The Time of My Life

The best day of my life was the day I finally met my dream lady. It was in South Korea, on September 7th, 1982, that she walked out of my dreams and into my life. We met at a bus stop outside of Camp Red Cloud, in Uijeongbu South Korea, where I had gone to start a new teaching job with Central Texas College teaching English to Koreans who were serving in the US Army. She was a college senior, majoring in English and had gone to the base where I was living to apply for a job. Then she took the bus back towards Seoul, where she was living.

The dreams first started in high school in Berkeley, California, in the fall of 1973. I had fallen asleep in a boring physics class. It was an Indian summer day and the high school did not have air conditioning, so the room was hot.

I saw standing next to me the most beautiful woman in the universe. A striking Asian woman in her 20s was standing there looking at me with love blazing from her black eyes. She had long jet-black hair, intense black diamond eyes, a great figure, and a cute face. I screamed out,

"Who are you?"

She smiled and disappeared, and I fell out of my chair to the ground, much to the amusement of my classmates and the teacher.

I told my friends that afternoon that I had dreamed about the woman I would marry someday. I knew in my bones that we would meet someday. I did not know it would take eight years before we met.

The dreams continued almost weekly, always the same. She was staring at me, not saying a word. Except for two dreams. Just before I graduated from the University of the Pacific in 1979 and had to decide where to go in the Peace Corps, Korea, or Thailand, I had the dream. She said when I asked her again, "who are you?"

She merely said,

"Korea."

I joined the Peace Corps, hoping I would meet her there. After the Peace Corps, I took a job at Los Angeles Community College teaching ESL and basic skills on the base. I went all over Korea for almost two years. I finally had enough and decided to abandon my mad quest and return to the U.S. The last time I had the dream, I had just started a new job and was about to give notice so I could return to the U.S, to attend graduate school in Korean Studies at the University of Washington. That morning, I had the final dream.

She said in Korean, and I understood her Korean,

"Don't worry baby! We'll meet soon and be together."

ͱ±ì ?í??ì§? ë§?ì?¸ì?", ì?°ë¦¬ë?" ͳ§ ë§?ë?  Ͳ?ì??ë??ë?¤.
"geogjeong ma, uli god mannaseo hamkke hal tenikka."

That night, she walked out of the bus into my life. She got off the bus and was going to go to a movie with one of my fellow teachers. We introduced each other and exchanged phone numbers. After the movie was over, we went out for coffee. I was 26, soon to be 27, and she was 22, soon to be 23.

As Koreans put it, "sparks flew from heart to heart.
��충�"
Isimchongsim"

We had agreed to meet the following Friday to go for a walk in the mountains.

The next night, she was waiting for me at my base. I signed her on and she went to the library. I canceled my class after one hour and found her and we went out again for coffee.

She told me she was madly in love with me and that I was her man. I looked at her and said I felt the same. Three days later I proposed to her, and she said yes. And that was the beginning of 40 years of marriage. And the best time of my life.