It is the 49th Christmas holiday since I dwelled in America.
The carol singing is same way wherever you go, the way holiday season is celebrated the same; drinking beer, setting up trees and singing Christmas carols.
The story of the Christmas is the same every year. The sun still rises in the East and sets in the West, but with a little different angle the way it rotates and revolves. I am educating myself what an old philosopher Bruno and a scientist Galileo discovered. With the still fear of COVID 19 pandemic and Omitron threat ubiquitous around us, beautiful Christmas carols and the chimes still ring everyday: In the street their merry rhymes, Let us by the fire ever higher, sing them till the night expires!
With all the things same, I find myself changed over time; Hair became gray, face wrinkled and motion slowed, less risk taking and less challenging, less moving around, but finding it joyful to rely on the same tradition without any toil, to think of friends, worshiping at church with family. Now I began using the 250 yard one hole course behind my backyard, to practice my driver swing on every morning except raining and snowing days. Finding that my driver shot is greatly improved, I make it a rule whenever I wake up to walk down the Yang Han Jeong Hill beholding the rising sun in the east, to be ready for swinging a driver shot. If I slice the ball, it will be gone to the Cliffside of the farm, I hit straight it will be near the target rock 250 yards away from my tee-off spot. I am looking forward to blooming of 50 hibiscus flower plants that I transplanted on the hill at the sacrifice of my right shoulder damage on the rotating cub. The often pain and arthritis as a result of that became the Achilles’’ heel of my body. I may have to live with this discomfort, forgetting it only when those flowers bloom on the hill between acacia , maple and oak trees in summer. I will take pride in having planted Korea’s national flower Moogoonghwa on the hill of my backyard.
Let us by the fire ever higher and sing them until the night expires!
A Merry Christmas to all whom I know and Happy holidays ?
From the hamlet of Chester, Choam Hubert Hojae Lee, on December 2021.
Commissioner of Human Rights, Orange County
Executive VP of Korean War Veterans Assoc.(KWVA) CHAPTER 202
Former advisor to president Bush and president Trump
President of Korean American Foundation USA(www.kafusany.com)