Category: Years past

I lived in New Hampshire at the time and was at Greeley Park in Nashua, N.H., on September 27, 1999, when John McCain formally announced his candidacy for the Presidency . . . the first time. It was supposed to have happened earlier, in the spring. In March, however, the Kosovo War broke out and, while he issued a simple statement then that he was a candidate, he postponed the “roadshow.”

In one respect, at least, the schedule change worked out. His memoir, Faith of My Fathers, was published in August and it’s best-seller status gave an impetus and brought a strong message to the start of the campaign. After Sen. Warren Rudman (N.H.) read a brief passage from the book when he introduced McCain to the crowd, McCain thanked Rudman and then added, “You can still buy the book.”

Here is a video of the event (16:07)

I edited out many of the many applause sections. This was his crowd, so applause, approval, respect were extensive. Even had the University of New Hampshire cheerleaders on his side.

His talk summed up much of the philosophical underpinnings of his campaign. I edited out much of the specific policy commitments. It seems he was prescient, at least a little, talking about the need to change the scale of division and cynicism among Americans. At around the 12:10 mark, he says, in the context of protectionism and isolationism,, at least, “Walls are for cowards.”

He also speaks about how he intended to campaign respecting the dignity of the office he sought and of the people whom he would serve.

It is also a bit eerie, hearing it now, how often he makes reference to “when my time is over” and such as the speech concludes. And, also, that the first burst of song at the speech’s conclusion is the recitation of “Freedom, freedom, freedom” by Aretha Franklin. 

Being the start of a Presidential campaign, the McCain family was there. Well, at least his wife, Cindy, and the children they had and had adopted. (He had adopted his first wife’s two children and they had a third, born in 1966.)

Children present were: Meghan, then just about to turn 15; John Sidney McCain IV, 13; Jimmy, 11; and Bridget, adopted from a Bangladesh orphanage at the age of three months, 8. Meghan’s the most well-known, of course, as a co-host of The View. John graduated from the Naval Academy and is a helicopter pilot. Jimmy joined the Marines at age 17 and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Bridget, I believe, lives at home.

You’ll also see some media types from the day, both local (John Henning and Dan Rea of Boston’s WBZ 4) and national (Jack Germond and Newsweek‘s Howard Fineman [remember Newsweek?]).

At one point, McCain says that soon every school will be connected to the Internet. Remember, it’s still the 20th Century and a lot of people are worried about Y2K.

I volunteered to assist the McCain campaign and ended up  being designated chairman of the Durham McCain Committee. I also ended up the only member of the committee. I don’t mean to say there were no other McCain supporters in town. Indeed, McCain trounced Bush in Durham, 882 to 440. Those other voters were just not as public as I was, I guess. In the Democratic primary, Durham voters were more numerous, with 1,333 voting for Bill Bradley and 802 for Al Gore.

I attended strategy meetings and fundraising events, as well as several of McCain’s “town halls.” I had the pleasure of shaking hands and chatting with the Senator several times. He signed a copy of Faith of My Fathers, along with a personal message. Closer to election day, I made phone calls. On the day of the primary, I stood outside a couple of different polling places, pretty much all day, with my McCain sign. At one point, I think mid-afternoon, some GOP officials dropped by to say hello to the volunteers. A woman, whom I later learned was a member of the Republican National Committee, came up to me and said, sotto voce, “Your guy seems to be doing really well.”

He did. Totals at the end of the night were McCain 115,606 and Bush 72,330. What Senator McCain described as a “mission” in his announcement turned out not to be successful. A reprise in 2008 got him the nomination, but not the prize. I’m disappointed we didn’t get to know what John McCain would have done as President.

When I wasn’t walking around Yongsan on duty, or sitting in my hotel room, I spent a lot of time walking around Seoul. As you’ll see in the videos, the Hilton was located in central downtown, near many tourist sites, as well as market areas.

There are three videos in this post. Part I has scenes of the hotel interior and street scenes, particularly the Dongdaemun Market area. Part II focuses on the Deoksugang Palace complex and Namsan Park. Part III contains clips from Korean television. I found the ads particularly interesting in terms of conveying Korean life. Not that it portrayed the lives of average Koreans accurately, but gave glimpses of styles, etc., I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. There will be a gallery of video captures with each video, so you can see whether the content may be of interest.

(I apologize for the graininess of the videos. I shot them, I believe, on a VHS video camera. I then digitized that video relatively recently and edited in iMovie. It’s like watching broadcasts of old football games on TV now.)

First, an anecdote about something that did not involve walking around, shooting video. As I mentioned in the earlier post, it’s about eating traditional Korean food. Actually, it’s more about just an interesting experience that involved dinner.

A fellow reservist, from San Jose, was big in the Jaycees, the Junior Chamber of Commerce, which had an international component. Through that organization, he had come to know a Korean who owned three, as I recall, Holiday Inns in Seoul. The reservist told me he had been invited to join this gentleman for dinner while we were in Seoul and he invited me and another reservist to come along. We went to one of the Holiday Inns one evening, going through a restaurant that had a humungous buffet to the owner’s private dining room.

There, a low-set table with place settings awaited, a much more traditional setup than the buffet area. I recall there was also a recessed area under the table, to accommodate Westerners less able to sit with their legs folded. Thank goodness. Also awaiting us was the owner and his wife, in their early to mid-forties, as we were. I ended up sitting next to her, which as the evening wore on, was a special treat.

I had tried to learn some elements of social exchange in Korean. At one point, the wife offered me something and I said Kamsahamnida, Korean for “thank you,” slowly stating each syllable. She giggled, and said something to her husband in Korean. Of course, someone more learned in Korean would have said it more quickly, in fewer syllables, something like Kamsamnida.

Among the food items served was bulgogi, again, the marinated grilled beef. This time, the wife showed me how to prepare it in a traditional way, using a lettuce leaf as a wrap and placing the bulgogi, rice, scallions, kimchi, sesame seeds, etc., within. There was other food and dessert, brought in by attendants, but I don’t remember much about them.

We also had the national drink of Korea. Soju is a clear liquid distilled from rice (as is sake, the Japanese drink, which is brewed and considered “rice wine”). Soju is generally about 40 proof, half of what vodka, for example, might be. It’s basically tasteless and without the alcohol “burn” one would experience with stronger stuff. We were served it in regular size water glasses, filled to the brim. I had read that Korean table manners did not permit a guest to fill his or her own glass, but called for the host to maintain guests’ glasses be always full. I also just recently read that South Koreans drink more hard liquor than residents of any other country in the world.

At one point, there was something of a kerfuffle, because our host noticed that one among us was not drinking his soju. That gentleman, a fellow reservist, pointed out that he was Mormon and did not drink alcohol. Our host seemed to consider that an affront to his hospitality. That took some multicultural discussion to iron out and I recall it ending not entirely well.

Back to the wife. As the evening progressed and more soju was imbibed, she started leaning over to tell me things I assume she did not want others to hear. Nothing lascivious, mind you. More like telling me about her most recent shopping trip to Paris. How she often went to Paris, Rome, New York, San Francisco for shopping. How she had her own business and her own money, neither of which her husband knew about. When she went shopping, of course, she whispered with a smile, she used her husband’s money, not hers. I think it may have been one of those cases when someone realizes she and her husband will never see this American again and just wants to let it rip.

On to the visuals.

Part I – The Hilton and Namdaemun Market

A gallery of images from the video (14:01) (The galleries are automatic slideshows. You can wait or click on the right-hand side of the image to move ahead.)

 

Part II – Deoksugung Palace, Dongdaemun Fabric Market, and Namsan Park

Deoksugung is a walled compound of palaces and other buildings, the earliest originating in 1398. Only a third of the structures that were there in 1910 remain, the rest having been destroyed in the Japanese occupation of Korea, 1910-45.

Here’s a gallery of images from the video (17:39)

 

Part III – Korean TV

It’s mostly ads, some music, some sports. The ads feature a lot of cartoony material, lots of laughter, a lot of fast food. Also among the ads in the video are a couple for “white” lotions. Seeking lighter, whiter skin apparently has been a goal among some/many Asians for centuries. Even back in 1991, seeing these was something of a surprise. A 2012 article in Asian Scientist — “Who’s the Fairest of Them All?” — talks about it.

Also, I recorded this in a pretty crude manner. I sat in bed, in front of the television, with a video camera. You’ll sometimes see the edges of the screen and even the reflection of the bedside lamp on the screen. 🙁

Here’s a gallery of images from the video (12:46)

 

Finally, I’ll close this travelogue about Korea with something I read in material in my hotel room. It was an article in a politically oriented magazine, as I recall, about the possibilities of reunification of North and South Korea. The Korean author was enthusiastic about the prospect. The combination of South Korean know-how and the physical resources in the North would make a united Korea very strong. And, he concluded, that would mean Korea could take on Japan! There is no love lost between Korea and Japan, at least among older generations.

Forty years ago, light snow started falling on the morning of February 6, 1978, a Monday. I was at a print shop in Boston that day checking a Boston College publication before it was to be printed, with one of our designers. We were inside and not paying attention to the weather. Iconic Don Kent on WBZ radio that morning had predicted “a dusting.”

I asked the designer to call the office mid-day (forget why) and she came back saying there was no answer. Tried again a little later. Same thing. I asked her to call the “switchboard” and try to get through that way. (All this seem really ancient yet?) She said the operator told her BC was closed. Closed?! Because of the snow. Snow?! We looked outside and headed home.

I was driving soon-to-be-wife Rebecca’s VW bug and took the designer home to Wellesley. It was not at all easy to drive, but I got her home. And then I made a fateful decision. Should I get on Route 128, the highway, or follow the back country roads, Rte. 16, etc., to Franklin, where we then lived? (Franklin is about a marathon-distance southwest of Boston.) I decided to take the country roads. If I had gone on 128, I might have been stuck there for days, as you’ll see in the video below.

It was now late afternoon and almost dark. I had no way to contact Rebecca to tell her I was coming home, where I was, etc. There were times I remember seeing only white particles streaming horizontally left to right in front of me. The snow and wind made it very difficult to discern the road from what were at times surrounding fields. The VW was very light, but good in snow, because the rear engine was over the drive wheels and gave the car better traction.

At one point, I came around a corner and had to veer off the road to avoid a vehicle stuck in the snow. Bunch of young guys. As I said, the VW was light and they were able to push me back onto the road. Finally getting back to Franklin, there was a lot of snow on the roadways and in the driveway. I just tried to gun the engine and get into the driveway as far as I could off the road. And then we spent the next few days there, occasionally trekking to the small and remote neighborhood store. It was called “Art’s,” or, as locals said, Otz.

This is a video (25:10) of Boston Channel 7’s special on the storm five days later.