s facilities in a separate structure. Dad’s Buick was adapted so that the back of the front seat folded down to form a bed of a sort.
On our first night on the road, after a late start and a short run, we found a place to camp. It was dusk already and the sky looked threatening, as Dad and Archie pitched the tent. Then we boys bedded down in it, while Elsie insisted on squeezing in with Mother and Dad in the car bed. That was a wise choice, because rain came on. The tent was on a slight slope, and there was no ditch around it to divert the water that flowed in, sopping Archie and me. Mother was resourceful; but I don’t recall how she coped with helping us get through the night.
The next day brought us to Pittsburgh. We might possibly have gone a little further, but it was Saturday. My parents’ conservative Presbyterian tradition—that rock from which I was hewn—based their observance of the Christian Sunday on the Biblical commandment and ordinances of the Sabbath. Therefore, they would not travel on Sunday. We would find a suitable campsite in the environs of the city, to rest there until Monday morning.
Our camping location was pleasant enough, at first; but then we began to realize that Pittsburgh, at that date, was a coal city. The gritty dust seeped into everything. We were glad to pack up and roll westward on Monday. And it should be recorded, although perhaps at Dad’s chagrin, that from here on, for most of our overnights, the camping gear stayed packed up while we used tourist cabins.
An intermediate destination was Orchard, in northeastern Nebraska. This was to visit Dad’s family, which was easy, because his three brothers and families all lived in Orchard, and his one sister and her husband lived in Clearwater, not many miles away. When both of Dad’s parents died, and the children, now grown, decided to sell the family farm in Ontario, Canada, each took his share and went his way. Tom, the eldest, moved to Nebraska, where he settled and prospered in business in Orchard. Dad, Gordon, and Dave all chose to study medicine, and the latter two set up a joint practice in Orchard, which they continued for the rest of their lives. To complete the picture, the only sister, Olive, married a doctor and settled in Clearwater.
In Orchard I was happy to find that Gordon’s youngest child, Bruce, was a boy almost my age. For the few days of our visit Bruce became Archie’s and my companion, showing us many things about the half-rural life of the small town. Bruce had a Daisy air rifle, a “BB” gun that used compressed air to fire the little lead pellets. This seemed to me an intriguing, grown-up-style toy.
When we were ready to leave, Bruce and his parents insisted that I should have the Daisy. They could easily get another, and they knew that, with the strict Japanese custom officials and the import duty charged, there was no way that I could order one and have it sent to Korea. I had that air rifle in Taegu for years. Archie and I used it to shoot at tin cans and such. We took some shots at birds, but, while abundant, they proved to be very small and quick-moving targets. Once we did score a hit on a crow, but the bird just flapped its wing, knocking the pellet from its feathers, and flew away.
Our next westward stopover was Yellowstone National Park. There were wonderful sights—cascades of the Yellowstone River, brilliant hues in steaming pools of the Geyser Basin, and, of course, an eruption of Old Faithful. But to me, the most memorable experience was sitting in an arc of benches at Old Faithful Inn near dusk and watching, at a safe distance, while bears came from the woods to explore a garbage heap, and a park ranger regaled us with anecdotes, his comrade astride a horse nearby, cradling a rifle for security.
I enjoyed the jokes and anecdotes so much that I retained them and would retell them with gusto to any adult audience that might be assembled with Mother and Dad. In spite of my shy nature, I always, even from an early age, took pleasure in that kind of “public” speaking.
A final experience, from our family return to Korea that year, came with the ship’s brief layover in Hawaii. We went to the famed beach at Waikiki, and Dad shared a rare outing with Archie and me, renting surfboards. Naturally, we couldn’t ride the surf, so we lay on the boards and paddled, kicking also with our feet. It was fun, and the water was sparklingly beautiful. We stayed out in the sun much longer than we should have, Dad included.
The result—a burn by that Hawaiian sun, the most severe sunburn any of us three had ever experienced. We could only lie face down on our bunks afterward, writhing as Mother went from one to another, anointing us with cold cream as gently as she could. We had no other emollient available. She did observe that Dad, as a physician, should have considered the risk of exposure to that unforgiving, subtropical sun.
About the return to Taegu I have little recollection. It was a blurring blend—familiar sights renewed, but in a different light, while our home bustled with preparations for a new chapter in the lives of Elsie, Archie, and me. We would be off, within a crowded pair of weeks, for Pyongyang,