Kang Ji Hoon in San Anton

Just a couple days ago, Thurs. 11/9/06, Peggy and I delivered a trailer in San Antonio, TX. This is where one of my former Korean violin students is now going to high school. Kang Ji Hoon was one of my beginning students in Korea. He was one of the 3 kids plus Ji Hoon’s mom, who took a trip with Peggy and me to the American Suzuki Institute in Stevens Point, WI in July/August of 1999. We traveled in a van from Chicago through Milwaukee, Door County, and other parts en route to Stevens Point. We camped part of the time, stayed in a bed & breakfast one night and went canoeing on the Crystal River. At the A.S.I. the week focused on violin classes - 3 per day, lectures, concerts, recitals, food - but that’s another story. Now Kang Ji Hoon is 16 and a sophomore in high school.

Thurs morning as we were getting close to San Antonio after driving all night, I called Ji Hoon’s house. Rebecca answered the phone. She was very happy to hear from us and invited us to dinner. After delivering the trailer we spent the day cleaning our truck, took it through a truck wash, and we took showers. We got to the house a little after 5:00 p.m. Ji Hoon was still at school for orchestra rehearsal. He goes to a big international studies magnet school - the largest of it’s type in Texas. We went with Ben, Ji Hoon’s host dad, to pick him up after orchestra class. KJH is first chair violin in the orchestra. He says this orchestra is easy for him. In his school there is a more advanced orchestra, but he was too late to audition for it this year. He might audition next year. He doesn’t practice or have private lessons right now. He showed me his music folder - a variety of Irish, popular, light classical and jazz arrangements. I was really impressed when Ji Hoon brought out his music folder that I had compiled 6 years ago in preparation for our trip to Stevens Point. It’s a pink folder with plastic sleeves full of pieces we worked on back then. After dinner we played some of these together for Ben & Rebecca (host parents) and Masahiro (Japanese exchange student who also lives with Ben & Rebecca.) It was the first time the family had heard Ji Hoon play except in school concerts. He did great on Pachelbel Canon, Handel ‘Judas Maccabaeus,’ Amazing Grace. We tried Bach Double and a Telemann Canonic Sonata; …those are his assignments for next time.

We felt right at home with Ben & Rebecca. They seem to be the perfect host parents for international students. They are strict & fair, treating the 2 boys as they would their own kids. Dinner included kimchi and rice - very Oriental, and mint chocolate chip ice cream which Masahiro would not eat. It was good to meet Masa - he has made the local news several times as a track star; he gave us one of those newspaper articles. It was a wonderful visit, and it seems Ben & Rebecca would be willing to bring the boys out to our home in southern IL at spring break. And we hope they do.

We left about 9:00, drove through the night to Pascagoula, MS on the coast en route to pick up a load in AL which was not 100% confirmed. When we called in Fri morning, that load was off, and we were rerouted to Nashville but could not pick up till Sat. morning. We had 1100 empty miles from San Anton to Nashville and lost a-day-&-a-half. But it’s okay. We drove 1500 miles from Nashville to Roosevelt, UT in 26 hrs - nearly non-stop. We delivered at 9:00 a.m. Sunday and went to church at Roosevelt Christian Assembly. Now we’re on our way to Salt Lake City to pick up a trailer to deliver in Phoenix Monday morning. It’s been lovely driving through the mountains and the snow. No treacherous weather yet.