Ice Cream on the Mat

Dear Reader, 3rd July 2020

We had a Big Birthday Bash yesterday evening at the local Harris Teeter, from 7:30 to 10 p.m. The line up of main events included (beginning with my favorite): Ice Cream on the Mat, where we lay out a thick, Black Blanket on the parking lot pavement, juggling (club passing), unicycle riding, Psalm recitation, and soft "Read-Alouds" in the later part of the evening, from The King of Ireland's Son. I even remembered to bring four lawn chairs, which proved well worthwhile, even felicitous, to my ageing bones.

"Ice Cream on the Mat"

has become a bit of a tradition for the Long Yang Family during holidays and birthdays. A simple blanket laid into service on a parking lot pavement tarmac affords an exceedingly more pleasant experience for people of Korean persuasion, who like to sit cross-legged and enjoy food in communion for hours at a time. The outer part of the sides of their feet develop thick, round padded callouses over time. If you had not lived in South Korean society, you would be hard pressed to figure out what the callouses are for, if you happened to notice one in a Mok-Yok-Tahng (or public bath house).

Ashley and I in front of Van Gogh, a trusty vehicle which has given us eighty-seven thousand miles of transport since 2011, with no breakdowns to strand us anywhere. Toyoto did a good job making their 2000 Sienna, I think, except for the plastic door handles, which my wife has replaced several times over the years.

Nathaniel just had his wisdom teeth removed a few hours before this, down in Knightdale. Here lately, he has been making substantial advances es in bee house design and beekeeping methodology.

Jordan and Christopher juggle together. Two weeks ago, Christopher could not pass clubs. He had juggled bean bags for over a year, but his Lyme's Disease made his arms too weak to do anything with clubs. We finally got a doctor to start treatment with doxycycline nine months ago, and he steadily has improved since then. Praise the LORD.

David and Christopher ride unicycles together, test games they make together, and create imaginative settings together. They are like two peas in a pod. Neither has had a friend anywhere near their ages, other than their brothers and sister, the downfall of moving from one culture to a radically different culture at the ages they were at the time:
A. David Octavian: 2 years and 9 months
B. Christopher Shakespeare: 6 years and 10 months

Jordan, the birthday man. He has been studying biblical Greek and Hebrew with Christopher these past two semesters, here at the local seminary. They have some good teachers there, and a good program in a lot of ways. It is odd that public schools do not require these two disciplines, given that the foundation of our moral structure has been so intimately seeded and integrally nurtured over the millennia by the Bible. Today, we have become biblically illiterate. Few people can give even a nutshell version of the main ideas from what that text proposes to tell us. In fact, few can even tell you the primary subject of the Bible. So, I am pleased that they have dug in and studied these languages over the course of this past year.
Nathaniel also has spent some time studying Greek, memorizing 1st Corinthians 13 and a bit of other stuff in the NT. He may join his younger brothers again in their Greek Study Club when it starts back up at the local coffee house. They used to enjoy that on Saturday mornings. Now, they only do it by Zoom, given the Coronovirus effects.

Ashley enjoys bread so we bought two loaves. We had not had bread in a long, long time, as Mamma cut it out of our diet some years back. Mamma reads a lot about nutrition, stays well ahead of the curve.

Good Food and Good Times. We only wish that Mother were able to join us here. She used to do so during the first few years following our migration to the United States, from Daejeon, South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm.

Ashley's Video Link:

Cultural Dynamics:

We began this tradition of celebrating birthdays as soon as we migrated to the United States from South Korea, Land of the Morning Calm, back in April of 2011, when we discovered to our chagrin and dismay that:

A) This new, adopted culture of Picturesque, Historic Wake Forest, North Carolina, lacked sensitivity to foreign elements and influences, and substituted implacable judgment with tight control instead. So much for the sense of freedom I had from the Bill of Rights as a child, growing up in Taylorsville, North Carolina. I fully expected a good crop of new buildings erected in my hometown and my college towns of Chapel Hill and Boone.

However, coming back to the U.S. after a 14-year hiatus revealed far more drastic disturbances in the social atmosphere, mostly retrogressive. So much had been lost from a perspective of grace, kindness, brotherly love, and wisdom, understanding, empathy. Others my age and older who remember the social wealth of days of yore in the United States, had time to gradually adjust; whereas, I was exposed cold turkey, not unlike the return of Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, after twenty years away from his village in the Catskills of New York.

B) The new culture of Wake Forest still sadly lacks Daejeon's tradition of expansive, accessible public spaces, which we used frequently and intensively during the first part of our family life together.

Therein, if we were not going to go back to South Korea with our tails tucked between our legs, we quickly realized that we would need something to closely simulate what we did in our native continent. (Every family member is native Asian.) In Daejeon, wide-open, public spaces are everywhere. I would warrant you that you could not swing a Paul Bunyan-sized Dead Cat from any point in the city without hitting two or three parks in the process.

The vast public areas have excellent sporting links, particularly Gate Ball, and well-lit parks which are open after dark, within easy walking distance of your home (and that, on super wide sidewalks shaded with rows of trees. Here in Wake Forest, it is not easy to walk to many of the parks.

My Pulchritudinous Better Half joined us in South Korea and even here in Wake Forest for the first couple of years, before this culture began to wear her down. I have photos of my wife on one of our earlier ventures into the public sphere for a holiday celebration time. She was lovely then, far less wounded by American Culture.

We went to Harris Teeter in July of 2013 or 14. I affixed some of those photos to a forgotten web log or website stashed somewhere. I have probably since lost access since then, but will try to recover them. Too, the back-up photos could have been lost in our recent house fire, but I hope and pray not. I love old photos of our family, and I would love to have a camera again to record family events and developments. Currently, my wife is too much opposed. I would like a Nikon 5000 or something similar. We lost a Canon Rebel T3 in the Inferno Unpleasantness. And we lost a Nikon F in the Incheon Airport on our way over to the United States.

Below I have some photos suggesting the rich open spaces plopped down in the middle of Daejeon, a city of 1.5 million people.