[Oe List ...] In Memoriam to the Montgomerys

Wed Mar 23 20:32:01 CDT 2011

For the OpEd page of the Saipan Tribune, Friday.

Up the down staircase

The bugle morning call of Reverie is amplified daily at 6:45 am over Shenyang Aerospace University’s student housing at the campus.  Physical consciousness is built in to the cultural foundations of the Taoist tradition that shaped China so discipline in physical fitness is a matter of course. 

The school trains air cadets and since the difference in the training between military and civilian pilots does not exist, the boys and girls in uniform, as squads, platoons, companies and battalions, also shout their corporate count-offs like grunts, and loudly display their cadenced jog this time of the day.  The 20-goalpost basketball yard that fronts the 11th floor view of my room is the gathering node.  Waking up to their noise is inescapable.

Clockwork is a quality of this campus.  Expectations are scheduled. The lights are turned off at 11 pm (except the foreign student/faculty apartments), going off in sequence like they do in movie depictions of correctional institutions. I gave up wristwatches since the PDA, the laptop and the cell phone, nor do I have an alarm clock in my room.  With the bugle sound before 7 am, who needs one?

I am giddilly ranting on physicality and scheduled expectations because an email from my Chicago daughter just landed on my desk this morning announcing the death of John Montgomery, a friend in Atlanta.  He was a 63-year old prone to heart failure.  He and his wife Judy had big hearts, quite literally, and bursting physiques to match their convivial and jovial personalities.  Judy preceded him to a memorial urn a few years back.  As a couple, they preceded my first family’s human development tasks in Majuro in the early 80s where in one of the lagoon islands, they lost an infant at childbirth while teaching Marshallese students, subsequently deciding to adopt and raise two infant Asian boys who grew up to be exemplary men of brain and brawn.

I could hear John and Judy’s hearty laughs as I trudged down the eleven floors worth of staircase in my building, my daily muscle-limbering regimen to accompany the students in formation at the basketball court. John was two years my junior and at a time when we now have second thoughts about bending down to pick up an item inadvertently dropped on the floor, and wait until three items make it before getting down on all fours to retrieve them, we keep an eye on our breathing and our pulse, and the girth of the midsection.

Going down the staircase that faces a U-shaped driveway before the basketball court is actually motivating since one looks down through the huge glass paneled window frame and see where one is headed from the heights.  There is a destination in sight, and as we all know, having a vision is essential in any journey.  One’s we reach the ground floor and tackle the 20-some steps on each floor on the return, we could no longer see where we are headed, instead, we look at each step one at a time, which every management guru will tell you is the key to accomplishing a mission.  Or, as the old staff sergeant use to bellow, “you die in your boots one tactic at a time.”

We do not get mentally tired in the process though one inevitably feels the depth of one’s breathing, and the blood pressure races like it was on a stockcar in the Daytona 500, but reaching the top of the staircase (there are twelve floors and when we have the time and the inclination, we tramp up the extra floor) is at once an experience of exhilarating stale atmospheric release and fresh air intake exuberance.

We dabble in English words this semester, having six classes of Oral English for College level Chinese students who have spent 10 years already in academic study but are still reluctant to venture into the spoken word.  Various words were used of me before I left Saipan.  A marketing colleague said that I turned “corpulent,” while a buddy patted me on the back for “a rotund personality”.  My former sixth grade student at Hopwood just hollered, “Mr. V, you are growing fat!”  Now here in Shenyang, I am “cute” in the fat belly sense of the Chinese Year of the Rabbit xiao tuzi guai guai (good little bunny).

Which puts me in the same league with my contemporaries John and Judy who bothered to sprinkle mirth on earth as they chuckled their way in and to heaven.

It is officially Spring in Dong Bei Manchuria since the bunny hopped in February but the Siberian winds has yet to recognize the temperature prescribed by the solar calendar, but then, this late in March, it is still snowing in New York even as disaster relief is hampered by the powdery stuff in Sendai.  My joints refuse to leave winter, requiring socks, mitts and the winter vest over the long johns before getting under the covers.  The SAU admin, of course, turned off central heating at the appointed time, which only leads us to wonder why we left Saipan’s year round 24-30 C degrees in the first place.  Folly is no monopoly of one age group, as my Tinian colleague would echo.

Oh, SAU’s public address system does not play “taps” when it turns off the lights. We are grateful for life’s little favors.  We say that on the same breath as we remember John and Judy, and we are doubly grateful that we were able to say so when they were still able take the affirmation and acknowledgement unto their breaths!  Make sure you do the same with your loved ones.

In our corpulence, we trudge.  L’achaim!

j'aime la vie

j'aime la vie

-----Original Message-----
From: Janice Ulangca <aulangca at stny.rr.com>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Cc: Colleague Dialogue <Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Mon, Mar 21, 2011 11:42 pm
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Message from Wayne Ellsworth

Thanks very much, Joan.  Our Tokyo colleagues are doing great work.
Janice Ulangca

----- Original Message ----- 
From: jfknutson at aol.com 
To: oe at wedgeblade.net 
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 10:44 AM
Subject: [Oe List ...] Fwd: How are you all?

Thought you all would want to see this from Wayne.

-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Ellsworth <wayne at icajapan.org>
To: jfknutson <jfknutson at aol.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 20, 2011 11:18 pm
Subject: Re: How are you all?

Dear Joan, 

Yes, we are OK, but Japan has got years of recovery and transformation work to do.  Shizuyo, Takako, and Nie left at 3pm Saturday for Sendai and Fukushima with a full truckload of food and clothes, after a full week of locating where to purchase goods, since the stores are all sold out, and the government has secured most the remaining essential goods.  

This makes us involved in two Emergency Aid projects at the same time: Brazil & Japan.   It seems we are more and more getting involved in disaster recevery, from Japan, to Brazil, Bihar India, and Peace Building in Nepal.  These materials are a great resource, along with Town Meetings and whatever else we already have.

For Japanese, they are "rural" people and have experienced many struggles with nature.  Of course they are shocked, still we/they have a positive perspective.  Amazing!  Yes, this will provide an opening for creative rebirth in all facets of Japanese society.

Thanks for your email, and sorry for the delay in responding,

Wayne

On Mar 13, 2011, at 4:24 AM, jfknutson at aol.com wrote:

I have been thinking about you non-stop since we heard about the devasting earthquake.  Many are asking about you guys so if you are able to send a message to the OE listserve or if you can't, send it to me and I will forward it.  I have heard from several of my teaching friends and they are all OK.  A couple of weeks ago I got in touch with Naomi through Facebook and learned she is in Tokyo too.  I am thinking good thoughts for you.  Be in touch.  Joan Knutson

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