I left Incheon airport on July 29^th, a crowded and busy Saturday morning,

the beginning  day of most Korean corporations’ summer holiday week, heading

for my second home town, Chicago.   

   Seoul, along with the entirety of south Korea was still in the middle of the hot,

sultry  JANGMA season.  Tancheon(炭川), the tributary of the Han river passing

through Bundang district, was still swollen and  muddy  with the daily  pouring  

of heat and warm rain.

   The usual catfish or carps  are hard to find  these  days.  Life is brutal  for these

two summer months here in Korea.  I feel sorry for myself and any of our friends in

places like Houston or New Orleans.

After a thirteen hour flight over the Pacific, with a few cat naps here and there, reading

entire August  issue of magazine  Shin-Dong -A(新東亞), from page 1 to 550, my wife

Sook and I arrived in the Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.  Strangely enough,

because of  the time change, it was on the same day we departed, that Saturday morning.  

As we  stepped out of the airport, I felt heavenly. 

Across the pacific, half way in to the American continent, it had stopped raining.  

The sun was bright and cotton was really  high.  The clean air and cool breeze  licked

my lung, my face, and my soul, and  I knew for sure the livin’ would  be easy for the next

couple of weeks here.    Yes!  The earth, meadow, grove, and stream and every common

sight to me did seem apparelled in celestial light, and yet I know the rainbow comes and

will go.  (*W.Wordsworth).

Though I am not a Hemingway’s old man, and I have not been following major league

baseball  closely anymore, on my way home from the airport, I did ask  my Limo-driver

 how the Cubs were doing this year;  he  confirmed they  are sitting nicely on the top of

 the National League  Central division.

I picked up  an Italian sandwich at Jimmy John’s for lunch.   My empty house was still there,

 waiting for us.  I turned the air conditioner on , looked around, and saw the familiar

oak trees  and some left-over wild flowers in my back yard through the windows.

Day 1: next day.

Jet lag!  Who’d care?.  I dozed  on & off  on my couch whenever I felt like and woke up

whenever I felt like.   I awakened  in the  near dark , found  myself  in the familiar bed .

 Tip-toed out of bed quietly and  looked  outside through the living room windows.

There was   wash of  pale light in lower sky in the east, over the dark silhouettes  of

my oak trees in the front yard .  My leisurely morning started over a cup of coffee in

my study, checking  E-mails, putting some electronic signatures(결재) for the hospital

business, reviewing  patients’ census through  SNUBH-EMR(electronic medical record).

 “All quiet on the Eastern Front.” noted……

 In the matter of short hour, the sun light came all of a sudden, as the birds chirping

bright  in clusters.  Walking in my back yard, I  noted a new bird nest under the western

eaves of the roof . The leaves of  the grass were fresh green , painted with morning dew

and the sun was shining bright white light through the thin early morning mist.

“It is  going to be another beautiful, perfect  summer day in Midwest, USA” I thought.

 I asked my wife “What you wanna do today?” 

“Nothing!  Do you have to do something, always? ‘’answered she in some  sarcasm.

After few hours of do-nothing, we got itch and  got out of the house.

It was already mid afternoon. Walked along  my beloved  Fox River in the neighborhood,

stopping  on and off under shadows  of the trees, watching  the clouds float across

the blue sky,  listened  to the murmur of the  warm river  slowly flowing  south  

to join the  Mississipi. 

    A young guy was sitting in a bench with a girl on the river-walk .  He said “Hi!”  to us

and  introduced  himself that he was an anesthesiologist briefly at our hospital few years

ago, also worked with my son, Mark,  in the downtown hospital,as well..

Now vaguely remembering his face,  we talked about mutual friends for a while and

caught up each other.

  We decided to stop by the St. Charles  Library to renew the membership card, especially

to borrow E Books from Korea and downloaded  three for my I PAD and couple for my

wife’s.   With an ambitious plan for this vacation, I chose “Lord Jim”, “Old man and Sea”

and  Collected Poems(English) of Marcel Proust, knowing very well that I would be lucky if I 

could  finish half of these. Anyway, I felt I  am well deserved this luxury of free service given by

the local government of St Charles, considering all the taxes  I paid over the  years.

  We wandered to the cozy downtown-plaza area  to have early light dinner.

The streets were charming & picturesque  as ever, with the familiar old  archtectures 

of 19^th century  buildings, old shops, antique shops,rusty  old style barber shops----

Six PM.

The sun  was still bright, not ready to go down yet.  Cool breeze still pleasant.

It was gentle evening  wind  from the West, an ode  across the endless prarie, green

corn fields of  of Iowa , Wisconsin, Nebraska

  People  were coming out from the small local play house “Steel Beam Theatre” after

a  show,   which I never got the chance to explore over the years, in spite of 5 minutes’

driving-distance   from my house.  They were announcing the year-end program, “It’s a

wonderful life” and "Christmas Carol” on the bill board. For sure, I will bring my

grand-kids this time to watch one of those plays  for a family night out, when I come

back  around Thanksgiving time.

  This evening, through the windows of the small Italian restaurant, yes ! my wife and I  saw

 "the colors of the rainbow pretty in the sky, on the faces of people walking by,

 the friends shaking hands, saying “how do you do?”’(What a wonderful world!  by

 Bob Thiele  & George David Weiss).