It All Began With A Dream

It All Began With A Dream

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          It all began with a dream. His whole fairy tale romance, and his life with the love of his life. Sam Adams thinking back on his life on his 80th birthday recalled the dream that started his adult life and its consequences.

         He first had the dream when he was a high school senior at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California in 1974.

          He had fallen asleep in a physics class after lunch at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, California.

         She came to him and started speaking to him in a strange Asian language. She was the most beautiful woman in the whole universe and was speaking to him. She mesmerized him, bewitching him with love blazing from her eyes, penetrating his very soul, her love mojo working overtime. He yells out,

         “Who are you?”

         And fell to the floor amid the laughter of his teacher and fellow students. He told his best friends that he met the girl he would marry. They said,

         “Sure thing, pal. Whatever dude.” Not believing the dream. He had a weekly dream for eight years.

         When he had to decide where to go in the Peace Corps after college she appeared in his dream and he knew he had to go to Korea to find her. He finished his service and did not find her. He took a job teaching ESL to Korean soldiers working in the US Army (KATUSAS) as part of their mandatory Korean Army duty. He was about to give up on his mad quest and return to the US to go to graduate school when he had the last dream. She appeared in his dream that morning and said,

         “Don’t worry. We will meet soon.”

         That night she walked off the bus into his life. She was a college senior majoring in English and had gone to his base to apply for a secretarial job. It was love at first sight for both of them as sparks flew from heart to heart (ishimchomshim) as Koreans say.

         They exchanged phone numbers and promised to get together that Friday for lunch. She came to his base the next night and told him she had to talk to him. He signed her onto the base library and ended his class a bit early and they went out for coffee.

         She told him that she was madly in love with him and had to have him. He smiled and said he felt the same way. That was their first date.

         They met almost every night for two months, often taking long walks in the woods and just hanging out talking up a storm. On his third date, he proposed.

         She brought him home to meet her parents. Her father approved of him but her mother was opposed due to the widespread prejudice against interracial marriages at that time in Korea.

         She went to a Buddhist monk who said their astrological profile (she was born in the year of the Pig and he was born in the year of the Goat) was a perfect astrological fit. She went to another Buddhist Monk who confirmed that this a perfect astrological connection.

         She told him “Go ahead and get married.” Who am I to go against the will of heaven?”
          Two months later they had the formal ceremony at the Korean Army School where he had just started a new job. His father came to the wedding which was a bit thing – his father was a former undersecretary of Labor.

         And that was the beginning of 50 years of marriage with the love of his life, his dream girl who walked off a bus into life in 1982. Truly,

it all began with a dream.


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