TN 2006 Gathering, Recap

Album: TN 2006 Gathering, Recap

Where: Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan’s residence in Cookeville, Tennessee, USA.

When: 8/5/2006 ~ 8/12/2006.

Who:

Yung-Way (永慰), Chung-Yuan (春媛), Yeh-Geun (一駿), Mei-Chi (美琪), Chi-Yen (霽顏), Zhi-Shun (之舜), Chienli (茜莉), Jing-Chung (敬中), Tsai Kuang (蔡光).

... 8/5/2006 ...

I arrived at Yung-Way (永慰) & Chung-Yuan's (春媛) farm in Tennessee around 7pm on 8/5. It was as hot and humid as in California a week earlier, but what also greeted me was this eerily home-coming feel: the green that stretch as far as eyes can see, the cows that stare with eyes as big as your fists, and the little creek that always hides one more creature than you first believe! You have to remember I was born and raised in the rural settings of Southern Taiwan, and all of these were familiar objects to me even though they existed only in very distant memory! I believed even Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan were a bit surprised that I felt "right at home" throughout my entire stay at their farm. As it turned out, and hopefully not too much to their inconvenience, it took them one whole week to get rid of this home-coming geek! After being treated to a quick dinner in a local restaurant, we went back "home" and chatted until Yung-Way & Chung-Yun could stand my 3-hour-longer California clock no more! Forgive my intrusion my friends: that was the first time I got to chat with Chung-Yuan after graduating from NTU in 1977!

... 8/6/2006 ...

Yeh-Geun (一駿) was the first to arrive on 8/6. He drove to Cookeville from Atlanta, Georgia, bringing with him fresh Li-Chi and water melons for our hot summer gathering. (What he did not know was that I had already ate myself silly from the zillion kinds of pear trees in Yung-Way's side yard!) He also brought good-old cup noodles and Mahjong table, but somehow forgot to bring the mahjong! More chatting ensued as this was the first time I got to see Yeh-Geun since 1977! Just like the LA2005 Gathering, it is amazing how little Yeh-Geun has changed: funny, witty, and talkative as usual! After just a few chatting sessions we all agreed Yeh-Geun could have easily sprung a different career of being a talk show host – and still have enough leftover materials to make all of us laugh for five nights straight!

Mei-Chi (美琪) was next to arrive on 8/6. She and her hubby, Hseuh-Chia, drove 8-hour straight from South Bend, Indiana, thinking all along that it would be a 10-hour drive! Arriving earlier than expected, and after checking into a local hotel, Mei-Chi & Hseuh-Chia arrived at Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's in the mid-afternoon of 8/6. What happened next was pure fact-finding expedition: Mei-Chi & Chung-Yuan finally got to find out why Yeh-Geun ended up partnering with them in the Lab session of freshman Physics 33 years ago! According to Yeh-Geun, he arrived late at the first lab meet and, facing the dilemma between partnering with Da-tou/Da-bao (霽顏 /之舜) or Mei-Chi/Chung-Yuan, he wisely chose the lesser evils! While Yeh-Geun & Mei-Chi/Chung-Yuan arguing out who's done whom "wrong" in the old lab days, I sat quietly by them, scratching my head trying to recall who were my Physics Lab partners? Or did I ever attend any of the lab sessions? (To this day I'm still not sure who partnered with me then. I vaguely recalled it was Shu-Chung (緒宗), but I guess I'll have to wait till the all-cast reunion in August 2007 to figure this one out for good!) While Yeh-Geun & Mei-Chi/Chung-Yuan may or may not have settled down with a final version of what actually transpired 33 years ago, one thing was quite clear to me: silly things we did when we were young somehow always ended up being our fond memories! A picture was taken of the three now-united Lab partners, as we all awaited the arrivals of the real villains: the Da-tou/Da-bao Lab team!

... 8/7/2006 ...

All TN Gathering classmates arrived at Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's on 8/7, except for Chienli (茜莉) and Yu-The (豫德). Yu-Teh called in sick that morning, coming down with a terrible fever that lasted a whole week while all of us had fun! (Yu-Teh is now up and running, and vows to attend the 30-year all-cast reunion no matter what!) Chienli had scheduled her arrival late on the next day – completely ignoring my warning not to do so! As she must regret a little by now: a lot of chatting were missed. I myself bear some responsibility here, however: it was I who randomly picked 8/8, a weekday, as the TN Gathering D-day way back in October 2005. Sorry Chienli: I couldn't quite think straight then as I was in the middle of a post-gathering trance! I vow not to do the same no more!

Chi-Yen arrived first on 8/7, lunch eaten, after Yung-Way/Chung-Yuan, Yeh-Geun and I all waited for him – for lunch! Probably guilt-driven, and nearing his big birthday too, Da-tou ended up picking up the dinner tap that evening for the entire gang! As I tried to tell everybody after the LA2005 Gathering, we really ought to cut Da-tou some slack despite his "obnoxiousness" on the surface! Deep down Da-tou is really a very gentle puppy – really!

Jing-Chung (敬中) arrived next on 8/7. Jing-Chung is what I jokingly call "an eagle with a big nest": he brought his entire family of five, wife Brenda and three daughters Jennifer/Alison/Christina! Prior to meeting Jing-Chung last year, I always thought I was the "bravest" one: living in a "female dorm" with wife and two daughters. I bet you a whole dollar that the toilet seats in Jing-Chung's house are all in the same configuration as those in mine! Jing-Chung's family had been on the road a few days prior to arriving at Cookeville: they've been driving around Arkansas and Tennessee, touring Cliton's Library and Elvis' Graceland. After checking into a local hotel, the Changs arrived at Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's in the mid-afternoon of 8/7, joining all of us as we awaited the arrival of Da-bao's family.

What happened next was a total memory mess-up on my part. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight I can now perfectly reconstruct what went wrong with my almighty memory bank: (1) Jing-Chung & Da-bao were due to arrive on the same day – one in late afternoon, and one in early evening, (2) Jing-Chung arrived in late afternoon – opposite to what I originally estimated, hence, (3) Da-bao must be arriving in the early evening of 8/7. Equipped with that "impeccable" logic, I rushed the whole gang out for a dinner at a local restaurant, fully anticipating Da-bao's arrival way after the dinner. (That, plus I really enjoyed making Da-tou pay for dinner/lunch/breakfast, etc.) Long story short, the whole gang slowly strolled back to Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's farm, just to find Da-bao's whole family apparently arrived at an "empty door" earlier, waited for quit some time, and had no choice but to feed the kids first without Da-tou's financial support! Forgive my faulty memory my friends: I had only 8 hours of sleep over the passing two nights!

Luckily not enough damage was done because of my goofy brain cells: another fact-finding expedition immediately ensued upon classmates' convergence, a lot of which centered around which faculty members did what to whom, and which of us did what to them! Most of us (re)learned that our graduation dance was held in the Math Library, and I myself learned that we did have a graduation dance! And, how about that funky required course of Deutch in the sophomore year? I don't know about you, but I honestly have zero recollection of attending the class! I actually don't even recall passing it at all, though I must have somehow slipped through the professor's radar screen! As with the LA2005 Gathering, chatting marathon like this is always precious: the night was long, but never long enough! Mei-Chi and Jing-Chung finally gave in to their family members and went back to their respective hotels for some much needed rest; Da-bao also waved white-flag and retired with his entire family near midnight. I chatted more with Da-tou and Yeh-Geun deeper into the night/morning in Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's basement before finally gave in to fatigue – 3 hours of sleep that night for us, but we would have pulled a whole-nighter had it not for the fact that we are no longer twenty-something!

... 8/8/2006 ...

This was the main TN 2006 Gathering day. Coincidentally, it was also Da-tou's birthday. Da-bao's family rose early, refreshed and eager for action. (Except, of course, for his teen-aged son Gregory! Can't blame Gregory here: we were all like that ourselves at that age, weren't we?) Jing-Chung's family also emerged early, ready for action. Yeh-Geun and I, still sleepy-eyed, had no choice but to follow Yung-Way's lead and accompanied the whole gang down to the little creek at the far end of the farm. The short outing proved eventful: lots of crawfish to catch, a few mysterious hard-to-catch fish, lots of fist-eyed cows mooing around us, complaining about our intrusion to their only source of water! Mei-Chi/Hseuh-Chia and Da-tou joined the gang as the kids played with the neighboring farmer's two lonely horses and mule, feeding them with Yung-Way's pear tree leaves - all furnished by me, the real tree killer! More pictures were taken before we all headed back to Chung-Yuan's kitchen for more civilized treats.

Although we male classmates all vowed not to make Da-tou's turning 50++ the main theme of the TN 2006 Gathering, some of our soft-hearted female classmates still managed to prepare some champagne and b-day cake for the occasion! (Perhaps the ladies knew Da-tou is a gentle puppy all along, but were never willing to admit it!) Either way, I did manage to augment the wordings on the cake from "big-head" to "dog-head," more closely reflecting the reality that he is a gentle puppy! Keyword being gentle, of course ;-) Chienli's family finally arrived around 10 pm, completing the TN 2006 Gathering circle, and just in time for the fascinating firework session in Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's backyard. I couldn't even recall when was the last time I played with firework – 40 years ago to say the least! After the firework session, the whole gang engaged in more fact-finding expeditions while we ate and drank, and ate more and drank more. The focus of this round of fact-finding centered around: who among the classmates did what to whom, who invited some "outsiders" to our freshman dance without whose blessing, who should have supported the camping trips in junior year but did not, ... In short, according to our female classmates, we male classmates were all dogs! Alas one thing is still true after so many years: never argue with your female classmates – they are all cats!

Jing-Chung and family left around midnight of 8/8: they had an early flight to catch the next morning, continuing their vacation trip to east coast. Jing-Chung promised to do his best in bring the whole family for the all-cast reunion in Taiwan next August! That was quite a pleasant surprise, given his busy work schedule and all! Hope to see you there Jing-Chung - and Brenda, and Jennifer, and Alison, and Christina! Mei-Chi and Hseuh-Chia left in the early hours of 8/9. They had a long drive back to Indiana ahead of them, and Mei-Chi apparently still demanded her beauty sleep after two straight near-sleepless nights! I must admit feeling a bit lost when Jing-chung and Mei-Chi left: with just two early departures, the TN Gathering headcount was suddently down by 7. If everything could go my way, I would simply outlaw any early departure from any Math77 Gathering from now on!

Yung-Way, Chi-Yen, Yeh-Geun and I continued to chat deeper into the night, while Chung-Yuan and Chienli – now the only cats around – wisely evaded the 4-dog crowd and went for their beauty sleep! (I could be very wrong here: the "cats" might actually be chatting somewhere else without us 4 dogs!) Yeh-Geun continued to reiterate how cats tend to constantly cast the dogs into the keeper/lover bins, Chi-Yen continued to assert dogs are smarter than the cats, and I continued to insist dogs are constantly casting the cats into the same two bins too! Please don't feel left out if you have no clue what I've just said: first, you've got to be there yourself, and, secondly, it was late and even the dogs themselves didn't know what exactly they were barking about! Also, please don’t get mad if you do know what I've just said: dogs just have to bark after a long day, justifiable or not!

... 8/9/2006 ...

This was the first day of our side trip to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Now I realized Mei-Chi's advanced planning: by leaving us early the night before, the mountain-going gang ended up having a longer sleep before the 3-hour drive to the mountain. I guess the self-proclaimed cheer-leading Mei-Chi will always be our default class leader no matter how much she cheers!

A total of 4 cars were used for the side trip: Da-bao's and Chienli's in their own family rental, Yung-Way/Chung-Yuan/Eddie rode in Chi-Yen's rental, and I rode with Yeu-Geun in his personal car. We managed to arrive at our 6-room cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the mid afternoon of 8/9. After some activity planning headed by Chi-Yen and Yeh-Geun, and some rock-paper-scissor on who's taking which room I must add, all of us followed Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's lead and ate ourselves silly in a local Chinese buffet that they scouted out for us before we even landed our feet in Tennessee. And you can pretty much guess who foot the dinner bill – the gentle puppy, of course! After dinner, we dumped the young ones in a local arcade for some civilized entertainments, drove around Pigeon Forge (the little tourist town we're in) for a not-so-successful coffee hunt, and finally headed back to our cabin for some much needed catch-up sleep! Pulling a few whole-nighters in a row is one thing that I wish I could still do, but can't, these days! A window of opportunity for an overnight mahjong meet was missed as a result! (I'm pretty sure the presence of flower-planting Kai-Ching(開慶) would have changed all that! Bewarned Kai-Ching: some of us are now plotting on holding our future mini-gathering right at your door steps!)

... 8/10/2006 ...

This turned out to be a busy fun-filled day of our mountain side trip! Strongly urged by Yeh-Geun, we all went for white water rafting in the morning of 8/10. This was the first time I ever had fun rafting: the water was warm enough for me, and the rapids were not too drastic for my taste! I believed everybody, especially the young ones, had great fun doing it; and I would strongly encourage all classmates to call Yeh-Geun up whenever you're near the Great Smoky Mountain National Park!

The afternoon of 8/10 was spent on "climbing" the Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It was a whopping 0.5 mile "hike" to the base of an observatory tower in the middle of Smoky Mountain. Only by standing on the top of that tower does one realize why there is a "Smoky" in the name of the national park. We did not engage in any serious hiking that day for various reasons: for the record, we had a special dinner show already lined up at 745 pm that evening; off the record, the youngsters weren’t too enthusiastic about hiking anyway. The truth that we did not really hike, however, was that more chatting could be done while eating, rather than hiking!

Yeh-Geun went his separate way after our Clingman’s hike around 630 pm: he had a 3-hour drive back to Georgia ahead of him, and he needed to clear the mountain areas before sundown as the fuel level of his car was really low! (He made it home in one piece!) Before parting the gang, however, Yeh-Geun pulled me aside and promised he will do his best to attend the all-cast reunion in August 2007. That really made my day: the more, the merrier I said! Hope to see you there Yeh-Geun – and Arh-Zeu, and the surfing daughter I must add!

The dinner show at Dixie Stamped was an interesting treat: it was like the medieval dinner show where knights were pitched against each others while the audience dined and cheered for their own knights, except here the North and South of the American Civil War replaced the knights! One thing I learned that might be of interest to you should you ever visit Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan’s turf: it’s a bit awkward cheering for the North in Tennessee! The food was great as long as you don’t mind licking most of them from your finger tips! The pouring rain right after the dinner show was another home-coming treat to me: it reminded me so much about the city I grew up in, with recurrent thunderstorms washing away the drenching heat every summer day! The storm lasted a whole lot longer than what I had experienced though, and we ended up driving back to the cabin in heavy rain, finding our once-dried rafting outfits wet all over again! The wetness didn’t damper the chatting spirit a bit: with fireplace on, and pitter-pattering raindrops in the woods, the fact-finding expedition continued deep into the night – less Yeh-Geun’s constant laugh-cracking punch lines! Some heart-to-heart exchanges inevitably occurred amongst old friends, and may I just say: what we all suspected true were true, and, yet, never the whole truth! As I had said too many times by now: all of these meant ~!@?`+#$%^& unless you were there yourself. (Eat that, Kai-Ching, you non-flower planter!) I went to bed in the early hours of 8/11, listening to Sarah M.’s moody tunes, and mesmerized by how tightly-knitted this Math77 gang of ours was, still is, and hopefully forever will be! I fell asleep in Sarah M.’s fitting words:

We all began with good intent when love was raw and young.

We believed that we could change ourselves, and past can be undone.

But we carried on our back the burdens time always revealed,

In the lonely light of morning; in the wounds that would not heal!

To all my old friends who still harbor any amount of awkwardness/bitterness/regrets: Time always heals if only you let it! (Or, should I say, if and only if? I’d better get off this chain of thoughts fast before Mei-Chi began to test my make-believe “mathematical prowess” again!)

... 8/11/2006 ...

The mountain-going gang arose early this day, fully recharged but a bit sad: this was the day Da-bao’s family had to leave early to catch their flight back to Oakland, California, and this was also the day Chienli’s family would spin off and continued their vacation trip to visit Ernie’s (Chienli’s hubby) college friends in Knoxville, Tennessee. Fair is fair: one gathering for her, and one for him! Hope you had a great time visiting old friends, Ernie, and please gently nudge Chienli toward attending her all-cast reunion in August 2007.

Da-bao’s family began their 200-mile dash for the airport around 9 am on 8/11. (They made it back to Oakland safe and sound - and just in time for another family outing to Lake Tahoe, if you can imagine that!) Yung-Way/Chung-Yuan, Chi-Yen, and I left the Great Smoky Mountain National Park around 11 am on 8/11, leaving the cabin checkout chores to Chienli/Ernie, and headed back to Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan’s farm. The drive back to the farm was a bit somber: the TN Gathering classmate headcount was now down to 4, and how could anyone not feeling a little bit sad? However, the fact-finding habit soon emerged, and the slight sadness was quickly cleared with totally unclear debates over who should have said something to someone, but did not, and who shouldn’t have done something to someone, but did! I, for the very first time in my entire TN Gathering stay, wasn’t quite sure what, if any, had been settled amongst the classmates in the front seats and back! Whatever that was, however, it sure made the drive back to the farm extremely pleasant for the driver - me!

The drive back ended with a big lunch at a local restaurant near Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan’s farm. I don’t quite recall who foot the bill other than that it wasn’t me! Whoever did pay, however, I must say: thank you - and the sugar-glazed salmon tasted great! We arrived at the farm after lunch around 1 pm Cookeville time. We chatted only a little more about the silly things we did in the college days as Da-tou had but one hour of break before making his 70-mile dash for the airport that very afternoon. Da-tou left us around 2 pm on 8/11 for his flight back to New Brunswick, New Jersey. The slight sadness returned with noticeable vengeance as the TN Gathering classmate headcount was now down to the bare minimum of 3: Yung-Way/Chung-Yuan and me! We chatted more into the night after a relatively light dinner as Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan scrambled to cut me a CD with all the photos captured in his camera over the passing week. Get to work my friends: I for one eagerly await photos from your camera! I went to bed around 3 am of 8/12, feeling pretty tired but not too tired to twist and turn till 4 am. Call me sentimental fool all you want, but I was darn sad and happy at the same time! (Rumor has it that this is a classic trait of mid-life crisis, don’t you think?)

... 8/12/2006 ...

I slept through most of the morning of 8/12 and broke my fast with a big lunch prepared by Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan. We chatted more about Rue-Yue before I left Yung-Way & Chung-Yuan's farm around 2 pm on 8/12. The weather was now more Hawaii than Taiwan: mild, sunny, and breezy. The far-stretching green was greener due to the overnight rain, and the fist-eyed cows were nowhere to be found, probably mooing around the hidden creek reclaiming their water source. I arrived at Nashville airport around 3 pm, returned my rental car, checked in my ought-to-be-carried-on-bag as luggage, and went through the security checkpoint without any incident. As I sat waiting by the departure gate, I turned on my little iPod, and out flowed Karen C.’s timeless melancholy tunes: Superstar, Rainy Days and Mondays, Yesterday Once More, For All We Know … I ought to be sad, the unmistakable ending of the TN Gathering and all, but I was not. What those melancholy tunes triggered in me now were no longer some random distant memories. Now I thought of all the young and innocent players we all knew, I thought of all the silly things we all did, I thought of all the not-so-young and not-so-innocent players we still all knew, and I boldly said to you all: “It was all good, it is all good, and it will still be all good as long as we see ourselves for what we Math77 simply are: a chance encounter of young and innocent hearts who, by sheer luck and against grave odds, manage to reconnect thirty some years after!” I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t mind having a Math77 gathering like this every year! If that’s too much to bear, would you mind a mini- or even a micro-gathering every two years? If that is still too much too bear, would you then settle for a once-every-30-year gathering in August 10-12, 2007?