Admittedly, I haven’t delved as deep as I like into the OTR pool.  There are some really good websites out there will lots of shows to choose from. Archive.org is an excellent resource for a vast array of shows produced; and there were a lot of them.  I gravitate toward the comedies naturally and can see the genius in Jack Benny, George and Gracie, and even Fibber McGee and Molly (who were on the air over 20 years — The Simpsons of the OTR world, or the other way around).  One unexpected treasure I found is Gunsmoke which had quite a tenure on the radio and television.  It is when I hear these shows I am reminded of my time in Detroit.

I say, time in Detroit, like I lived there, though I did not.  I worked there on many Sunday – Tuesdays taking care of trainers and making sure things went smoothly with the training program.  During the training I had time to myself, or at least time in the car.  The car was usually rented from Dollar and was hopefully equipped with XM radio, and when I was driving it was tuned to the OTR station.  So I associate things like driving barren deserted streets, take-out from strange restaurants, getting lost, Chrysler auto plants (that’s where the training was) eating in the van, oversleeping, overtiredness, and hotel shampoo with OTR.  When I listen to these shows now I get a flash of me pulling away from the training center or an auto plant, to get back to the hotel to do some work, or catch up on sleep because I know I have to meet the trainers after the 10 PM shift and clean up could take a while.  That’s how most of my memories are; little explosions of color inside a mostly-gray mist.  This is probably why I’ve never been a very good story teller.

These aren’t bad memories now.  At the time, I felt stressed and constantly tired.  I gained a lot of weight from eating restaurant and take-out food.  My love life was in the pits and my self-esteem was pretty low.  But, somehow the patter of dialogue from George and Gracie could usually take me out of it for a moment.  This is why we watch movies and tv and listen to music; to remove us from ourselves if only for an instant.

As great as escape is, you’ll never get anything done if you do it too much!

-Captain Matthew Von Tremmel

P.S.  This entry written in silence.

The Winter especially lasts a long time.  This year in Iowa there was snow on the ground from November through the beginning of March.  Granted that’s only a little longer than a season, but the snow made it insulting.  Yes, it gets warm in the summer, but that doesn’t mean it’s 90 degrees for 4 months.

Rumor of sunshine.

Granted my arguments don’t make any logical sense; I just hate the cold.  The unrelenting, put-on-your-coat-everyday-and-scrape-your-windows cold gets to a person.  It’s a constant battle for warmth, light, and life.  I imagine the unrelenting heat in summer has the same effect on people, which brings me to my point (finally); spring and fall are strange.

They don’t get to a person.  They’re barely around long enough to be noticed in anything more than a feeling; inflated ego, increased sex drive, and unexplained smiles.  When you’re in them you realize a change is coming.  In fall, you know it’s going to get colder.  You feel it physically and mentally.  It’s forboding.  It’s the harbinger of evil in my opinion.  And throughout Fall it changes — nearly everyday — getting a bit colder, and getting us used to what is coming.  It’s not a season with a constant temperature.  It’s a turn at the speedway pushing us into the straightaway that is Winter.  Spring is the same way; the whisper of warmer weather to come.  For me, this also means that hope has returned to my pysche and I know the invading hordes of snowflakes will be gone for a time and that there is life to enjoy.  I can’t, and neither can many, grasp the feeling of hope in a world dark, cold, and dead.

Having said all that, I love Christmas.  It’s my favorite holiday, for religious and other reasons.  But when Christmas ends, so should winter.

-Captain Matthew Von Tremmel

My Korean blog is done and until I find a job somewhere warmer than where I am now, the 10s of you who read this will be subjected to whatever this turns out to be.  Mostly, a compendium of the days thoughts, though that will surely get boring as I live in a small town in Iowa and my stimulation is lacking.  What then?  A journal perhaps (can you hear my british accent) exaggerated until exciting.  Yes.  Lies.  I’ll pile them on until the real stuff starts holding up its end of the bargain (ie to be more exciting).

For now though I will just say…I am Captain Matthew Von Tremmel

Thursday

I was a tearful goodbye at the airport.  I’m going to miss her so much.

Wednesday

We ate pasta and Bo had me put my hair up with product.  I haven’t done that in so long and my hair was too long for it, so I didn’t think I looked that great.  However, Bo thought I looked handsome, so it’s okay.

Tuesday

I bought Bo a webcam at Yongsan so we can skpe while I’m in the states.  Then we decided to take in the cinema at CGV theater to see Mother which was a Korean movie that was getting a lot of press and winning some awards at film festivals.  It was a good movie but a bit disturbing with definitely a surprise ending (well a surprise to me anyway).  We both liked it but don’t need to see it again.

Then we came back to my hotel and ate some pizza and watched South Park.  I’m shown Bo a few episodes and she seems to enjoy it.  We watched the Goobacks episode where they say, “They took our jobs” episode.  Her saying it with her Korean accent was pretty cute.  I walked Bo to the bus in the rain.  I had to buy an umbrella, which is a common occurrence in Korea.  Everyone has about 10 umbrellas at home because it never looks like rain when you leave and then of course while you’re out, it starts and you have to buy an umbrella.  I have an image of us walking hand-in-hand in the rain.  It was a nice night.

Monday

Bo and I climbed the beautiful Bukhan mountain (Buhkansan).  It was a gorgeous day with a gorgeous view and a gorgeous girl.  What more could a man want!!!  We took some good pictures and enjoyed quite a view at the top.  We got a bit of a workout on the way up…and the way.  Lucky Bo fortified us with plenty of snacks (I brought some but not nearly enough) and we both got water.  There are water stops along the way, but not nearly enough for me.

To reward ourselves for a job well done we hit the Gimjibong in Itaewon.  It was so relaxing.  Mmmm.  We laid around and read and talked and sweated.  The hot room was so hot though some insane temperature where you sweat instantly and can only stay in there for about 5 minutes before the survival instinct kicks in and your leave.  It’s literally built like and oven so the heat radiates and you cook.  The theory is that you sweat out all the bad stuff in your body.  Perhaps cold germs will come out your armpits in there.  Who knows?  But it does feel good.  There are also cold rooms too to cool yourself off.  There is something about going from extremes being good for you…at least according to Koreans.  I’m not sure of the whole theory, but again, it feels good.

We ate while we were there and then I took Bo home.  I believe we were both exhausted and relaxed from a very nice day.

Sunday

So Bo’s brother in law was a bit mad at me for getting her home late.  But in my defense, I have no idea what time she has to be home.  Plus, she’s over 30.  How can she have a curfew?  Oh Korea.

I saw deaf people on the subway on the way to church and more on the way home from church.  I don’t think I’ve seen any deaf people (or at least none communicating with sign language) since I’ve been here and then see some twice in one day.  I only mention it because I very rarely see anyone with any kind of disability.  I don’t know if they’re hidden or if there just aren’t as many as in the states.  I don’t know.  Anyway, it was kind of mesmerizing watching them sign back and forth.  It’s quite beautiful to me.

I said my final good bye to Lisa and Bo and I moved my stuff to a hostel called the Guest house Korea.  Nice and clean…and cheap.  It’s a cool tiny room.  I love hotels and honestly feel pretty at home in them.  The same goes for airports.  I assume it comes from traveling so much with my work before I went to Korea.  Anyway, I even have my own bedroom, which is nice and you don’t always get that in a hostel.

Oh I almost forgot what I nice trip it was to get there.  Even though we were lugging 150 pounds (I’m exaggerating a bit) of my junk, and we got a bit lost we had a good time.  Neither of us were in a hurry.  The weather was beautiful.  And I did stress about getting there at a particular time, therefore no freak out about things not going according to plan.  Hooray.  I’ve got to plan for no plans more often.  We even picked up a guiness to celebrate with when we got to the hostel.

I was reminded of Bo’s Koreanness while were walking by an active area (there was a movie theatre and a bunch of other stores and stuff – not too far from my new hotel it turned out) and she exclaimed, “I need some squid,” as if living depended on the intake of a ten-tentacled cephalopod.  I giggled and bought her some squid roasted over a single burner on a squid cart (quite abundant in Korea).

After we got settled in at the hostel and had our beer, we went to a Noreabong and sang love songs (well mostly love songs).  It was nice and romantic and we made some good memories.  She’s a good singer.  I, on the other hand, need to work on my voice.  It used to be good (pretty good) but it’s out of shape…even for the noreabong methinks.

Saturday

Tonight was our big night.  We dressed up and put on our smell good stuff.   Potentially our last big night out for a long time and where did we go?  Outback.  That’s right.  Outback enjoys a fine reputation in Korea.  Actually it might have a fine rep in the states too but I don’t know.  I’m not a huge fan of steak.  It tastes fine but I’m not all that keen on huge slabs of meat.  When it arrives on my plate I look at it as a chore or project to be completed in the allotted time.  Cut.  Chew.  Cut.  Chew.  Cut. Chew.  Maybe I’m just not good with a knife.  Seems to me that any food that doesn’t lend itself to the addition of cheese is not that perfect.  But Bo loves steak and Outback, so it sounded like a good idea to me.  What my baby wants, my baby gets.

I’d been thinking for a while about a gift to give Bo before I left but couldn’t think of anything meaningful enough or unique.  The new teacher LaChahn finally gave me the idea of giving her a photo album with pictures of us in it.  Brilliant!  How did I not think of that on my own.  Anyway, I picked out the pics and got them printed and bought an album.  I gave Bo the photo album of us, which she loved.  I was a hero.  She was touched, but of course she’d have to hide it from her parents.

After dinner, the night was young so we went for some drinks at one of the bars in Itaewon (that’s where the Outback was too).  It was nice.  We got a seat outside on the balcony with a table to ourselves.  We had a miscommunication about something, but resolved it and the night ended well.  I ended up getting her home late, though I didn’t find that out until the next day.

Friday

I slept well enough at Lisa’s but woke every time I turned over on a too-tiny couch.

Bo and I planned and had another nice day out.  The weather is really getting nice (as it should – it’s summer for goodness sake).  We went to Sinsa station exit 8 to a beautiful street called Kadosu-gil which means “roadside trees on the street” according to Bo.  Cool!  Peaceful!  We did some window shopping and had some ice tea in a quiet restaurant while we enjoyed the weather.  The windows were open and the world was a pleasant thing to behold.

While either walking back to the subway or just perambulating to another destination, a man in front of me threw some trash on the sidewalk.  I think it was just a paper cup, but I picked it up and carried it to a trash and disposed of it properly.  But I was so irritated by the disregard this guy must have for the world around him.  And maybe because it was such a beautiful day and the juxtaposition of a litterer was too much for me to bear.  I’m sure I rant and raved about it at the time, but what really gets me is the attitude.  I sound old I know, but how much must you hate your city/town/village to throw trash on it?

Having said that, I’m probably still a long way off from picking up all the trash equal to the cigarette butts I threw out when I was a smoker.