one weekend -- sunday

A fellow man forwarded me an email a few weeks ago about Saddleback Church planning on launching a worship service at an assisted living facility near where I live. I gave it some thought and signed up to be a volunteer and started going there a couple Sundays ago when that ministry did get started.

Last Sunday was the second time we gathered. Still the same volunteering people: A couple, Darrin and Bettyanne, a lady, Laura, and I. Ray Massey, the Saddleback Church pastor in charge of assisted living ministry planting, was there too, to walk us through the whole thing again.

It was a club room with a nominal capacity of 40 or so that they gave us for the service, but with the TV table, aisles and walkways they put in only a dozen chairs and last week we had more than 20 people showed up, so we rearranged and added a few more seats, prepared the name badges, the hymn booklets, the talk sheets, and gave them out to the seniors who came in, one by one, some on wheel chairs and one even with a care-giver sitting next by. 

It was my turn this time to be the music man, or as Ray introduced me to the audience, "David is our organist today," and I wiggled my index finger to them, indicating this is how I operate my instrument (the CD player), and they all laughed.

The hymns were all "oldies but goodies" classical gospel delights such as Amazing Grace, In the Garden, Rock of Ages, etc., that I actually enjoyed singing myself. After 4 or 5 songs, we played a session of Pastor Rick's Purpose Driven Life teaching for about 20 minutes, then sang hymns again for another 5-10 minutes, and the service was over.

I sat next to an old gentleman during the teaching. His eyes were practically closed throughout the teaching, but then at the end of the service I chatted with him.

"Where were you from," he asked, after a couple of exchanges. "Taiwan," I said. "I'd been there," he said. "Yeah?!" I was surprised. "When did you go there?" I asked. "During the War," he said. "The Vietnam War?"  "Yes, and World War II." Now I was really surprised. "Can you guess how old I am now," he smiled and asked. "World War II in the mid 1940's, you were at your early 20's then I suppose, so you must be over 90's now," I said. He smiled again. 

He said he was in the Air Force working on reconnaissance, I told him there were some photos taken by a US service man stationed in Taiwan during the 1960's that recently got published that created some sensation among many there...

"Are you all together," he asked, meaning if me and Darrin and Bettyanne and Laura and Ray were of the same group. "Yes we are all from Saddleback Church," I said. "Will you be back next week?" he asked, now he's not that sleepy old man any more but a wide-eyed young lad again. "I certainly will," I said.

In our little after-service on-the-spot stand-up circle conference, Ray again iterated that we are not here to dictate what and how the service should be "given" or do it in any standoffish way, but to get to know and share with these people who are precious individuals each with great life stories to tell, and we are free to make changes or hold activities as we see fit to that end, a philosophy I told Ray I totally concur and like.

Darrin and Bettyanne were quite active in their church in New Jersey and Bettyanne had led youth group there before they moved to California. She volunteered and we elected her to be the official contact for the group. She's quite excited about this ministry already and shared with us a few ideas she had to encourage involvement and interaction with the seniors she saw here just in the past two Sundays. 

I chatted a little more with them on the way out. Bettyanne told me one lady she sat next to during the singing did not need the hymn booklet but sang all the lyrics flawlessly, and with tears in her eyes. I told them I like singing too and--knowing Darrin plays guitar--maybe we can practice harmonic singing some of these songs and present them to the audience for their enjoyment, and who knows maybe that'll motivate them to form a choir group of their own some day. They both liked the idea.     

It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday when we stepped outside the center.

****************************************************

A friend of mine pointed out the reference I made of some photos taken by a US service man stationed in Taiwan during the 1960's were actually for and during the late 1950's. He attached a Power Point compilation of those photos for me which I found more complete than any I had seen before and even better it comes with comments and notes explaining how and where those photos were taken.

So I polish it up a little (got rid of the terrible sounding background music) and add some English translation to it, as correction and addendum to the blog. Hope you'll enjoy it: Taiwan 1957

tour de south

I am not a sport-biking fanatic, but my very athletic friend Tim from Northern California left a peachy road bike of his at my garage earlier this year and encouraged me to ride it as often as I want. I leave it laid idle there most of the time as I can't figure out where I would ride it other than the harbor/coastal highway area Tim and I had been to a couple of times already. I did use it once to a local bank that's one freeway exit away from my home, meandering through residential short cuts to get there in 15 minutes that would normally take me 5 minutes by car through freeway. I also rode it to a home in nearby community across one major parkway and up a coastal mesa a few times for some men's group meetups in early Saturday mornings--the toughest part of the ride was not in going up hills, but charging down a steep slope from my home when the early morning cold combined with the howling wind created a wind-chill factor that cut right through the bones of my bare hands.

Then one Sunday morning my friend Brian, who I knew had picked up riding with a group of bikers in Irvine for a year or two, called me and said he and a couple of his riding companions were heading toward my home for a venture ride and thought he might stop by and visit me, since he's been wanting to see my new home for a while. So I welcomed them and when they arrived and found out I had this fine French-made bicyclette piece lying in waste in my garage, they started proselytizing me all the great benefits bike riding can bring to the health of my body and soul, until I agreed to give it a try with them.

So I went out and bought some biking gear--suit, helmet, gloves, etc.--and started biking with them, for a couple of times in the past few months. The reason I didn't go more often than that was because their Sunday morning riding schedule usually conflicts with mine, and Irvine is a bit too far a place for me to drive to--burning a couple gallons of gas just so that I can burn off a few hundred calories of mine doesn't seem that altruistic or green to me, to play the role of an environmental activist for a second. 

But this past Thanksgiving weekend they decided to have one of their annual long trips to Oceanside, a little seaside town in north San Diego County right off Camp Pendleton, and the ride would start from Dana Point Harbor, right down my alley. So I decided to join them, even though I knew the distance would be a stretch for me and I was not as physically well tuned as a regular biker would be.

We met at the harbor's parking lot. Besides Brian, there were 4 others, all but one I had known and ridden with before. Brian brought me a right-size water bottle that snugged tight in my bike's bottle holder so it wouldn't jitter out during the ride, and a hood liner for my head for comfort and wind protection. I also found out my bike's tires were low on pressure and the air pump I brought would not work because its air cap didn't match the tire's intake pinhole, but they helped me hold down the air cap so I could successfully pump my tires to the right pressure.

Off we went then. It's a sunny day, and the first few miles were along the beach and the coast highway that I had ridden a couple times myself before, so it all seemed nice and easy. Then we turned into the city of San Clemente, still on the coast highway, but now right through its downtown district, along with some climbing up that gave us our first physical checkup of the day. "That was about the only up-slope we are going to have for the trip all day today," said the team leader at our first rest stop. Right, that was about the first of 3 or 4 such remarks I heard all day that day.

San Clemente is not a big town, so it took us about 15-20 minutes to traverse through, then we turned into a bike trail of San Onofre State Beach. It's an old trail, but wide and clean, with no city or highway traffic to compete with, only a few fellow bikers and occasional picnic tables scattered along the way. I took peeks at the scenery as much as I could steal time to--we were riding at the average of 15-20 miles per hour so if I dawdled I immediately got left behind and would need to play catch-up to rejoin the team.

We then headed into the Marine base territory, first breezing through a wide, long runway, then roaming inside the heart of the camp, barracks on one side and target practice ranges on the other, all along the Pacific coastline. This is probably the largest training camp for the US Marine Corps in the West Coast (many troops were sent to Iraq or Afghanistan from here), yet other than the check point that inspected our ID when we entered and those beach head structures, there is nothing really unusual here that makes it look much different than a quiet little town somewhere in midland America.

And the light traffic on these country roads made our ride safe and easy. After a couple of the usual toiling slopes and winding turns, what do you know, we were there already!! A small shopping center near the southern end of the Marine base was our destination point. It's been 27 miles, 2 hours, since we left Dana Point Harbor this morning, according to our team leader's meters.

We parked our bikes outside a McDonald's and went in to relax, chat, and have lunch, for about 45 minutes, then headed back. 

The ride back was easier, mostly because mentally we were familiar with the road (or I should say I was the only one that became familiar with the road, the rest of the team had all ridden this route before), therefore didn't feel pressured or as high-strung as when we came. The only thing a little different on the way back was when riding through downtown San Clemente, there were more traffic on the streets than in the morning, and we had to stay really close to each other so we wouldn't get broken up by the traffic or cut off by the light. But the cars were all very friendly with us and the traffic signals seemed well synced to accommodate exactly speeds like ours that we hardly needed to stop at the lights at all. 

We got back at Dana Point Harbor around 3:30. The sun is still shining bright, and other than sore legs and painful butts, every one was still in high spirit for an after-ride coffee. I didn't join them because I needed to rush home. But hey, now that I know the route, maybe next time I'll just ride casually down San Clemente pier and have a morning coffee there myself! 

Anyone wanna join me?

At the beginning of the off road trail                        On the runway tarmac of Marine base

      

Destination McDonald's                                           Brian fixing disengaged gear chain

Returning to Doheny Beach, Dana Point Harbor in the background. The bike to the right is mine, or actually Tim's, and is the second one he left in my garage because it fits my height better than the first one he left. (Yes I now have two fine bikes sitting in my garage).

* This is one of my favorite songs, happens to have something to do with bicycle riding: Les Bicyclettes De Belsize by Engelbert Humperdinck, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g5M5YhB4IQ

three evenings

Ken has been one great gentleman scholar I respect long before the days he attended the men's group I hosted at my home backyard a decade ago. He has a small group himself that I attended a couple times before and enjoyed the scintillating discussions with an eclectic group of spirited Christians and truth seekers at his home.

For last month's sharing he invited a neighbor of his who has been practicing Buddhism for years on the subject of "mindfulness":

There are 4 stages of mindfulness practice: through body (身),  through feeling (受), through mind (心), through mental objects (法). You start by sensing the world with your bio-receptors (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, touch), then with your non-bio (the 6th) sense, then from the pit of your soul, before the final enlightenment comes. 

One common mistake people make is try to reach the final enlightenment stage without going through the first three, making it almost impossible to achieve, or creating an ephemeral, delusional, false experience of it.

"Teacher Sho-Lee" (秀麗老師) is another long time friend of ours from the days when we were attending a Taiwanese church some 20+ years ago, whose nice ocean view house sits just minutes away from ours but we have rarely seen each other in recent years. She called the other day and invited us to a Sunday evening get-together party at her house that we gladly obliged and went.

There were about 5 or 6 other couples, some of them we knew and some we did not, and a pastor from her church at the party as well. Pastor Hu is a tactful conversationalist and threw a question at us at the dinner table: "Say you had all the freedom of the world, and you could do it with abandon, what would be the one thing you'd do now?" that stirred up some interesting musing and sharing from everyone. 

Some said simple things (watching good movies, helping others), some projected grander goals (teaching the young, spreading new ideas), some were actually doing it already (painting), some were still looking for it, or--my favorite answer from a lady--just doing everyday mundane things, but with spiritual sensitivity and aspiration to becoming a finer person, like a gem being chiseled out from the rough in God's hand.

Then Monday evening I went to the monthly meetup of a "THINK, the Critical Thinking and Discussion Forum" group I joined over a year ago. Our presenter this time was a fellow member Cary, a sharp but at times abrasive logical and lexical purist, on the importance of having clearly defined vocabulary and terms before one can have precise thinking and communication. 

"There may be scale of vagueness in phrases we commonly use," he said... for example, the term "truth seeker." On that I interjected (like we all did from time to time during his presentation): "That sounds like a pretty clear term to me: as long as one is seeking the truth one believes is out there, he/she is a truth seeker." 

Bruce, an atheist who is the organizer of a "Backyard Skeptics" group himself, cautioned that my statement might include people (such as flat-earth believers) who are pursuing false truths, while Phil, a Catholic turned atheist who once did a "believence" presentation for the group and hosted a podcast for a believer-nonbeliever debate series, concurred with me. In response to Bruce's comment, I added that the "truth" in my "truth seeker" definition refers to the one ultimate truth, rather than the many "suit-my-need" "alternative" truths that seem to be floating around abundantly in this post-truth era we live in.

Three consecutive evening events, all happening on a weekend and a Monday when we were supposed to be on a trip to New York City for my wife's best friend Jing-Ping (靜平)'s daughter's wedding that we had to cancel at last minute due to an unexpected eye surgery of my wife.

Congratulations, beautiful Jing-Ping and daughter!!

tri-city

Where we live now, since we moved down here to our new home some 7 months ago, is a peculiar spot at the deep southern end of south Orange County. As we motor down from our hill side home and get on the I-5 freeway, going north by two exits, we reach downtown San Juan Capistrano; going south by one exit, we enter the city of San Clemente; and if instead of ramping onto the freeway, we zip through the freeway underpass, we are right at the heart of the beach and harbor district of the city of Dana Point. 

What's the big deal, you may say. Here in Orange County, or in the Greater Los Angeles area in general, we all drive past 10 cities a day on our way to work, shop, or just running some errands. True, and the very same thing I've been doing for over 25 years while living in another south Orange County city myself. But maybe moving did wake up the old sniff dog nature in me, or it's just my curious mind always wanting to know, I started exploring and registering what I saw in these new environs I am in, and found things interesting.

Starting with the official new hometown of mine, the city of San Juan Capistrano, a somewhat wordy name that came from an even wordier one, "Mission San Juan Capistrano," the settlement set up by the Spanish priests back in 1776, the same year the United States declared its independence on the east coast. The name literally means "Saint John of Capistrano," in honor of a "warrior saint" born in a little central Italian town called Capestrano (which is now a sister city of San Juan Capistrano) who led Christian soldiers to fight off Muslim Turks in medieval Europe. 

San Juan Capistrano is on record the oldest community of Orange County, and true to that title it has quite a few historic landmarks in town, such as the vintage railway station that Amtrak and Metrolink still make daily stops at, some over 200-year-old adobe houses that are the oldest continuously living residences in the state of California, and of course that world famous tourist attracting old Mission compound (which, unsurprisingly, contains a chapel that is the oldest continuous functioning of its kind in California), as well as a neat and robust old town district where you can stroll antique and artifact shops and enjoy great Italian, Mexican, or American food in one of a dozen cozy restaurants, cafes, or tea houses along the unpretentious city blocks and well-preserved old-time neighborhood alleys, all within minutes' reach. 

If you are like me, you probably heard of the city of San Clemente long before you even set foot on the United States. It is the city where former President Richard Nixon kept an ocean side mansion that was nicknamed "Western White House" where he took break from Washington and entertained international dignitaries and heads of states such as Soviet Premier Brezhnev during the Cold War era. Indeed San Clemente is yet another "ancient" city of Orange County that holds the title of the first planned community in the state of California, way earlier than Irvine, Mission Viejo or the like. It was all based on the vision of one man, Ole Hanson, who was a retired mayor of Seattle who drove by the sea side of present day San Clemente in the 1920's and decided to create a "Spanish village by the sea". All street names are in Spanish, and all houses must have red tile roof and white exterior walls, according the original city ordinance. 

I used to drive past the city on the freeway and see it as just that last city of Orange County before I hit the San Onofre nuclear power plant and the San Diego County line. But once I took time to ride its local streets, visit its downtown, and even go to its little Episcopal church for weekly meditations, I begin to sense its small town charm and why people here want to keep things the way it is (no toll road extension wanted here). 

Stop by their downtown one late Sunday morning, park your car, browse through some shops or farmer's market stands or art festival booths that they occasionally host, then walk a few blocks down the beach to have a sea side brunch, (or turn the other side to tour the old mansion of Ole Hanson's and learn some city history), watch people surf and angle fish at the pier, then if you feel like it, walk down a beach-side trail a couple miles all the way to the San Onofre State park... You get a pretty good picture of what the city is all about. 

Dana Point is yet another quiet little town along the Pacific coast, where local ranchers used to trade cow hides for merchandise brought in from the east coast by the sail ships, one of them carrying a young Harvard law student named Richard Henry Dana—from whom the city got its namesake, who wrote in his journal that the ocean bay he saw here was "the only romantic spot" along the whole North American west coast he had traveled through during the 1830's. 

I've been to Dana Point harbor a few times before I moved down here, going deep sea fishing or roaming along its marina, like many people do. But since we moved down here, I found out it actually has a couple of nice trails along its headlands, as well as a few nice little parks with great scenic views that the occasional visitors won't know about. As a result, my very indoorsy, city-girl wife are now happily joining me for walks along these beautiful routes once every other weekend, sacrificing and separating herself from her beloved soap operas on TV and Internet. That's a miracle!

On that I end my tale of three cities.

one weekend -- saturday

I joined a "Friends of Freethought" group last year out of desire to meet people with no stick-in-the-mud religious or ideological mindset but never got to attend any of their activities until last Saturday, when they had an event at a north Orange County food bank that fit my calendar and I thought could be a good way for me to break in with the group while doing something good.

I arrived there on time and saw many people–young and old, men and women, high school kids and families with little ones–chatting and scattering outside the warehouse on a big parking ground. I knew no one, but kind of guessed out correctly a group of relatively solemn looking and less chatty men and women of 10-15 were the "free thinkers" and joined them. 

The host of the event gathered us altogether and gave a brief introduction to the organization–they are a food collection and distribution non-profit that works with nearly 400 local charities, soup kitchens, and community organizations in Orange County and surrounding area for low income people. He divided us up into 3 groups of 20-30 people each, and led us to the warehouse where there were stacks and pallets of food boxes and 3 assembly lines and we started working.

The job was simple, tear up the food boxes, pull out the foods–cereal boxes, tuna cans, juice bottles, milk pouches, etc., and pack them in right order in new boxes, seal them, move them–also flatten the emptied food boxes before disposing of them.

It's a fast paced and stream-lined operation. Everybody quickly learned to pick the task to do and coordinated with others. I started with unpacking the foods, pushing the boxes, then filling in the juice bottles while occasionally cutting open and moving new supply of foods to the assembly line, and flattening a few empty boxes and cartons along the way, without cutting myself with the utility knife I was constantly wielding.

I did get to chat a few lines with Lisa, the lady who organized this event–as well as many others, such as beach cleanup, low-income community rehabilitation, Mexico outreach, etc. that I've seen posted on their website–for the group. She said they had been coming here a few times before, it's a fun activity and many groups vie to do it, so she would count it lucky if they could get to do this twice a year or more.

At 1PM (we started around 11:30) the operation halted. The warehouse was cleared of piles of food boxes that were there just a couple hours ago. All told, we packed 2160 boxes of food in that short period of time, they said. I found it hard to believe at first but then I divided it by 3, that's about 700 boxes per group, and with that frenzy pace I recalled we were at–I felt like having as good a workout session as going to the gym–I was convinced we did do that many.

We then went to a nearby hamburger place for a late lunch together. I sat next to a family of three–a couple with their teen-age daughter–who were very nice but shy; a spunky old lady who high-fived with me during the work who explained to me in details the different Celtic dialects people speak in Wales (where her mother was from) and how the Picts and Britons and Angles and Saxons came and moved about in the British isles; and a man who seemingly carried a rich load of worldly knowledge as well who said he did his Sunday morning communion in sleep when the subject of church going came up at the table.

I bid farewell to them all and headed home, feeling happy that I had come and done and met, with the work and the people.

Volunteers receive and package about 26,000 boxes of food each month, for distribution to 50 sites across the county.

       

Taking funny photos at the end of the work

        

Lisa, the gentle, soft-spoken blond humanist at center, is the organizer of this event and many others.

Me and my flying knife busy at work

            

Experienced worker explaining how to pack

We did 700+ boxes like this in one and a half hour

neighbors

My next door neighbor of 21 years just disappeared out of thin air.

Starting a few months ago, I commented to my wife one day that I haven't seen a shadow of our nice fellow neighbor Kent (Mr. Chubby, as my wife likes to nick-name him) or his wife around their backyard or house front for quite a while. She said she noticed the same and felt strange too. Maybe they are on a long vacation, we thought. But then another month passed, and there was still no signs of Mr. & Mrs. C. in or around their house. So one day I walked up my backyard slope and took a peek at their backyard. What I saw surprised me: the swimming pool was totally drained, and some weeds were coming out around the yard. The next day I walked up to their front door, the front yard lawn was pretty much browned out, which up to that moment I thought was because they were conserving water usage like everyone else here, maybe more extreme than others, per the water district's instruction, but then when I peeked into their front window after ringing the door bell and no one answered, I was surprised again, the room was all empty, all furniture were gone, only the curtains were left hanging. Mr & Mrs. C were indeed gone.

Looking back, for all those 21 years, all I know about Mr. C was he used to work for McDonnell Douglas, the big defense company that later got merged with Boeing, before he retired from the job and moved into this house, and started running a chemical storage monitoring business of his own. He invited me once into his house, showing the nice stone floor, living room cabinets that he built himself. He took care of his yard meticulously and once suggested (and I did) use the same gardener he used who was much more expensive but did a fine job for him (not for me though, in my opinion, so I fired him later). We also used the same pool service man for quite a few years. I also remember once he commented the smell of the barbeque we had at our backyard party was very tempting, so the next day I barbequed some for him and handed it over the backyard fence to him and his wife and they were flattered..

Other than that, it was just occasional hellos and waves and smiles when we happened to see each other while picking up mails or pulling our cars in or out of the driveways, the standard friendly but superficial howdys of suburban USA.

Still, it feels sad to see (or not see) a neighbor of 21 years disappear without a trace like this. To think, how many people have I lived next door to for over 21 years in my life? Not too many. In a way it feels like a part of my personal history was taken away all of a sudden.

Then I think of my other neighbors: The one across the street right opposite to our house. They have been here as long as we did, as the original home owners of this housing tract, for 23 years. What do I know about them? Even less than I know about Mr. & Mrs. C. For one thing, I don't even know their names. All I know is they have 3 kids that were all born after we moved here and now they are all grown up. And the other next door neighbor, they are probably the 3rd or 4th owner of the house, a middle-aged couple, that I once heard the husband is a school principal and I actually bought a book from him when they had a garage sale a couple years ago, with very little exchange of words, though.

So I told my wife it's time we got to know our neighbors better: Let's invite them over for a little backyard barbeque, say, over the Labor Day weekend? She used to drag her feet on proposals like this, due to her discomfort or unfounded fear of socializing with Caucasian people in pure English environment, but this time she agreed.

So I went over to my neighbors to give out the invitation. You should see the look of their face when I knocked on their door and they appeared. They all looked puzzled at first, as if wondering if they had done something wrong that I came over to report and discuss with. Once they heard my intention, though, they all relaxed and gladly accepted my invitation and asked if they need to bring anything.. I got their first names and phone numbers and even stepped into their houses for the first time.

     

On Sunday evening they appeared on time. Though I told them no need to bring anything, the couple next door, Joel and Paula, brought a small vase of roses picked from their own rose garden which I can see from my backyard every day. The couple across the street, Kent and Kathy, didn't come with their kids as we would like them to--the two boys were at a camp and the teen-age daughter had her own holiday plan. They toured a little of our living room and then went outside to the yard where I was finishing up my cooking at the barbeque island and sat and chatted with each other at the patio. We then ate--my wife prepared some salad (I didn't know she can make good tasty salad as she can cook good Chinese) and chow-mein and I barbequed some pre-marinated beef short ribs we bought at a Korean supermarket--and chatted under the beautiful pre-dusk sky. It turns out Joel is an elementary school principal in a neighboring city, and Kathy teaches at an elementary school just nearby our neighborhood, and Paula (Joel's wife, a retired educator herself) knew Kathy already through work but probably never gets to know each other socially like today. Kent, who me and my wife suspect is Kathy's new husband, used to work for Nortel but is now out of work, and is considering changing career path to culinary and gardening where his true passions lie..

We went inside for dessert after the meal and continued our conversation in the dining room. We talked about parental care (Joel is from Chico, a Northern California town where his 91-year-old Dad is still living in his own farm), children's education (Kathy's two boys are both computer wizards but are going to local community college and have to pay their own tuition unless they meet the grade standard Kathy sets, her 3rd kid Melanie is turning out to be a mature young woman and is considering going to medical school after high school; Joel & Paula have two grown-up sons, one is managing a restaurant business in San Francisco and the other pursuing an art career in LA), our jobs ("What's the biggest headache for an elementary school principal," I asked Joel, "The parents," he said, with a grin), and our missing neighbors (yes, everyone notices their disappearance, and according to Kathy who heard it from another neighbor, Mr. C used his house to finance a new business venture in Hawaii that went south, and as a result lost their house; they were too embarrassed to let everyone else know when they moved).

They left around 8:30. It was a pleasant little 3 hour "getting-to-know-you" party with our neighbors after living here for 23 years, finally. But better late than never, as they say. And now my wife says we should invite Kathy's 3 nice kids to dinner someday..

trip to northern california

I went off to Northern California the other weekend with my wife for her Taipei 1st Girls High School reunion in the Bay Area. Not that I fancied seeing many other just-turned-50 young ladies ("Celebrating Our 50th Birthdays" is the theme of their reunion) like my wife, but I wanted to take the opportunity to visit some old high school and college friends of mine (another just-turned-50 bunch of the opposite sex) who live in the Bay Area.

The drive north went swiftly. I almost got a speeding ticket, though: I was driving over 85 mph when I saw a highway patrol car lying in wait on the flat central plain I-5 side. Luckily, a young Mustang driver that I precautiously let passing ahead just a moment ago got caught by that patrol car. Ain't I older and wiser or what :)

Paul is a very good friend of mine in college, and we stayed at his home for the night. He's got a lovely wife, a cool kid, and a fun dog named Oreo. I had my first dog walking exercise with it and Paul. Watching the dogs play in green field, chatting with friendly neighbors, under a balmy autumn sunset.. life is picturesquely beautiful here. Paul invited a couple other college friends to his home and we all had a wonderful dinner together, chatting and laughing all the way till late night.

Saturday is a dayful of events: visit to a neat farmer's market at the piers, cruise in the San Francisco Bay with lunch buffet, sight seeing at Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street, while listening to these young old gals passing microphone on the bus telling fun times of the old and their careers and families after graduating from the high school. Seems everyone has a good, satisfactory life so far and will continue to have for many years to come..

Saturday night featured a dinner party at the hotel where all reunion goers stayed. However, my wife didn't buy the party ticket for me as I was planning on meeting some high school friends of mine that evening. Something disrupted that plan, though: my left foot's Achilles tendon had been bothering me since the night before, all after I took a vigorous work-out on Paul's sleek exercise machine at his home--an unwise move by a not so wise young old man after all :). I ended up staying in the hotel room watching Dodgers sweep the Cubs, USC Trojans trounce their football opponents as they usually do. Sweet!

I did have a great reunion with some high school pals Sunday, at Joseph's home, where we stayed for our last night of the trip. Joseph was my best friend in high school, and the one who got me in touch with Christianity, and tolerated and tried to answer every weird question I had about God and faith and life when we were both just 15,16,17 years old. I always appreciate and admire his patience and the loving kindness he shows me and everyone, 35 years ago and today, the same, good, old Joe. We exchanged thoughts and stories of our recent lives all night long until 1:30 in the morning. 

Michael is both my high school and college pal and I met him twice on this trip, at Paul's home and at Joseph's. He has an autistic son Jefferson that we knew since he was a kid, and now he's 17 years old. He's autistic but plays great piano, and Michael and his wife take him to a nursing home every Sunday afternoon to play piano entertaining those old people. We went there that Sunday afternoon just to hear him play. Michael's other kid, Carol, a 14 year old teen age girl who excels on ice skating herself, was there too. She sits next to Jefferson when he plays, announcing the song titles, turning pages for him, while Jefferson peers at her from time to time to get hint from her so he won't play like a run-away train (according to Michael). It was such a beautiful, moving little-sister-helping-big-brother sight that my eyes begin to moisten when the piano plays..

city run

The city I live in, Laguna Hills, holds a yearly half-marathon and 5K run event on Memorial Day weekend over the past 10 years. I thought about participating in it a few times but never did. I finally did it this year: On the Sunday before the Memorial Monday, I went to the Laguna Hills Mall, where at the center court they had stands set up for the event's last minute registration. I filled out the application, paid the fee ($28), got the packet (a T-shirt, the "bib" and the electronic tag, some flyers and coupons), and went home.

The next morning, I woke up early and drove to Laguna Hills Mall, where the run was scheduled to start at 7:30 AM. It was a little before 7 AM, but plenty of cars and a crowd were gathering already at the mall's parking lot and the street nearby where the run would start, in a festive mood. Since this was my first time here (for the life of me, the only other time I had participated in an event like this was a few years back in Taipei city when I happened to be there and they happened to have a multi-national company sponsored half-marathon and 3K event with the city), I checked if my bib was pinned at the right place (it should be at the front side of the shirt, not the back), and if I were wearing the tracking tag correctly (circled underneath the shoe lace) like everyone else. Then I joined the crowd, waited behind the start line while stretching my limbs a bit for warm-up. I got my bib number at 2595, and I saw some people wearing 3-digit bib numbers, so I guessed there must be a couple thousand people registered for this event. As for the crowd's makeup, it's quite a toss-up: men and women, young and old, teens in team, kids with parents, boys with girl friends, mothers with babies in strollers.. athletic looking and weight challenged.. a lively sample of people of all kinds living here. (Not many Asians, though).

Then the time came, and after a short speech and a Memorial Day observance, the march started. Because of the crowd size, the start line stretched about 100 yards long, and I was at about the latter third of it. It was slow moving in the beginning, but pretty soon it spanned out, and everyone had plenty of room to move about (the thing I remember most about the Taipei run was the crowd was so dense from beginning till end I had no way of maneuvering during the whole run).

Right after we left the mall, we ran inside the city of Laguna Woods, the gated retirement community where youngsters like me are not allowed to enter, except today, and they even had amicable residents lining up on the curb cheering us on, and water stands where they handed you the water and you drank and then threw the cups away, just like the professionals did on TV. I took a few looks at the community, feeling pleasure and ease in the morning cool, and checked out a few of my fellow runners as I passed them by. I noticed many, especially the younger ones, were wearing their iPod earphones, probably the same way they did with their regular jogging. I also saw one woman running with a cell phone on a holster, must be quite serious about keeping in touch with people while on the run.

We came out of Laguna Woods after traversing a few blocks there and got back on the Laguna Hills city street Paseo de Valencia, where the police had cordoned it off so no cars could be on it except we runners. It came to my mind that I drive my car on this road almost daily, but this is the first time ever I had my feet solidly on the asphalt ground. That feels great.

From here on, we were working on our last one K of the run (an official stood at the checkpoint and announced the elapsed time to every passing runner). Now here we had a little uphill slope to overcome, which again in car you wouldn't feel a thing, but on feet the law of gravity did pull a drag on you. No big deal, I told myself, I exercise on my treadmill everyday with the maximum grade setting, just hang in there and it will pass in no time.

And in no time it did pass, and now I was trotting downhill, and I could see the end clearly, right at the corner of Valencia and Alicia Pkwy, where I just needed to turn right and then into the entrance of the community center where the run would end. Up till now, I had not thought about running for a ranking--all I wanted was to have some fun doing this--but now I recalled I seemed to have passed quite a few runners along the way, and as I looked up, I could see there were only about 50 people ahead of me.. so, who knew, maybe I'd got some chance of getting some good ranking (they pick the top 3 runners of each age group for awards) out of this. So I began to guard my place, tried passing a few more runners when I could.. Whoa, right before I turned the corner, a tall white guy sped past me.. A few seconds later, a young woman with her stroller whizzed right by me too.. Admirable last minute sprinters, I said to myself.. Seconds later, I turned into the community center entrance, and I saw a big timer panel flashing 27 minute something. I had made it!

There were a few booths and stands at the end line reception area, most touting sports related products and services. I was a bit exhausted, so I spared no time there and took the shuttle back to the mall, found my car, and drove home. It was not even past 9 AM, my wife was still sleeping. I took a shower, had my coffee, and felt never better before!

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A few after-words:

* I got the run's result a couple days later from the event's web site (see attached). It turns out there were a total of 1028 people participating in the run, and I was ranked 298th over all, 202th among all male runners, and 17th in my age group (50-54 years old). The number one runner finished with 15:43, (and I with 27:46), and there are many others in the below 20 minutes range. These "professional grade" runners probably zipped through the race long before I even had a chance to see their backs. Talk about "short-sightedness," those 50 or so people I saw in front of me before the finish line were only those a couple minutes ahead of me!

* I felt so great about the run I joined another 5K run within the same week, this time the Saddleback Community 5K Run sponsored by Saddleback Church, on Saturday. It was a much smaller crowd (about 200 runners, by my estimate), but as fun, or even more so, than the Laguna Hills': It had better after-the-run hosting--more free refreshments: cookies, yogurt, fruits, juice, coffee, and a gift raffle, and this time I did win a 3rd place award within my age group (pictures attached), due to the smaller participant pool!

Come join the fun next year!