A long and meandering story...

[Ken.]

This is a timeless classic.  For those who may have heard this song before, but did not quite know who sang it, it is "Whiter Shade of Pale" by the band "Procol Harum."  Like the name of the band, this song does not have any specific meaning to it.  It doesn"t mean that you cannot derive your own meaning from it.  Like a beautiful but abstract painting, it successfully communicates "feeling" rather than "meaning." 

I will share what I hear from this song.

Whenever I hear this song, it reminds me of an old friend from my college years.  Our friendship, I like to believe, was strong enough to have survived being roommates to each other at one point.  Yet, we don"t see each other much anymore.  You know.... age, family, work... all the normal reasons that prevent people from keeping in touch with old friends, and besides, there were other reasons.

We met at the end of the sophomore year at the college.  He was the editor of the Korean American Students Association"s monthly magazine, the name of which now escapes me.  I applied for a position of a reporter of the same magazine.  Evidently, there was no competition whatsoever, since the position was purely voluntary (meaning, no compensation whatsoever), and the magazine had the circulation of less than 100.  Strictly an amateur job.  Of course, I had no difficulty becoming one of the reporters who wrote uninteresting and self-serving "articles."  At that time, we were hanging out with different crowds.  He was one of the "christian" boys who dressed well and had expensive hair-cuts.  I, on the other hand, sported torn-out blue jeans with black Led Zeppelin T-shirts and had a hippie-wanne-be long hair, and hung out with a group of "outcasts" who smoke, drank, and skipped classes like it was no body"s business.  

So it surprised me when he invited me to come up to Alaska with him on a fisheries job during the Summer break, and told me that it was long hours but good pay.  Always looking for something different, I jumped at the suggestion.  He went ahead before me, and apparently put in a good word with the manager, with whom he got to know well from previous summer jobs.  I followed him a couple of weeks after.

When I arrived at the Cordova airport, a small strip of land with one tiny building located in the smack middle of Alaskan forest, I found out that there were no buses into the town.  I was young, proud and stupid enough to resolve to walk some 20 miles into town, passing through Alaskan wilderness, and try my luck at hitch-hiking my way into town.  When I gathered my bags and almost ready to walk out of the building, I heard an announcement that there was a phone call waiting for me at the lobby.  Curious as to who it was, I picked up a phone.  A female voice answered saying that she was there to pick me up, and to meet her at the parking lot.  

Two young Korean girls were waiting for me when I arrived there.  They told me that they were friends of "J" (let"s call my friend that for now), and on J"s favor, they were giving me a ride into town.  J always had the way with women, and on that point I was always envious.  He had a boyish good-looking face and a ready smile.  He was a bit stocky-built, which rendered him physically strong, but he nevertheless had a rather effeminate manner that showed sensitivity and vulnerability.  Compared to J, I was a gawky, skinny, and crude hippie wanna-be with outwardly bold-manner that betrayed all-too apparent insecurity.  If I were to say any good word about myself at that time, it is this; I was all too aware of my short-comings.  Therefore, I was, in a way, sincere.  A fool, but a sincere fool.

At any rate, that summer, I worked long hours, cleaning the innards of salmon in the fisheries.  It was both heaven and hell.  During breaks in the long days of cleaning and cutting salmon, we would walk out of the fisheries onto a dock surrounded by the most beautiful sight of ocean, and mountains and seagulls flying overhead, and stand transfixed by all the beauties of America"s last frontier, with our aprons still smeared with dark salmon blood, and our hands hurting from the repetitive motion.  

Through this, I got to know J better, and found that beneath the calm and clean facade of a good "christian" boy, he had a romantic soul that struggled with itself, in search of something more meaningful than the superficial niceties of life.  He found the Korean-American Christian community somewhat less than satisfying in that regard.  He was rebelling against it and its more established set of values and rules.  Perhaps that is why he found an interesting friend in me, who was in full blown "rebel" mode at the time, with my avowed "anti-christian" beliefs and proclamations.  

When we returned, we became good friends, and he became more absolved into my group of outcasts.  We became roomies, along with other hard-drinking and chain-smoking buddies.  We drank a lot and often, missed classes, and took exams while still drunk from the previous night of debaucheries.  We talked about philosophy, religion and politics, started a newspaper (which failed in 6 months time), organized a student groups (which lasted two years), and generally managed to have some fun.  But we weren"t exactly popular with women.  J was the exception.  He had many girlfriends during this time.  But none lasted too long.  

Until the last one.  

We graduated with various useless degrees (I for one had the Political Science degree), but J never did.  He quit school in the middle, and went to Alaska to work.  Something always drove him there.  Perhaps it was the pull of the Alaskan wilderness that affected his romantic nature.  Or perhaps it was family troubles here in Seattle that he wanted to escape from.  I do not know.  He never told me the reasons for his wondering to and fro between Seattle and Alaska.  He was in that way very private person.  I used to make fun of his keeping diaries, which he kept locked and secret from the rest of the world.  There were some things that he would not have shared with me at any rate.  I was an arrogant fool.  Sincere, but arrogant. 

When one Summer there was a bad salmon season, he didn"t have much of a job, and came back down to Seattle.  At the time I was working at a law firm as an errand boy (yes, in the U.S. a bachelor"s degree in Political Science will get you this far and this far only).  He came back and started working at a grocery owned by a Korean American.  We were both poor, but had no real expenses and no family to support.  So in the final accounting, it turns out, we had more money in our pockets than we ever had in our entire lives.  We started hanging out together once again, drinking and smoking.  

One day, he met this Japanese student.  She was pretty in a bit boyish way.  She too had a ready smile and wit.  Like J, she too had a good heart that went beyond the desire for superficial things, for which people sometimes fight one another like dogs.  Soon, they fell in love.  They moved in together into a small apartment that had an old space-heater that made creaking sound when it worked.  While J worked, she went to school.  During this time, I started my law school, and I saw J less and less frequently.  Still sometimes, I would visit them, and have a night of drinking.  They were always struggling financially, but I didn"t think of it much.  After all, hadn"t we all been struggling financially at the time.  Of course, it was an arrogant assumption on my part.  I had my parents who always came to my aid when my so-called "struggle" reached its flat bottom.  I assumed that it would be the same for the couple.  

I was wrong.  

There was a talk of a marriage between them, which I welcomed as an inevitable conclusion and a new beginning.  However, by the time that I was about to graduate, I heard the news that J and she broke up, and she went back to Japan.  I didn"t know what happened then.  Another friend of mine who knew them more intimately than I did, later told me what happened.  

J always had a flare for romanticism.  He was always into finer things in life.  He worked hard at the grocery store, and that was fine for him when he was alone.  Now that he had a love in his life, he wanted to do better.  He wanted to give her creature comforts of life that money can afford.  Instead of saving money for any education or business, he would spend it on her, and to her immense credit, over her strongest objections.  But it did not stop him.  He was ashamed of his perceived failure in life, and he wanted to make it up the quick and easy way.  He spent money.  When there wasn"t whole lot of money to spend, he turned to gambling.  Apparently, he had a few successful gambling trips where he made loads of money in the blink of an eye.  This possession of money gave him momentary relief from his depression.  However, his gambling habits were at first unknown to her.  But like any other intimate couples, there are no permanent secrets.  She found out about it, and she found out about it the wrong way.

Inevitably, his gambling became worse and worse, and there were times when he lost much money.  One time, he used their meager savings in a card game, and he was forced to borrow money from a friend.  This became known to her, and they had a fight.  Their relationship became rocky.  However, their relationship appeared to survive this hardship, when yet another came.  Their respective families, when learned of this relationship, opposed it strongly on nationalistic grounds.  When faced with this difficulties, their relationship was given another jolt.  

Then the time came when her visa ran out.  She finished her school, and she had to return to Japan.  They were still talking about marriage.  But apparently, she gave him an ultimatum; if you love me give up gambling and go back to school.  Apparently, he told her that he could not make that promise.  Heart-broken, she went back to Japan.

What this other friend told me was this: that this ultimatum made him feel more ashamed of his job as a grocery clerk, that this confirmed J"s belief that she was too good to be a grocery clerk"s wife, and that until that he could feel himself whole as a man, he could not let her love him anymore.  So he let her go.

Last time I saw J, we had a drink.  This time, it was at my home.  I have become a lawyer, and now have a short (albeit very unmanageably strewn and slowly balding) hair-cut.  I am a responsible father of a daughter, a husband.  He hadn"t changed a bit.  We talked about old times.  He talked about her.  He sheepishly told me that he still loved her, and that it was the worst mistake that he has ever made in his life.  He remains unmarried, and has yet to start writing this book that we have always joked about as young college kids.  He still dreams of owning a farm and living off the fat of the land.  

Unfortunately, I am afraid (although I did not outwardly say this to him), there is no more frontiers for us.  

This song will always remind me of J.  I don"t know why.  I didn"t mean to write this long story.  I am not sure which of this is fiction or fact. But apparently, this story wanted to be told, one way or another. And now it seemed to have reached its end.

So here, if you are still interested, are the lyrics to this song.

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels cross the floor.
I was feeling kind of sea sick,
the crowd called out for more.
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away.
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray.

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face at first just ghostly
turned a whiter shade of pale.

She said there is no reason
and the truth is plain to see,
that I wandered through my playing cards
would not let her be.
One of sixteen vestal virgins
who were leaving for the coast
and although my eyes were open
they might just as well been closed.

And so it was that later
as the miller told his tale
that her face at first just ghostly
turned a whiter shade of pale.

And so it was that later ....

[chameleon]

It's so touching and sad.

[elaine03]

Thanks for sharing the story. It was much appreciated...

[annn]

There are those plp who have uncommon lives galore around us . and try to understand why they have been living like that with warmer eyes . Your posting was worth of reading..Thanks a lot with good music.

[smiley]

At a glance, your story seemed too long to read. but once I started reading it was very interesting so I couldn't stop... J's story and this song seem goes very well. I hope J meet another good lady for the rest of his life. BTW, Ken, u could be a reporter somewher if u wouldn't be a lawer..thx!^ ^

[Tylee]

I think it's good to have some old life tales in remembrance of songs. Wherever it ends, if failure or success, I guess it's worth mention the values that left behind the life events and I could find them from your story. Thanks for sharing with us, I hope your friend have his dream eventually.

[cafemia]

What a heartfelt story. An appropriate music to boot! Coming of age and stories of enlightening moments are very endearing. Especially, your wonderfully written story was very moving. Thanks, Ken.

[Ken.]

Thanks folks for your kind words. Last sunday when I was listening to this song, I thought I should share it with members of this cafe, and started writing this.. and I guess I kept on writing without thinking about the length... Thanks for reading it. :-)