The trip is on

Today my mother in law called from illinois and informed that she would purchase the plane tickets for my wife and kids and it would happen in two weeks or so. I am relieved needless to say as it takes a load off my mind. Now it is a matter of psyching my mind up to face the upcoming journey back to the the land of Lincoln and beyond. It has been almost ten years since I was last in the States and I look forward to returning. I left San Francisco in 1995 for Japan where my family and I lived for three years before moving here from Japan. Japan was a good transition place for me after living in the US for 21 years of my life.

I was 25 years of age when I left Malaysia in 1973 with my first wife and son who was then 4 months old and on looking back I realize that I have traveled around the globe four times in my life so far. My first destination in the US in 1973 was Green Bay, Wisconsin and I lived in the Pecker country for eight years of my life where I worked as a boner or meat cutter for 3 years to get myself off the ground and what a vocation it was for one who has never seen snow in his life to be working at during those years. It was demeaning and dehumanizing to the mind and body but it was the most effective job for one who needed some form of character building having come from a culture that was not so well equipped to face the harsh reality of being in a red neck country like Green Bay. I slowly but gradually became a regular drunk and a peckerhead. Green Bay was one major lesson in life its ups and down and working in the packing houses was definitely a downer that created a man out of me. A few years down the road I was divorced and living like a bum on my own.

Ya Hey! Green Bay! Bart Starr and the Packers, chicken booyah and Old Style Beer.

I remember living out on a farm on Humboldt Road with my landlord Mr. Leon P Lodl a unique man in his own way. He educated me into becoming more of a gentleman instead of the mixed up Malaysian kid that I was. He taught me how to drink wine instead of guzzling down beer by the barrel and turned me on to Jazz and classical music. We used to drive up north to Iron Mountain, Michigan where Leon owned a church and was in the process of turning it into a ski lodge. On these trips I saw some of the most beautiful country especially during the fall seasons. I will never forget standing on top of one of the world's most tallest ski ramp and looking down at three different States and Canada when the leaves were changing colors, it was like a sea of colors all around me and I still remember telling Leon when he asked me if I could paint the view that only God can paint such colors.

Later I was talked into joining the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay where I spent five years of the best time of my life getting a degree in Fine Arts. Through the university program called the University Without Walls I was able to travel to England, South America and back to Malaysia. In a way travelling from one country to another has always been in my blood and I love it. I have been very fortunate for some reason to be able to move around and live in different parts of the world and I hope this will keep on happening till I am too old to do it anymore. For now I am looking forward to seeing the good old Mid West again, the corn fields and the sylos, the lazy summer months and the frigid cold winters. Asta Lavista Malaysia.