me Tarzan, you fell

So, says the storyteller, sitting in a chair by the fireside, a gin and tonic in his hand, did I ever tell you about the time I broke my arm? It was 1998. I was eleven years old, and a reluctant Boy Scout. My troop and I were camped just off the road running past Norris Dam, on the Clinch River in eastern Tennessee. It was just an inch away from car camping, really. The vehicles were parked a few hundred yards from the tents. This would prove to be fortunate. My memories of being a Boy Scout are not fond ones. I wasn't in the best of troops. I was a pretty wimpy kid, and the other guys were far from supportive or brotherly. I'd been on several outings with them already, and none were the kind I'd remember wistfully. But during this trip, I thought things were really going to turn around. The weather was beautiful (unlike Big Hump, which was negative temperatures coupled with 30 mile-an-hour winds; it was snowing sideways). Dad and my brother Harlan were along, meaning yours truly, Mommy's boy, wouldn't be left all alone (unlike Savage Gulf, where I was crying and moping and smelly all week because I'd forgotten to pack soap). Camp Jim was a marvelous place, too. It was a big, wide clearing in the woods, floored with dry brown soil, packed hard. It sloped gently upward to meet the wooded flank of a ridge. The trees surrounding and dotting the clearing seemed impossibly tall to me back then. The sunlight trickled down through the canopy and dappled the forest floor with those dancing bits of sunlight which I found (and still do find) so dazzlingly wonderful. All in all, it was a picturesque spot. But most importantly, it seemed the other guys in the troop were beginning to warm up to me. Near the center of the clearing was a particularly gigantic tree. I'm afraid I can't remember its exact dimensions. And I was so short back then that it must've been a lot smaller than it seemed. In my memory, it was gigantic, the next thing to the California redwoods. It was a towering oak, gray-barked and rough, no branches less than 30 above the ground, the trunk so wide that six of us would've had to link arms to encircle it. An enormous tree in the camp would've been awesome enough for us. But no, this one just happened to have thick brown vines hanging from it. And what's more, one of them was swingable. I was wandering around camp one golden afternoon not long after we'd arrived, a bit bored and a bit tired. (Two owls had chosen the wee hours of the morning to start having a conversation, and one of them happened to be perched in the tree right above our tent. And these owls didn't hoot, either. They screamed. Nobody in the camp got much sleep that night.) I look over and I see the guys swinging on this vine. And I think, cool. Here's the setup: the massive tree is just at the foot of the slope of the ridge. In front of it, the ground slopes gently down for a few yards, then suddenly drops fast—a steep embankment, the wall of a shallow gully running through the camp from north to south. This makes the vine-swing that much more thrilling. The guys, grabbing the vine and pushing off the trunk of the tree, swing out over the gentle slope, and then over the embankment. At the farthest outward point in their swing, they are about 15 feet above the ground or so. I make up my mind to try that swing or die in the attempt. The guys make room in the line for me, something I wasn't expecting. Surprised and gratified, I take my place and wait eagerly for my turn. I watch my predecessors take theirs, trying to pick up tips. Push off from the tree as hard as you can. Grasp the vine and climb up the side of the trunk a little to give yourself some extra height and oomph. Push to the side, making your swing wider, longer, more circular and less ovoid. I'm not the only one watching the proceedings. One of the older boys—I think his name was Lee or something—is also perusing, standing on the gentle slope below the tree. The guys are swinging directly over his head. Lee's extremely tall—must be nearing six feet. He's also quite thin and gangly, like most boys his age. My turn comes. My heart in my mouth, I grab hold of the vine, bend my knees as far as they'll go, and push with all my might. It's wonderful. I go swinging out, clutching the rough bark of the vine for all I'm worth, the sudden breeze blowing back my hair, the sunlight sparkling through the leaves high above, the ground dropping suddenly away until it seems I'm as high as a bird, I can see the whole camp and practically everybody in it, I can even see through the trees and over the hill to the road and the Clinch River beyond—and then suddenly I'm swinging back, and I pivot and kick out my legs to stop myself smashing into the other side of the tree. Breathless, I hand the vine to the next lucky bugger, and get in line again. No way one swing is enough. It seems to take ages, but eventually I'm back at the front of the line again. I grasp the vine (I'm probably grinning like a punch-drunk monkey), climb even higher up the trunk, and push off even harder. I start my outward swing— And suddenly it feels like someone clamped a ball-and-chain around my ankles. I can barely hold on. My grip is slipping, the rough bark of the vine skinning my hands. I glance down. Lee, the older boy, is hanging onto my shoes. He's swinging along with me. I look up. We're over the embankment. My head empties. My only thought now is to hold on. The ride is forgotten, except inasmuch as I really, really want to get off now. I try to hold on. If I lose it now, we're falling a long way. But I can't do it. Lee is just too heavy. Just as we reach the peak of the swing and begin to head back, I lose my grip. Those few split-seconds that I fall 15 feet and land on the slope of the embankment are a terrifying, toxic blur. WHAM. Lee rolls away, unhurt. I land on my hands and knees on the steepest part of the embankment, facing uphill. I know I'm hurt. But I've never broken a bone before, and I don't know the signs. My arm doesn't hurt yet, but there's that numb sort of feeling which precedes pain. It's in both of my arms and both my knees. How I managed to avoid planting my face in the dirt, I'll never know. Maybe it was the slope that saved me, who knows. But it does a number on my right wrist. Even after I've been picked up, dusted off and set to rights, it keeps throbbing. And in a few minutes, it starts to hurt. It starts to hurt like hell. Even sitting perfectly still, it hurts as though it's going to fall off. And if I try to move it, or even touch it, however slightly, fresh waves of raw agony shoot through my whole arm. Dad doesn't believe I've done anything serious to myself. He observes me on the floor of our tent, cradling my arm to my chest, whimpering, tears in my eyes, and says "Oh, come on. You're all right." Later, I felt rather sorry for him. Mom really tore him a new one for not believing I was hurt. In Dad's defense, I didn't fall that far, nor land that hard. It was inconceivable that I should've broken something. Pop probably just thought I was scraped up a little, and was trying to get me to toughen up. I'm glad he tried, at least. Dad and the troop leaders try various things on my arm: wrapping it in bandages; ice packs; warm water; immobilization. Nothing works. Eventually, the call is made. I'll have to be taken to the hospital. Dad calls up Mom and she comes A.S.A.P, driving our huge Ford B-Wagon van. That thing was amazingly capacious. With two seats up front and two benches in back, plus a vast amount of cargo space, it was the Post family's workhorse for nearly ten years. It chauffeured a family of four (and two dogs) on numerous picnics, transported entire soccer teams, supplied car campers with a week's rations, and was the best thing for a relaxing after-lunch nap while driving home from the restaurant. My memory blanks out here. I don't remember the ride from camp to the hospital at all. Such is my curse. I have an awful memory, and it's photographic to boot. This means that conversations, sounds, sights, and sensations are often utterly lost, and all I'm left with are images. I'm fortunate to remember as much of this incident as I have. I don't remember what explanation Lee gave for leaping up and grabbing my feet. I don't remember how the other guys reacted to our fall. I don't remember much of anything apart from what I've told you here, unfortunately. My apologies. The X-rays come back and the tall, dark-haired doctor puts it up for us to see. I have a spidery crack halfway through my radius. Nothing that needs to be set or splinted, fortunately, but enough to technically qualify as a "break." It also qualifies for a cast. Now that I've had some anesthetics put into my system and can actually move my arm without wanting to scream, I'm rather pleased. That's the way I recall feeling, anyway. I got to go home early from the Boy Scout trip and had a broken bone into the bargain. I didn't want to break a bone, mind you, but I felt it was something I needed to do at some point in my life. And have a cast. Then I could hold my eleven-year-old head up and proclaim, "I am a man of the world. I have broken a bone, and worn a cast. In your face, Herman." I don't know who Herman is. He just stands for all those bullies at recess who called me a girl or a wuss or a homo. For some unexplained reason, I picked the color orange for my cast. I don't know why. It didn't have anything to do with football. The colors of the University of Tennessee (with whom Peyton Manning was playing at the time) were orange and white, and all of Knoxville lit up with those colors every game day. But I was too young (or too wussy) to like football yet. I just liked the color orange. So they put it on. It went from my wrist up to my elbow, extending between my thumb and index finger. This made it impossible to hold a fork or a pencil, but I grinned and bore it for six long weeks. And I got all my classmates at middle school to sign it. I felt good and proud and accomplished for the first time in my life. I look back on the whole affair now with mingled amusement and shame. I'm ashamed that I couldn't have been stronger and held on to the vine as long as it took to return to the tree safely, even if I skinned my hands raw. That would've been the brave, selfless, manly thing to have done. Maybe that's what Lee was trying to teach me, I don't know. I'm just glad he didn't get hurt. I'm ashamed that I spent the rest of the afternoon moaning and groaning and writhing in the tent. That wasn't very manly, either. I'm amused at how the whole thing must've looked, though. Tiny Little Me, swinging on a vine. Tall Skinny Guy grabs my shoes. Suddenly TLM is swinging from the vine, and TSG is swinging from me. That must've been a sight. Then suddenly TLM lets go and the whole shebang plunges to earth. TLM spends the rest of the afternoon crying and whining on the floor of the tent. There was a lesson to be learned here, but it's temporarily escaped the author's mind. AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the first of the fireside chats that I mentioned earlier. Well, not really the first. I've already told a few stories on this blog. There's the one about how I fell into a pond in fall in Ohio when I was a kid; another concerning a certain all-night party in Korea that nearly resulted in a lost watch; and a third—oh yeah, did you know that I once saved a rabbit's life? Ever wonder what living in a Buddhist temple is like? Check 'em out. There's much more to come. P.S. I've decided to postpone that award-ceremony thingy until tomorrow, and combine it with the news report I've been compiling. I've got some rather juicy tidbits for you. We have a new dog, for starters. The garbage truck got stuck in the sand up the road a couple days ago, too. HALLELUJAH, I passed the big scary test on shots yesterday! This morning I had my first flight lesson in a month and a half; I went "under the hood" for the second time. Dad has tapped me to play bartender for the dinner party he's hosting tonight. And did I mention how nice the weather's been down here lately?

a rain of strawberry leaves

In recognition of the fact that I am a gosh darn coward and have been rationalizing like a bloody fool about not buying something at Gohyeon Sijang (the open-air market in the northwest-central part of town), I decided to cut the Gordian knot, take the bull by the horns, carpe diem and all those other turns of phrase and do it. I also decided to get some pictures; I haven't been to many open-air markets in foreign countries, but Gohyeon's strikes me as a charming sort of place, and iconic in its way. Some of the Asian markets I've seen on documentaries (be they Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian or otherwise) all seem to have some common themes: narrow lanes, overhanging awnings and umbrellas, goods and wares arranged in an orderly fashion every which-way, exploding out of the shops and onto the walkway, and crowds and crowds of people milling around, haggling, buying this and that, while vendors hawk their wares or busily prepare them.

Gohyeon Sijang embodies that ideal and manifests those attributes. So I decided to get some pictures and buy some stuff. Any stuff. Just to prove to myself that could do it.

It worked.

Sunday had been a semi-big day already. I woke up at nine, got some milk at the corner store, then came back and made some pancakes. It's true I made them from a mix, but hey, they were recognizably pancakes. I burnt 'em a bit but they still tasted great. I cooked up some bacon, too, and poured the generic Korean brand of maple syrup (still recognizably maple syrup) all over everything. Delicious, I'd forgotten how much I'd missed it. Back home in my folks' house there's a big pancake breakfast every Sunday; it got to be a tradition, like homemade pizzas on Wednesday nights.

Anyway, that was that. Then, after doing my exercises (over the span of an hour; I can't be bothered to really push myself), I put on my camera, grabbed Michael Palin's book Hemingway Adventure (on loan from Jeff) and strode out. First I thought I'd return Jeff's book, but either he wasn't in or he was still asleep. Then I walked up to Adam and Elaine's and knocked on their door. I wanted to get some pictures of Bo Jenkins to send to the relations. While I was there, Adam and I thought we'd finally attempt to trim the rabbit's claws; they were monstrously, hideously long. Either its previous owners had neglected it or it had been on its own for a long time. Bo Jenkins did well on his left anterior paw, but when we switched to his right he became somewhat skittish and darted back into his cage. We decided to leave his remaining two limbs for later. I was beginning to sneeze from the alfalfa anyway.

It happened that A & E were on their way to Homeplus to do some weekend food shopping as well as restock on rabbit supplies, and I was headed that way myself to attain some gifts for my grandparents. I'm sending some acacia honey, a Korean specialty, to my grandfather, some coffee mugs, some red ginseng tea for Grandma, and some assorted snacks such as they always kindly send me: nuts, cookies, and the like. I'm sending that off tomorrow with my brother Harlan's twenty-first (yikes!) birthday card. I also wanted to secure a high-capacity USB drive; I realized that my laptop is aging rapidly and if it goes I'll lose all of the high-definition photos I've taken while I've been here. So we all strode down to Homeplus together. We stopped to check out a couple of pet stores along the way, but they were devoid of rabbit-related products.

Adam was starving, so we dropped in at Lotteria (the Korean fast-food joint) and ordered up. I thought it was high time I tried a bulgogi burger. I got it and found it rather good, actually. It tasted like a regular burger with bulgogi sauce, but bulgogi sauce ain't bad: kind of like a sweetish, tasty barbecue sauce. Elaine decided she didn't like her chicken sandwich, so Adam and I split it. It was soggy but palatable. Adam and Elaine pronounced themselves more satisified with their Lotteria experience this time around; last time they'd complained of small, soggy, old, stale burgers, some of the worst quality they'd had. This time around was better. Perhaps it's best to go later in the day when the staff have had time to clear out the day-old stock.

After a few more detours to appliance stores and ATMs for camera pricing and cash (respectively) we arrived at Homeplus and did our shopping. Then we returned in a cab, and I came back down to my place, dumped off my USB drive (four gigs) and my other shopping, then hauled my camera back on, got some cash out of an ATM, then went to the market to impulse photograph/buy. I'm still a coward. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I could or should have, simply because I was scared of ticking off the vendors or shopkeepers. Heck, I'm going to be gone in a few months anyway. What are they going to do, lynch me?

Still, the shots I did get were good. Have a look:

In the meantime, I also did some impulse buying. A few days earlier I'd seen a hat I'd liked at a clothing stall for 8,000 won. I jumped at that one first. I bought it up and couldn't be happier about it. I'll get a picture of myself wearing it up here soon.

Then I thought I needed some food. I wanted to buy a stingray right then and there; the catalyst for this new expatriate inadequacy complex of mine was the fact that I'd considered buying fish from the fish market. Adam suggested I just look up a recipe on the Internet, buy a fish and take my chances. That was such an astonishingly good and simple idea that my insecure brain immediately collapsed into a miasma of self-deprecation and reproach. Hence this whole trip to the market. I was having salad that night, and my freezer was already stuffed with a couple of left-over gray mullet, otherwise I would've purchased the strangest fish I could find, no matter the cost.

Given the circumstances, though, I settled for strawberries. I was walking along the main street and saw an elderly lady vendor offering strawberries. I asked the price: 14,000. That was stiff, but I went for it. I didn't realize I was supposed to haggle. I didn't realize I'd get a whole basketful of them, either, along with two plastic bowls for carrying. The whole affair was loaded into a plastic bag and I, overwhelmed but nonetheless elated at my achievements, took the load and soldiered on. I made a loop around the outside of the market, doubled back through the fish vendors, and wound up back at my starting point by the clothing stalls. This time I noticed some cargo pants that looked like they'd fit me. I was starting to get low on usable pants, so I purchased them for 11,900 won.

Thus laden, I snapped a few more pics and vamoosed. I got back to my room, took a shower, washed up the strawberries, took them up to the roof with my copy of 50 Great Short Stories, then sat, read and munched in the evening light. The put the strawberries in my mouth, tore off the leaves with my hand, and sent them fluttering in the breeze down to the street four stories below. There was a veritable rain of strawberry leaves falling on that street this evening.

Now I'm blogging, cutting up a tomato for my salad, listening to Herbert von Karajan conducting Beethoven's Eighth Symphony in F Major (whaddya know, YouTube is good for something), and will soon load up another dubbed episode of One Piece to enjoy before I go down to the pub with Brian at eleven.

Oh yeah, I need to look up some fish recipes too.

the three-legged rabbit of Geoje-do

I like to take walks. I dislike exercise, for its own sake at least. I'm much happier playing sports or swimming or doing something that stimulates my pleasure centers while I exert myself. I hate running. When I run all I think about is running, running. There's nothing for my brain to do but keep my feet moving, and in the absence of any suitable occupation my brain chooses to start thinking about how tired I am, how hard it is to breathe, how my muscles are aching, and how long I have to keep running until I can stop, and so on. The result is that I psych myself out. The exhaustion contemplated by my brain manifests itself in my limbs. I think about being tired, so I become more tired. Ironically, my brain's idleness makes my body tuckered out. It's infuriating and discouraging.

So I walk. Walking lets my mind wander as well as my feet. I think about all sorts of things when I go out for walks. It clears my head; it is diverting, yet tranquil. It's a recently developed habit; when I think about it, I guess I started in college. I walked infrequently but when I did I always enjoyed myself, and the meditative state I cultivated. In Wyoming I started doing it more frequently, at Lions Park a few blocks from my folks' house. I walked around Sloans Lake at sunset, watched the trees, the other pedestrians, the planes landing at Cheyenne Regional, the cars going by on Yellowstone Road and 8th Avenue, the immaculate golden sunlight filtering through the leaves...and just thought and moseyed, thought and moseyed.

Here in K-Land my favorite place to walk is down by Gohyeoncheon, the Gohyeon River. It's really little more than a stream, hardly deep enough to drown in. Close to the harbor it's downright ugly, sunk into a wide trench with city buildings on either side, nothing but slimy rocks poking up out of the dirty brown water, with the more-than-occasional piece of trash or abandoned bicycle. Level with my apartment building, though, the river is much nicer: more vegetation, less trash, more wildlife, and a pleasant path leading along the bank. Good place for contemplation, the Gohyeon River is. You have to watch out for that one stretch just after the outhouse, around the bridge they're constructing; it's so rocky that a meditative wanderer can easily stumble. The rest of it's fine, though: you can drag your feet while your mind is busy soaring with relatively little danger of bodily injury.

So, I was on my way down to the river for a contemplative stroll one Saturday back in late February. It was an enviable day: the sun was warm but the breeze was still cold. I was approaching the construction site, which I habitually cut through to reach the river walk, when I saw something odd. Or rather, two somethings odd. There was a ball of fur being chased by another ball of fur. As I got closer, the two indistinct fur-blobs resolved themselves into a scrawny cat pursuing a small white rabbit. I could immediately see the rabbit was in severe difficulties; the cat was close on his tail, and worrying him. As the two shapes closed, the rabbit set up a piteous wail. I increased my pace instinctively. I could hear the Superman theme playing in the background as I bounded over the pavement in slow motion. I pounded up just as the poor bunny was about to give up the ghost. He collapsed in a patch of mud. The cat closed in. I hollered at it and waved my arms. It backed off. I slung a few well-judged rocks in its direction. The cat decided that just as discretion was the better part of valor, not getting creamed by a jagged rock was the better part of discretion, and fled. The rabbit lay panting heavily in its chosen patch of mud.

I didn't know what to do. The animal was quite clearly a pet. It had snow-white fur, marred in a few places by brown spots (it had brown ears, and brown patches around its eyeballs that somehow only accentuated its already considerable cuteness). It was slightly muddy; it looked as if it had been living rough for a while. In my innocence, I assumed that it had escaped from a private house, rather than been dumped by unwilling owners, as Charles later surmised. I decided I'd let the poor animal rest up a bit before attempting to move it to a drier location. After that...I figured I'd let it fend for itself. My mind had callously set itself against the idea of adopting it, despite its cuteness. Little did I realize the complete and utter sentimental turnaround I would make later that day.

...in about five minutes, in fact, after the rabbit's breathing had slowed. I cautiously approached it, stroked it, talked softly to it, reassured it. Then I put my hands gently under it (fortunately it was tiny, and easy to hold) and lifted. That's when I noticed that one of its back legs was swinging loose like a wind chime. I stared for a moment. It didn't take a genius to figure out that its left hind leg was broken, and badly. It was hanging by the tendons. All thought of abandoning the rabbit to its fate left my mind in that instant. I dithered some more, gave a few more plaintive looks to the pedestrians and bicyclists riding by (who took absolutely no notice of either myself or the rabbit), then made up my mind. I took off my undershirt, bundled the rabbit up in it (he relieved himself in it almost immediately), then took him to a nearby animal hospital I knew. By now his eyes were dimmed and his breathing shallow; he was going into shock. In a near-panic I hurried as best I know how while carrying the awkward bundle.

The rabbit survived the jolting trip, and the vet received me with broken English. After an examination he managed to communicate that the rabbit's femur was broken. He said an operation was necessary and that metal pins would have to be placed in the leg. The bill would be 300,000 won (about $270). The vet doubtfully asked me if I wanted to proceed. I thought for about five minutes, then said yes. The bunny looked so helpless laying there; I felt I didn't have any other choice. It was either that or euthanasia. Besides, I'd gone to all the trouble of bundling him up in my shirt and bringing him here; why stop now just when things were looking hopeful?

The vet tranquilized the rabbit and strapped his abused little body down onto a frame, spread-eagling him on his back. He looked like a heretic in the clutches of the Inquisitors, but the vet was gentle as could be as he went to work. He opened up the leg and had a look. The rabbit twitched occasionally; the anesthetic must have been shallow, for the vet injected another dose. Then he looked grave. He dialed up his sister on his cell phone and handed it to me; she spoke better English, he said. So we began a strange conversation that involved speaking with the sister in Korean (the vet), then English (me), and handing the phone back and forth in between. Through her, the vet told me that the damage was worse than he'd suspected; the bones were splintered beyond repair. The leg would have to be amputated, and the rabbit would likely be euthanized. His sister assured me that was best. With seemingly no other option, I reluctantly agreed.

For the next hour the vet sawed, hacked, and cut at the leg, with the poor bunny twitching madly even through a double dose of tranquilizers. At one point its struggles became so pathetic I held onto its little paw. The operation concluded, the last bit of iodine-stained skin sewed together over the bone stump, and the mangled leg laying on the table, bloodied and bent, I paid the readjusted fee of 150,000 won and the vet bowed me out of the clinic. I walked home, dejected. All that agony the rabbit had to endure and he was going to wind up euthanized. It seemed rather hard. My mother suggested I follow up, and tactfully and gently suggested I adopt it, or arrange for someone else to. I hadn't considered that latter suggestion, but now it seemed better and better all the time. I was getting kind of fond of that little white rabbit; the thought that it had just three legs only intensified its charm. I owed it to that rabbit to save its life, anyway; I had to finish what I started.

The vet had said he would keep the rabbit until Monday and then take it to be euthanized in person at City Hall. I had Charles, the wonderful and obliging head teacher of my hagwon, make a phone call to the vet's on Monday morning. Luck was with the little lagomorph. The vet, impressed by my kindness (as Charles said), had decided not to euthanize the rabbit and was holding onto it in the hope that someone would adopt it. I was over the moon. I immediately set about petitioning. I asked Adam and Elaine over cards that weekend and they agreed to take it. We stopped by the vet's a few days later to assure him that we would take it off his hands in a few weeks (after payday, so Adam and Elaine could buy the necessary equipment).

When payday came, we waltzed down to Homeplus, purchased shavings, pellets, a bottle, a feed dish, and a cage, then returned to the vet's and secured the rabbit. He is now installed in the living room of Adam and Elaine's apartment, getting big on plentiful pellets and alfalfa. He's a little leery of the slippery linoleum floor, but he doesn't mind it if you put a towel down for him. None of us could agree on a name. I was all for Hopper, or better yet Stumpy (in honor of a tabby cat once owned by my grandparents who had a similar number of limbs); Adam was leaning toward Long John, in honor of the Stevenson tale; Elaine, however, insisted on Bo Jenkins. That name has stuck. Bo Jenkins he is and shall likely remain.

Adam and I attempted to trim his nails today (the twelfth, Easter Sunday); we managed to get one of his forepaws done but he got skittish about the others. His claws were monstrously, hideously long; he'd been abandoned some time before I found him, I reckoned. The past is past. Bo is getting better by the week at moving around on three legs, and is braver, friendlier and bigger every time I see him. It does my heart good to know that there are kind people like Adam and Elaine who will give their hearts and homes to a furry little animal; and also to know that there's one less abandoned, lonely, cold, preyed-upon bunny in this world.

I think Bo Jenkins might feel the same way.