Beginnings. Every story has a beginning and eventually comes to an end, whether happy or tragic. Today I am a millionaire, happily married and have a lovely family, but as for the beginning of my story, it was far from its end. So, where do I start? Simply, at the beginning.
My story began before I even experienced the light of day. During the time I was being carried in my mother’s womb, my mother decided to pet a cat. A simple, meaningless action, quickly lost in time, became the crux of where I am today, as you will soon see.
Unlike most people, I have many childhood memories dating as far back before my first birthday. One of my most fascinating memories was when I was three years old. One day we went to visit my grandmother, and she had just returned from a trip to Disneyland, and she brought back a surprise to share. It was a 3D View Master with several slides showing sights of Disneyland and California. I remembered peering into the 3D viewer and being amazed at what I saw. Pictures in 3D, coming from snow-white, flat circular slides. To me, it was magic. Needless to say, I was captivated and spent countless hours viewing those slides.
But the magic didn’t last forever. One day when I was four years old, I looked through the viewer, and the images appeared flat and were no longer in 3D. At the time, I thought to myself, “The viewer must be broken.” But later in life I learned that it wasn’t the viewer that was broken.
My fifth birthday came and went and soon after I started Kindergarten. Kindergarten was pretty what you would expect. Intermingle with kids your own age, learn social skills, and give the teacher a chance to see how you’re compared to other children’s developments. I’m not sure how schools manage it today, but back then, a doctor would come to our school and give us a quick look over, to include hearing and eye tests. My hearing test was a piece cake to pass, but the eye test was another matter. I had 20/20 in my left eye, but my right eye tested at 20/200, and only if I looked out of the corner of my eye.
For some unknown reason, the school ever mentioned this to my mother, but when I told her I had problems looking out of my right eye, she told me, “Dad had the same problem and not to worry about it.” So, at the time, I didn’t.
Years passed by and each time I had my eyes tested, I was reminded I had a problem, and no one seemed to care. So, the following year I had an eye exam, I would let them know what they were dealing with. So, in the third grade, when it came time to test my eyes, I told the doctor I couldn’t see anything out of my right eye, which was true, if I was looking straight ahead. My plan worked. The school notified my mother, and we went to see a real eye doctor. The doctor looked at the back of my eye and discovered scar tissue covering the central part of my optic nerve, blinding me permanently. The doctor determined it was caused by toxoplasmosis, which is a parasite commonly spread by cat feces, and though it may be mostly harmless to those who ingest it, it can have devastating effects on unborn children carried in their mother’s wombs, such as lesions on the brain and retinal nerves. In my case, the doctor said it could have been worse. My left eye was also infected, but fortunately, the scarring was minimal and far to the side where it did not affect my vision. If it had been similar to my right eye, I would have been totally blind. The doctor also said it usually affects children at around the age of three or four, and that’s why I couldn’t see the 3D visions in the viewer at that age. All this from my mother petting a funky cat. I remember saying to myself, “I don’t know how to fix this, but someday, I will.”
Life went on and when I reached the age of fourteen, I began riding my bicycle each weekend to neighboring towns and met up with friends I only have seen in school before, but it didn’t end there. I biked into towns further away and out of the school district and made new friends wherever I stopped. Later even to cities further away. My world had grown to a point where my hometown had become too small, and I decided to venture out on my own.
So, in 1974, when I turned eighteen, I came up with a plan. I decided to move from small town, New York, and live with a friend of mine, Tom, who lived in South Carolina. So, one morning, I left a note for my mom and headed down south. When I arrived in South Carolina, I stayed at Tom’s house until I got settled down. I got a minimum wage job working as a mechanic at a Ramada Inn, rented a room of my own and had enough money left over to make ends meet. Things were going well until my manager asked me to run the dishwasher for the motel’s restaurant since the last dishwasher quit. I did this for one day and soon discovered the manager expected me to continue doing dishes. It was then I decided to pack my things up and return to New York. So much for Plan A. Now it was time for Plan B.
Since my best friend, Norman, and I were both unemployed and had no promising jobs in sight, I recruited him to join the Coast Guard with me to serve our country and at the same time get work experience. Norman drove us to Syracuse, and we visited the Coast Guard recruiter. Needless to say, he was happy to see us. A week later we took the entrance exam and soon after we got our results. Norman did well, but the recruiter was excited to say I maxed out on the test. He was amazed and said he never had anyone do that before. I was excited as to what my career path would be, but before that was to be decided, I had to take a physical exam. Enter the infamous diseased cat. After the physical exam, I revisited the recruiter. I knew something was wrong by the way he was avoiding eye contact with me.
“Everything was great,” he began, “except for your eyes. You need to have vision correctable to 20/30 in both eyes to qualify for the Coast Guard and unfortunately you don’t. Since you scored so well on your exam, I asked my superiors if they could waive this requirement for you, but he said it wasn’t possible.”
What could I say? Even though I spent most of my life half blind, I spent each day of my life learning how to cope with my disability and lead the life of a person with perfect vision in both eyes. I had no limitations except I couldn’t pass a simple eye exam. Of course, Norman could enter the Coast Guard, and he did. But before I left the recruiter’s office, he informed me, “If I wanted to join the military, the Army was more lenient on the eye exam.” Plan B was a bust, so it was time for Plan C.
Unlike the Coast Guard, the Army offered two guarantees. A choice of job, as well as a choice of duty station. “This is great,” I thought. And still being young and stupid, I decided, with the help of my Army recruiter whispering in my ear, to be a tank driver and to be stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. Plan C, in the bag, guaranteed. So, I thought.
One Saturday afternoon in February, before Norman and I were set to go on active duty, we went to a bar to shoot pool and have a couple of beers (It was 1975 and the legal drinking age was eighteen). About three in the afternoon, we finished up and drove back to town. I was leaning against the passenger door with my eyes closed, when I heard Norman shout out, “Watch out!”
“Yeah, right,” I said to myself. I opened my eyes for a split second, as I saw a tree racing towards my passenger’s side window as Norman’s car skidded on an icy road at fifty miles per hour. The next thing I remembered was waking up for a moment screaming in the back of an ambulance because of the pain in my back, before I blacked out again. When I woke up, I found myself in a hospital bed, naked and covered in a blanket. My back was killing me, and I had a huge goosebump above my right eye, which was scarier looking than it felt. The doctor said I have a minor back injury and a concussion and should be in good enough shape to go home in two or three days. And I did.
A week later, I went to the recruiting station for my final check-up. When I told him about the car accident, he looked at the bump on my head and the black eye I sported and went over my paperwork with a fine-tooth comb. As that familiar look of disappointment passed across his face, I could almost hear a cat howling in the background.
“I just went over your records and found out you can’t be a tank driver. One of the requirements is you need to have good vision in both eyes.”
I can’t seem to get rid of that stupid cat.
“But all is not lost,” he continued. There are other jobs in the Army which you can do.”
I thought to myself, “There are other jobs in the Army beside driving a tank and shooting a rifle?”
The recruiter flipped through a stack of papers and said, “How would you like to be a generator mechanic? We can send you to school for this, but we can’t guarantee where will be assigned.”
At that point, I thought I had nothing to lose. I had no Plan D figured out, so I decided to leave it to fate where I might end up. I agreed and the next thing I knew, I was in the Army. Basic training went as expected as well as my training for becoming a generator mechanic. When I finished my military training, it was time to receive my orders as to where I was to be stationed. Our company was standing in formation when the orders were given out to everyone. All the ones who had guaranteed assignments were told first, then it was everybody else’s turn. I heard my classmates’ names called, followed by their duty assignments. Germany, Germany, Germany, and it continued. When my named was called out, it was followed by South Korea. Then it continued. Germany, Germany, Germany.
I flew to Korea and found myself in Yong San, where I was taken to the reception station and waited for further orders to where I was exactly to be stationed. There must have been fifty of us mulling around in the waiting room. As we waited like sheep for the slaughter, I had a chance to see unit insignias hanging on the walls.
One of my fellow sheep bleated, “Those insignias are the emblems of all the units located in country.”
As I looked at the insignias, one in particular caught my eye. The patch was shaped like a bullet facing downwards and inside was an image of a missile with a lightning bolt passing through it. Above the patch was a tab, and in it were the words, 4th Missile.
Before long, in-processing began, and I quickly dismissed the insignia from my mind, but by the end of the day, it became a part of my life. While vast of the wandering sheep were assigned to 2nd Infantry Division at Camp Casey, I was assigned to the 4th Missile Command at Camp Page. I thought the odds of all the things that happened in my life leading me to Camp Page were incredible, but I was soon to learn that I wasn’t finished beating the odds.
About a month after arriving at Camp Page, I decided I wanted to further my education, so I went to visit the education center. Strangely, as soon as I walked through the door, the Director of Education rushed up to me and introduced himself. After we had a brief discussion, he asked, “It’s a strange coincidence you came in just now. Earlier today, an employee of mine quit. How would you like a job? I run an English conversation class, just outside the gate. How would you like to teach that class for me?”
It was the last thing I expected to hear. Had I been a bar hopping, girl-chasing type person like many of my colleagues on base, I would have said no. But I wasn’t. Instead, I mostly stayed on post and had little to occupy my time off, so I agreed to teach English conversation for him. If you think I was done beating the odds, think again.
The next night was the first time I went to the classroom. As I climbed the stairs, I began to wonder. What will it be like, trying to teach anything to anybody? I’ve never done anything like this before. What will they think of me? Before I could answer my own questions, I found myself opening the classroom door, facing my destiny.
As the door opened, I was greeted by a class of six people, waiting patiently for me to arrive. They were mostly older than me, both male and female. But there was one young woman named Kyong Hui, that caught my eye. I had to force myself not to stare at her. It was as if I was gazing at an angel. She was about my age, slender and very attractive. To me, perfect.
My heart began to race, for I never felt such an attraction before. Yes, there were other women in my life, but none of those relationships felt as powerful as this one. She looked at me with her beautiful almond eyes and smiled. From that moment on, I was hooked. I began by going out on excursions with the entire class and slowly narrowed it down to just her. As we became closer and have gotten to know each other better, Kyong Hui finally introduced me to her family. Needless to say, they didn’t think much about a round-eyed foreigner dating their daughter. Eventually, I won them over, but there was a stipulation. If I was to marry their precious daughter, I had to become a Catholic. During my experiences in South Carolina, I had gone with Tom to attend Catholic Mass at times and felt comfortable in that setting. So, I told Kyong Hui’s parents yes.
The next day, I visited the priest on post and told him about my desire to become Catholic. He smiled, handed a catechism to me and said, “Read it”. I looked at the monstrosity he handed me. It was about twelve hundred pages long written in fine print. But at that time in my life, I was a reading addict. In the beginning, I stumbled through a vast number of words, I’ve never heard before and soon had a dictionary by my side to navigate me. At times, I took the catechism with me when I went to Kyong’s house, just to show them I was intent on becoming a Catholic. My efforts finally paid off, had I got Kyong Hui’s family’s blessing.
So, we were off to the races. We flew back to the United States and got married in a Baptist church across the road of my parent’s house. Life began for us as a couple and long after, I became Catholic. Not having deep roots living life as a Christian, I found temptations as a formidable foe, ever striking at my heels. But I found Kyong Hui to be my anchor in my Christian life. Whenever I found myself lost in the sea of temptations, she was always at my side, making sure I stayed on course, taking us ashore to where I am today.
I laugh at those who say love at first sight doesn’t exist, for I know better. It’s been over fifty years since we first met and as of today, we are happily married. Somedays, I look at the past and find it impossible to count how many coincidences or acts of God intervened in my life overriding my plans and taking me halfway around the world to meet my true love and every day I count, the number is never the same. I figure the odds for my life to turn out as it did are close to, if not beyond the odds of winning a jackpot in a national lottery and the way I see it, I’ve won more than the greatest payout ever given in a lottery. Thanks to that wonderful cat God placed into my life and the countless other blessings he bestowed on me, I will be forever in his debt.
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A true story from a segment of my life. Enjoy!
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