Foreword upon Resurrection

I feel resurrected, not just restored, after unaccountably losing 335 blogs and being banished from blogging altogether, worse than death itself. I owe this new lease on life to the dedicated efforts of Hari Muhic (Watch out! Auto Edit keeps changing h to s.), my son Woody Pak’s star graduate student at Berklee College of Music. As my first blog, I want to copy an email sent to close church friends as it places me in my family setting, fully aware that this is a very Korean thing. Yes, in Korean culture the first thing strangers ask each other is their age, because their language has registers, requiring an elder to be addressed in the elevated register. In other words, you cannot even speak to each other without knowing the ages. The second thing they ask is their occupation, both anathemas in American culture. But from the Korean point of view the fastest way to know a person is how he or she spends most of their time. So indulge me, my American friends.

Hi Richard and Osaro,

        I want you two to get acquainted because you are both lawyers and live in Montvale and because Osaro wants to come to our church (Ridgewood United Methodist Church, Facebook, Youtube) and join the choir led by Namyoung.

        I met Osaro at Waldorf in Chestnut Ridge, where I take my youngest (8 & 5) granddaughters in the morning and Osaro his daughter Samsam. A couple of months ago he came up to me and introduced himself as having met my son Andrew at the fall parent teacher meeting and asked whether Andrew had returned from his trip to Peru and Mexico. He then told me that he is a lawyer and is in finance like Andrew. So I introduced myself, presenting him with my card, and offering him to send my latest pamphlet, Big Bang of the World Federation. He said he looked forward to it. Then I didn’t hear back all this time nor did we run into each other at the school. 

        All of a sudden this morning as I was about to pull out after dropping the girls off, who should come up with a big smile and Happy New Year. Osaro said he had read the pamphlet through and would send his review. Overwhelmed with gratitude I got out of the car and made him talk to me standing in the narrow walkway, notwithstanding the freezing temperature. 

        I asked him where he practiced and he said in Nigeria where his siblings are all employed full time with international as well as domestic clients. They are all lawyers, the 4 of them, including one sister, because their father, a lawyer, financier, and politician, had declared early on, You are either going to law school or no school. So they did, going to the best law schools in the UK, Cambridge and Oxford. At this point I couldn’t resist telling him that all my 3 children, one of them a daughter, had gone to MIT, the daughter becoming a lawyer working at Morgan Stanley (compliance), Woody Pak a professor of music at Barklee College of Music, and Andrew a CFA and FRM in charge of bond sales at Mizuho. 

        Osaro was glad we had a musician in the family and of course I had to tell him that it was in fact a wholly musical family because my wife was the Organist and Music Director at RUMC, BJ an award-winning flutist, and Andrew, also an award-winning pianist and violinist and formerly the Concert Master of the Greenwich Village Orchestra which he had to quit reluctantly because of pressure at work. Osaro was surprised that Andrew had this musical dimension with a mother who must have given all her children this musical gift, motivating him even more to join her choir. So we’ll have 4 tenors, not 3, Patrick. Oh, by the way, Osaro, Patrick Miller is the tenor anchor and Professor of Mathematics at Stevens Institute of Technology. Since you’ve read Big Bang, the savant who gives the history of world federalism from prehistoric times is Richard Miller, derived from Richard Moderow and Patrick Miller. So we three are tight, so much so that Cindy, our pastor Sung’s wife, branded us The Three Musketeers. 

        Richard, to avoid crossing each other, you email Osaro first and exchange phone numbers. For all I know you may be next door neighbors. I’ll see you both next Sunday. Before I forget, Osaro, Richard went to University of Pennsylvania Law School. 

        Correction. Osaro, if feasible, come to our next Thursday night rehearsal which would be the day after tomorrow, Jan 11, 7:30 p.m., but you can come earlier. Actually Namyoung and I are there by around 6:30. You’ll be coming through the East Room, the left end of the building as you face it, through a parking lot. I’ll be there and look out for you, because you need a code to get in, which will be provided by Scott Lavery, our bass anchor and learned spiritual elder you would love to meet.