Category Archives: impediments

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 27

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

August 17, 2026-Our girl is getting ever more intense about being able to stand, and about learning to walk. She can stand with support, for nearly five minutes and was taking steps, while her father was holding her up, this evening.

Hana is also practicing hand-eye coordination. Given some skinless grapes that had been cut into small pieces, she meticulously picked up even the smallest piece and put it in her mouth. She stayed focused on a particularly slippery morsel, getting it to her mouth after five tries.

HANA’S NOTE- I am going to be a helper, not a taker. So, I want to keep working hard.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-2000 Our world did anything but end. We rang in the New, at the home of a Baha’i friend, watching a variety of social viewpoints on TV, and having called Penny’s parents to wish them Happy Anniversary, as they did not feel up to traveling “in a time of uncertainty”, felt like this New Year’s Eve was unlike any other. There was, however, no finality about any of it.

We finished up our year at Salome, and moved on, once my Assistant Principal got the nod to run the school for the 2000-01 Academic Year. We spent the summer at the Fellmans’ house, in a rustic development called Kingswood Estates. It had a Homeowners Association, so we had to follow certain rules. Our long-haired dachshund, Lady, was very much with us. There were roving bands of javelinas in the community, as well as mountain lions, so we were careful not to let her out alone. On one early morning, before sunrise, I was walking Lady and we came upon a small family of javelinas. I picked her up and held her, while she instinctively kept quiet. The herd went about their business and left us alone.

Penny took a couple of classes at Mesa Community College, and so had an apartment in Mesa, which Aram and I stayed in, while I also tried to get a job in the Phoenix area. A week or so into the Academic Year, I was offered a Principalship at Mingus Mountain Academy, a facility for adjudicated girls. I took the job, knowing that we had the house in Kingswood for the year. I got off to a fairly good start, despite the lingering presence of my immediate predecessor, who was basically waiting for me to mess up, so that he could come back and “fix things” and the noisome Assistant Principal, who interfered with my work, more than helped. Still, I earned the trust of the girls and had a generally good relationship with the teachers and with the facility’s Executive Director.

It was, though, a 7:30 a.m.-6 p.m. job, with no holidays (as the residents did not get to go home for breaks). There was a weekend crew, as school was Monday-Friday, so that was a relief. I worked Thanksgiving and Christmas, even working extra hours on my 50th birthday, as a resident had run off and we all needed to track her down. It took a few hours, but we found her. The girls were mainly from the city, and did not take into consideration that there were bears and mountain lions in the area,

It was a true labour of love, but I was a tad too trusting of some residents. The year to come would bear that out, with hard consequences.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 26

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inner Struggles, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, service, Social, Striving

August 16, 2026- Both Aram and I have told Hana the story of the boy who cried wolf. She has adopted the practice of crying every time her parents tell her “No” or make her wait for something. When I told her the story, this evening, she listened with rapt attention-and decided that crying about every little thing is not such a useful idea. Mental processing precedes the ability to speak.

We made a family outing to Carrollton, this afternoon, enjoying Korean noodles and a couple of dessert items: Three of us shared a piece of ice cream cake, then shared a Korean “Snowflake” bowl, which has fruit, ice cream and shaved ice. We mixed the three together, to make a fun treat. Hana watched all this, with a good nature, though her face said “Where’s mine?”

In the early evening, I went to a fund-raising bazaar, at the Plano Baha’i Center, and picked up about a dozen books for Hana, Some of them are mini-books that she can easily look at, for several minutes at a time. She was delighted, when I showed her the books.

HANA’S NOTE- When my Daddy tells me to stop doing something, using his Daddy voice, I have to listen. When Papa tells me about somebody being naughty, I listen to him also.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1999 The bottom fell out in Chilchinbeto, in April. I turned down a request by a Governing Board member for reimbursement, on an item that would have been double dipping. Between that, and the ongoing suspicion regarding the deceased Paraprofessional, I was terminated, effective June 30. I told the Board that perhaps a Dineh would be more to their liking. They did hire a qualified Navajo educator. (As it happened, they fired him, too, after a year.) I was able to upgrade the professional development of the teaching staff, send the eighth grade class to Hawai’i and to an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game and hire a competent financial services team. We would have continued on an upward arc, but for the insecurity of five people.

I continued to take Penny to see a neurologist, in Flagstaff, during the Spring and Summer. Eventually, we also began seeing an acupuncturist,and another neurologist, in Phoenix. Between all those services, her brain health stabilized. Aram went on a Tae Kwon Do tournament in South Korea,, and was able to visit his birthplace, Jeju, again. While he was away, we left Jeddito, and the Navajo Nation.

I secured a one-year appointment as Principal of Salome High School, in the desert west of Phoenix. I worked under a former professor of mine, who served as Superintendent. We got along, for the most part. My assistant principal was also in training to become the principal, the following year. At times, I felt like I was sandwich filling. At least, the Superintendent was mostly supportive of my efforts, save when I trod on his turf.

Penny worked as the lone Special Education Teacher, as we had but eighty students in the high school. She bonded well with them. Aram had a rough first semester, in the Sixth Grade of the Elementary School. He gradually, with professional help, managed to recover his equilibrium.

My outreach included a visit to each of the feeder schools, once each semester, as well as evening town meetings with parents in each of the communities sending students to the high school. These visits were well received. I got along well with the teachers and with the majority of the students. Keeping peace between the Hispanic and Anglo students required active mediation and conflict resolution sessions. I also brought in a program called “Responsible Thinking’, which Penny had studied in one of her classes at NAU. It was seen by some in the community as mumbo jumbo, and didn’t really get much traction.

We approached Y2K with a sense that there would not be as drastic a change as some were expecting.

The Hana Chronicles, Month 7, Day 25

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, Historical, impediments, Inspiration, Personal goals, Personal Values, Social, Striving

August 15, 2026- Hana marches to her own drummer. Her father, for reasons of his own, is rather prescriptive. He is learning, though, to let her do her own thing. I feel that she knows what she is doing, in the macro sense. Her mission is to master standing up and then set to learning to walk. Hana’s mother also has her notions of what is needed by her child, but she is less authoritative and is more concerned with Hana’s health and hygiene, than with how Hana spends her time.

Along those lines, Hana had her first breakfast this morning-a small bowl of oatmeal, followed by apple in yogurt. We explained to her that breakfast is most often a lighter meal than are lunch or dinner. She was fairly content with what was served. It was enough, that she was in her high chair for breakfast, rather than down in a bouncy seat, looking up at us.

Much of my afternoon was spent going through a box or two-lots of bungee cords; Aram’s second grade drawings and his “Story of Me”, from third grade; Penny’s graduation cap, from her third and final Master’s Graduation-the only one she ever attended, because I was there and wanted to make a big deal of it; her Tae Kwon Do certificate, which I want to show to Hana, when she is old enough to know waht the martial art is. Hana’s afternoon was divided between pushing herself to stand and crawl with her torso lifted, and napping.

HANA’S NOTE- I am going to do things my own way, as much as I can.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1998 Although I still enjoyed being a counselor, I had invested a fair amount of time and energy into getting my Administrative Certificate. I had covered for the Principal and Assistant Principal at Jeddito, often enough, that even with contrived situations that one of my rivals had set up to try and embarrass me, my management of the school had basically gone well. Penny believed in me, and so, when I was told of an opening in a Community School, at Chilchinbeto, I put in my application. I was hired by the Athletic Director, who, oddly enough, became my Assistant Principal.

I left Jeddito in August, though Penny stayed there for another year. We were therefore a weekend couple, something that oour coworkers in Jeddito understood, but which raised the hackles of several people in Chilchinbeto. I was Principal, in a school of 200 students, with an Executive Director above me, in the same office. There was a core of influential people in the small community,who wanted to see a Dineh person in the Principalship. They tolerated me, with the quiet belief that I would be gone in a year. On Halloween, I had taken Aram, who lived with me and was in Fifth Grade, to Jeddito. When we came back, i was told that one of the Paraprofessionals, a leader of the skeptics, had died in a one car accident. There were those who believed I had something to do with her death, even though I was 150 miles away at the time. God knows, I would never have brought harm to anyone, regardless of political differences. Still, this was a superstitious community at that time, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion, for the rest of the academic year. The teachers and I were united, though, and we carried on our best, on behalf of the students.

Penny’s year at Jeddito, under an unstable administration, was not much better. We were in contact by phone, and I spent weekends with her, so our marriage didn’t suffer.At the end of the year, however, while we were in Prescott, visiting her parents, she tripped and fell over their large family dog, hitting her head against a door.

The last year of the Twentieth Century would see us facing a serious health matter.


The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 24

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 14, 2026- Hana and I took her Daddy to retrieve his car, this afternoon. While the initial plan was for him to merely pick up the vehicle, there was an extended wait for his service adviser to come back from lunch, so Hana and I went into the waiting area of the Service Department, which was large, cool and very spare. I entertained Hana with a water bottle, which she held and felt its coolness and its rough exterior.

Just when she was getting frustrated at not being allowed to drink out of it, her Dad and the service adviser appeared. Plans had changed. He was getting some further work done on the car, and we went back to the house. Hana was a bit tired, so she napped in the car seat, which is still rear-facing.

She babbled a lot, in an animated cadence, throughout the day. When I changed her diaper, this evening, she started mimicking what she heard as my voice, saying, in a raspy voice: “Wow, that’s a lot.” Her bubbly personality is emerging, more and more, as the days progress. It is truly a joy to be here, doing this work.

HANA’S NOTE- I want to be able to drink from a bottle!

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1997- I failed at a few things, this year. My lingering shyness, lack of athletic ability and self-doubt led me to fall down, in meeting the needs of a group of troubled adolescent boys, who started out just wanting to have my support and friendship. I had no problems, as a counselor, working with younger children and with adolescent girls. Middle school boys were, for some reason, a different matter- especially when their hook was basketball.

The other rough spot, for me, was resolving petty disputes between adolescents. I thought this was something that they should be able to figure out among themselves. A parent disagreed, and complained that I was not meeting her son’s needs. I thought back to how I was raised, and had my answer: My own mother would not intervene in any disputes that we had with neighbour kids..

We went back East, as usual, and visited Dave, Debbie and their kids, in eastern Pennsylvania. It was our first time meeting their daughter, Rebecca, who was holding her own with her two big brothers. We made a couple of other stops along the way. At one point, we stopped at a National Cemetery, in Illinois, to pay respects to a former sergeant of mine, who had been later killed in action. We also took in a couple of sites in the Abraham Lincoln National Historical Park.

This, though, was the last year of relative normalcy in our lives, for quite some time.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 23

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 13, 2026- Hana got a boost, this afternoon, from one of her physicians; Her functioning, in a key area, is showing stability. This particular area of health is measured every three months, until age 3. She is showing in the higher percentile, and is developing skills at a consistently high clip.

Hana listened very intently, at what the doctor was saying, perhaps storing information for later. She seems to know that certain things are more important than others. She has been very good about taking mid-morning medication, for example. She is also fastidious about beginning her mornings with exercise, even if she is on the changing table-which leads us to insist that she wait until the diaper is changed!

HANA’S NOTE- We drove a long way, in Papa’s car, to see a new doctor. The people at that hospital are very nice.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1996 Cracks started showing in our Jeddito life. Our next door neighbour died, during Spring Break, so we cut our southern Arizona jaunt short. The principal was fired, in mid-year and a School Psychologist took the reins, temporarily. Penny and a co-teacher had a program called Collaborative Literacy Intervention Plan (CLIP), which got results and kudos from the Governing Board.

My program went well, though there was some difficulty with the Superintendent, looking to find fault with our summer program, for no other reason than to have cause to eliminate it. The Board protected us, and despite some setbacks, such as a bus conking out, halfway up a hill on the way to Phoenix, we managed to get to several interesting places.

We went back East, as a family, for three weeks in July. A week was spent in Massachusetts and one week was spent in New Jersey. The rest was spent going to and from the Coast. We made the second of our visits to Bosch Baha’i School, in Santa Cruz, California, by taking a road trip. (The first was in 1994, by air.) Bosch is atop a high cliff, with breathtaking views of the ocean. We were there for a Spiritual Literacy conference. Afterwards, we drove down the Coast, getting our first views of Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara-the last being towards sundown.

I would be seriously evaluating my continued effectiveness as a counselor, in the year to come.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 22

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving

August 12, 2026- Hana played Hide and Seek with me, this afternoon. She hid behind a curtain, and I pretended to not know where she was. She thought it was great fun, and laughed for a minute or two, before coming out from behind the curtain. This evening, when her mother sang “Itsy Bitsy Spider” in an atonal manner, Hana groaned. She knows how the song is supposed to go. She does like her Mom’s singing Korean songs, and would probably groan if I tried singing those.

She took four steps this afternoon, with my support. Walking has thus become an intermediate goal, and will probably immediately follow standing, once she can do the latter for five or ten minutes, with support. She can stand for about 30 seconds without support, which is pretty good for a seven-month-old.

HANA’S NOTE- I like Hide and Seek. When I start walking, I will hide in places Papa can’t find me. I will probably give myself away, though, by giggling.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1995 This was a year that I put up a swing set, for Aram and his friends to use. The neighbour kids were also welcome to use it. One boy fell off and bruised himself. Knowing his mother, and her desire to handle her children’s problems herself, I sent him home, once it was clear that he wasn’t badly hurt. In the night, though, he and two other mischief makers came and wrecked the swing set. His mother re-reimbursed me for the damage, but we had to take the equipment down and haul it to the dump.

Aram had friends in the Hopi villages, who were coaxed into meanness towards him, by older men. One of those men ended up dying in a roll-over, a few weeks later. There was prejudice, and there was a lack of self-control. The kind people on both Reservations helped us cope and we continued to be invited to social dances.

We went, as a family, to a Baha’i school in the Midwest, during the summer. Aram was sleepwalking, a couple of nights, and we were taken to task for this, by the Administrators. We were able to keep better watch on him, after the third night, so nothing bad happened during the rest of the camp. On the day we left, however, he went by himself to the playground, climbed up on a piece of equipment, and suffered a mishap, which resulted in us taking him to the ER. We assured the administrators of the school that we did not hold them responsible for what he did without permission. The rest of the journey was error-free.

We lost Penny’s paternal grandfather, the inventor and businessman, Abraham C. “Al” Fellman, in late summer. “Grandpa Al” was 95. He had invented the Fellman Boot, the first combat boot with a non-slip tread. It was adopted for use by the U.S. Navy, in World War II. To think that two of my uncles wore this boot, on their respective destroyers, during the Battle of the Coral Sea, and the Battle of Midway, is quite a revelation. Al was a gracious and graceful, gentleman.

Life continued to be mostly a positive experience.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 21

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Education, Entertainment, Family, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 11, 2026- Hana is fully into practicing standing up, and is very clear about wanting me nearby, so she can hold onto me while boosting herself up. I am close by, anyway, to make sure she doesn’t have any hard falls. The play pen is high enough that there is no danger of her climbing over.

The bedtime struggles have started; essentially, she can be put in the crib at the same time, but it takes her longer to lie down and go to sleep. She has one teething ring and one plush toy in the crib, s she will fall asleep more from boredom than anything else-and I recommend to her parents that they go with that. Our girl is very active during the day. and needs her naps, so it will take her a bit more time at night, to wind down.

She is very good about telling me when she needs a diaper change and in reminding me that it’s her supper time, if her parents are running a little late in getting home from work. She likes most foods, but winces at the taste of stewed Roma tomatoes. Her favourites are the naturally sweet things, like carrots, apples and squash. She also likes salmon and chicken.

HANA’S NOTE- Papa had ice cream for dessert at lunch. I wish I could have ice cream!

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1994 I lost my youngest brother, Brian, in March. It will forever cast a shadow over St. Patrick’s Day, but he left us after blessing the family for nearly 29 years. He taught us love, forbearance, patience and the knowledge that there is value in every human life. All the lessons I absorbed, from watching my parents raise and safeguard him would become very valuable, in nine very short years.

Our summer started with Bellemont Baha’i Summer school, at the salubrious camp, fifteen miles west of Flagstaff. In the 1990s, we still had our meals prepared by a “chuckwagon crew”, three or four men who cooked everything over an outdoor cook stove. The program was well planned, with deepenings on both Baha’i history and the path to a more virtues-based society. Recreation was always vigorous. We provided both volleyball and badminton nets. Another staple was a youth trip to some Lava Tubes, northeast of Bellemont. Penny and I joined a group that climbed Kendrick Peak, an outlier of the San Francisco Peaks.

We made a trip eastward, including Aram’s first visit to the Baha’i House of Worship, in Wilmette, IL While we were praying silently, he snuck away and began to speak into the microphone. This earned him a sharp rebuke from the security guard. He later told me, “Daddy, I didn’t know Baha’is could be mean.” I told him there was difference between “mean” and strict, and that from now on, he needed to be quiet in the House of Worship.

Penny returned to work, in August, taking a second grade classroom. She lost no skills in her time away from teaching and her students were making great strides in the first semester, My counseling efforts benefited from the addition of a four-pronged program that the new Principal brought with her. She had been a counselor for several years, and I valued her recommendations, though her manner could be quite abrupt. The four prongs, Academic, Vocational, Social and Leisure. were able to be worked into my work with each class. I also was fully into the Red Ribbon program, which addressed substance abuse issues.

The Winter holidays meant a three-day Baha’i Winter school, at a hotel in Phoenix. A large group attended this, each year, with many dressed in their finest clothes. We were business casual, and enjoyed the gathering, nonetheless. Aram had a fairly good experience in the children’s classes, which focused on virtues. It was always pleasant in Phoenix, in December. New Year’s Eve always meant Penny’s parents’ anniversary, so we joined them in Prescott.

The decade had established a sweet routine.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day18

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 8, 2026– Hana wished for only one thing: A chew toy, something that means a lot to a teething infant. We were at a Korean restaurant, enjoying things like Suntubu (Spiced tofu soup), Tonkasu (Pork cutlet) and Naengmyun (Cold buckwheat noodles, in soy sauce). Hana is not ready to eat any of this. Her meal waited at home, so she sat, just waiting with varying degrees of patience. I promised her that next time, with her parents rushing about and getting ready, I would make sure to bring her favourite teething ring of the week.

She had not had an easy afternoon. When I finally got her to nap on my shoulder, and had brought her into the master bedroom, to put her in the crib, the Robo Disc was in there, cleaning the carpet. I brought her back out to the recliner for ten minutes. The cleaner announced that it was done, so back in the bedroom we went, and I put her in the crib. Ten minutes later, the yard crew showed up, four hours late, and started their lawnmowers and leaf blowers. Hana’s Mommy and Daddy arrived back from their errands, about that time, and she was only too glad to get out of the crib, the Master Bedroom being bordered by the back and west yards.

HANA’S NOTE- I don’t know who felt worse, me being woken up by people speaking words I only hear when Papa says his last prayer, or Papa himself, trying to make sure I got my afternoon nap.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1991- Nothing reminds a person how much they love someone like finding their loved one in unexpected distress. Of a March afternoon, as I arrived home earlier than planned, I found Penny with her ear cut, babbling and on her knees, in the bathroom. Aram, not yet three years old, was in the empty bath tub, bawling his eyes out. I took him out first, dried and clothed him and set him on a sleeping mat. Then, I tended to Penny, bandaging her ear, and picking her up off the floor and carrying her into the bedroom, then dressing her, Just at that moment, almost like a TV movie, her Korean language tutor came to the front door. I had Penny seated and let the tutor in. She called an ambulance and then told the apartment complex manager what had happened. Between the three of us, we got Penny in a chair and I took Aram in my arms and comforted him.

Long story short, the ER doctor found that Penny had an allergic reaction to Ibuprofen. He stitched the ear up and by the time he was done, she was again lucid and able to walk. The three of us went to a noodle shop and had a bite to eat, then caught a bus to the University complex. The next morning, my back went out and I had to slowly walk down to the bus stop and go downtown to a chiropractor. This is what happens when one has to lift another adult, who is deadweight, from the floor. Penny never again took Ibuprofen, to say the least.

The rest of the year saw my classes go smoothly, and our Baha’i activities, with some ups and downs, reach dozens of students and young workers. We went back to the U.S. for a few weeks in June and July, enjoying the beach in Massachusetts and fireworks in Livingston, NJ. Aram liked playing with his somewhat older cousins.

In October, though, we started getting pleas from Penny’s parents to return to the United States, when our visas were up for renewal. They were heartsick at not having their only grandson closer to them. After praying long and hard, we decided we would return- in the new year.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 14

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Education, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Travel

August 4, 2026- “All done! Aaahh.” With those words, my granddaughter pushed away her empty water cup, having cleaned her plate at lunch time. She cleans her plate every meal, so this was no surprise.

Earlier, no sooner had Yunhee placed a sloping wedge in the playpen, for Hana to climb (under supervision), than our little girl looked at me, standing outside the playpen and pushed the wedge over to the playpen wall, where I was standing. She then climbed up on the wedge and pulled herself up, using the wall. I held her back, and when she started to move backwards, gently lowered her to the wedge

The vigilance has thus gone a few notches higher. I know it is going to be all the more urgent, once Hana learns to walk-and run. She was quite proud of herself for having thought of using the wedge as a step, to look over the playpen wall.

When Aram called, to report the need to take his car to the shop, Hana listened, as I put the call on speaker. She called out “Talk to Daddy!”, which made his day. These little bits of commentary certainly make my days, also.

HANA’S NOTE- I like the lunch my Mommy makes for me. It is always easy to eat, and tastes good.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1987 In January, I was offered a Visiting Professorship. in Jeju National University’s Department of English Language Education, In February, I was told that I had to leave Korea while my employment visa was being processed. So, I returned to the United States, landing in Los Angeles, then flying to Portland, and continuing by bus to Seattle, then across the northern tier. My one and only visit to North Dakota, thus far, entailed being on a Greyhound that braved a blizzard. As we stopped, briefly, in Steele, ND, the driver remarked that if blizzards stopped buses, no one in North Dakota would go anywhere for six months. We left the snow behind in Chicago, then I went on through NYC to Boston. I spent a week with my mother, helping to soothe her still aching heart. I spent three days with Penny’s parents, in New Jersey, then took another bus to Greenville, South Carolina, where my brother Dave and his family were living at the time. I spent about ten days there, until I got word that my visa had been approved. I then went by bus across the South, passing through New Orleans on the morning of Ash Wednesday, thus seeing the mounds of debris, the morning after Mardi Gras. I took a plane from Phoenix to LA, then had to negotiate a flight back to Seoul and Jeju, as Korean Air was skeptical of my visa, for some reason. I got back to Jeju and gave Penny a pleasant surprise. (This was before cellular phones, mind you, so there was no way to call her, when I was having flight issues.)

My year as a professor involved a brief learning curve, with regard to the mind of the Korean university students (much more like high school students, in terms of maturity, back then). We endured months of active protests on the campus, on one occasion maintaining strict silence, as militant students marched down the hall of our building, clanging steel rods on the floor as they passed. A radical student in one of my classes told me that her friends would confine me to my office,if they knew I was in class. She and my other students did not want that to happen. so they kept still.

Penny and I went back to the U.S. again in summer, taking a five-week summer session at NAU, then spending a few weeks in New Jersey and Massachusetts, before returning to Korea in late August. The family visits would be our summer routine, for each of the years that we were in Korea- except for the year to come. Another big change was coming to our lives.

The Hana Chronicles: Month 7, Day 13

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Education, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

August 3, 2026- Hana has taken to kneeling and looking at the camera that is above her crib, when she wants someone to come to her. She will start babbling, in a sensible cadence, so I know that she is thinking about what to say. Her appetite has also increased, since her upper incisors have come in.

She comes to me, in the playpen, when she wants to practice standing. It is easier to grab onto Papa than onto the play pen lining, and besides, I will both hold her up and cheer her on. Although “I am Baby” is one of her latest phrases, she has a quite elevated agenda, for a seven-month-old.

HANA’S NOTE- I like it when Daddy calls, because then Papa lets me listen to the phone call. Any other time, the phone is off-limits.

YEAR IN REMEMBRANCE-1986 This was another seismic year. Late on a January night, I took a call from South Korea. A Baha’i friend there, who knew that Penny was getting her Master’s Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language, called to ask whether she would be interested in taking his position: Visiting Professor of English, in the Department of English Language and Literature, at Jeju National University. Her half-conscious response was: “Sure, why not?”

Despite a lot of internal back and forth on the matter, she took the position and we began to uncouple from Tuba City. We made arrangements to move ourselves, and our household items, in August. We left Tuba in June and spent two months at NAU, in Flagstaff. I was taking courses towards a School Administrative Certificate, and had 12 credits left to earn. Six of those credits were covered that summer.

It was only two weeks into the summer session, when I got the phone call that my father had passed away. On a Sunday morning, his heart failed him, as he prepared for a routine visit to my youngest brother’s residential facility. I made flight arrangements, almost immediately, in rather a foggy state of mind, and called one of my professors, to explain the situation. He promised to tell my other professor. Penny was unable to join me, as her key exam was the following Saturday. We went to get her food for the week, as I would have the car to drive to Phoenix. Then, I was off. I got to Boston around 11 p.m., meeting my brother, Dave at Logan Airport. A short time later, I was holding my mother as tightly as I had when her mother had passed, thirty-six years earlier. It was a week of remembrance, giving and receiving solace and yard work. I enlisted the help of a few uncles and cousins for my mother, before I left to go back to Arizona.

We arrived in South Korea, in mid-August. A week was spent with American friends in Osan, outside of Seoul. Acclimating to Korean life in Metro Seoul was a bit like assimilating to American life, by living in New York or Los Angeles, It was a bit of a Boot Camp, though, and we were in fairly good shape, by the time we went down to Jeju. A few weeks later, we were in our Teacherage, Penny began her teaching work and I spent my days tutoring a few Korean students and getting to know the coffee houses of downtown Jeju. Penny and I also went to the southern island town of Seogwip’o. As it happened, the area had just been hit by a typhoon, and we saw lot of clean-up going on.

My own work as a Visiting Professor of English would start, early the following year.