I recently went to Amazon.com in hopes of finding a biography of Muhammad Ali and came away disappointed. Oh, there was no shortage of books about the former heavyweight boxing champion. But I could not find a single one I would want to read...
In more than six decades of life, whatever wisdom has accrued to me has been in bits and pieces. Slowly, tentatively, with more than a few stops and starts, I have learned things of value. As the old saying goes, even a blind squirrel finds an...
Five years ago, I was doing my best to inspire reluctant Daegu kids to read, speak and write in English. In a few cases, I may have been successful. It was a two-way street, as I learned things from them. I had not been in the classroom long...
Some of my colleagues at the law firm are rather picky about where they are willing to eat. I go to lunch with one of them—let’s call her Ms. Lee—every couple of weeks. When I make suggestions, she votes them down quickly...
“The Shot Heard ’Round the World” and “The Miracle of Coogan’s Bluff.” Those are the two most famous names given to the game-winning home run Bobby Thomson hit off Ralph Branca on October 3, 1951. Thomson...
During my sophomore year at the University of Texas, one of the assigned readings in a huge American history class was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Two decades later, I asked my then-girlfriend to accompany me to an auditorium on the same...
In late May 2013, a Korean friend who goes by the English name of Billy and I walked a few blocks to Gangnam-daero, one of the busiest streets in Seoul. We were going to the ABC Mart so I could buy a pair of running shoes. Billy, a marathoner...
“Richard, are you going middle-age crazy on us?” That question was put to me by a friend named Debra Drueple at an Austin Runners Club picnic in the summer of 1989. She had good reason for asking because I was sporting a new and...
The girlfriend—let’s call her Katie—and I were sitting in the restaurant at the Adam’s Mark Hotel in downtown Dallas one morning in 2001. I have to say that Katie was one of the sanest people I knew. She seldom made...
When I think of the fortuitous events of late 2007 that brought me from Austin, Texas to Korea, I realize I could just as easily have gone to Japan. After all, I once had a colleague named John who left Austin and moved to a small Japanese...
Yeong Yoon and I work in the Halla Classic Building—he on the 11th floor and I on the 4th. We meet for lunch once every two weeks, and he stubbornly refuses to let me buy. He pays every time. Mr. Yoon was born in Yesan in 1939...
They say that money talks and a certain bovine byproduct walks, and I know it’s true. A case in point is 87-year-old Joseph Dahr Jamail, Jr. Summarizing the life of Joe Jamail is not easy, but I will try. He is of Lebanese descent, the...
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