

















In this, my eighteenth post, follow me on a journey of some eighteen months, with eighteen photos marking the way. That's how long we lived in Delaware, Ohio, my new and temporary hometown.
Delaware is home to Ohio Wesleyan University, and Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States, called it his hometown, too. Dad reminds me it's similar in layout to Oberlin, Ohio, with the university, a commanding presence of stone and red brick, situated downtown alongside a major street and a state highway. He thinks both towns pale in compared to his university town, Oxford, Ohio.
Our condo was a ten-minute drive away. I won't kid you and say I liked it better than our Dublin house. I didn't. The carpeting, while nice, wasn't as plush. We never used the gas fireplace. And my new command posts at the ground-level windows only provided limited visibility. This was really important because, for reasons I still don't understand, all the Dublin monsters followed me there (they're here in Korea, too). The US Post Office truck, the FedEx and UPS vehicles, anything with a diesel engine—all made regular raids to our neighborhood. The sunroom provided the best view of the infiltrators, so I was happy to have that feature. When Dad was at work, I usually spent time there, propped up on cushions so I could see over the hedges.
One day, soon after we moved in, a police detective stopped by. A contract postal worked had lodged a complaint because I bit her. That was her story, at least. What really happened is I took action to protect Mom from the worker's sudden and, to me, threatening hand movement (a hand holding a box). To resolve the matter, Dad visited the police station twice, the second time to deliver the doctor's report that closed the case. My record is clean but the bad memory remains.😰🤯
The condo and the surrounding neighborhood had many attractions. Green grass, sidewalks, parks, and ponds surrounded us. Another great thing was our neighbors. All of them were older than Dad by ten years or more, and they loved to pet me. Mom and Dad helped them by returning their empty garbage cans to their garages after the trucks came, and shoveling sidewalks during our two winters there. Peggy and Paul were the first neighbors we met and wonderful friends. Listen to this: Peggy bought me gifts! Look at the sign in the background of Photo #5 if you need proof. It says: 'Beware of the Dog… It'll break your HEART.' Recently, Dad told me Peggy had passed away, and that news broke a little piece of my heart.
Cookie visited me twice and we played together like the good old days. One day in late spring 2018, Dad came home in his last new company car, a white Honda Accord. We'd started a tradition where Mom and I would meet him at the community entrance gate every day when he returned home. Then the two of us would drive the rest of the way home. That day we took the ride extra slow, so I could show off to everyone. 🦚
Time flew by. Dad's 60th birthday in August 2018 brought his friend Johnny in from California, and we had another great dinner party with Dad's college friends, this time minus the Cheesecake Boogaloo. In mid-October, the overseas moving truck came and we said goodbye to my favorite couches and other items. As you can see in the third to last photo, Mom found a way to arrange what remained so I could perform my duties.😍🥰
After a quick trip to New Jersey and New York to say goodbye to grandma and grandpa, we returned home for the final frantic weeks. Find someone to buy the washer and dryer. Check. Sell the plasma TV. Check. Donate to some worthy person Mom's German dining set. Check. Give away our queen-size bed, pop-up beds, my black iron cage. Check, check, check. Our lease expired on November 30, and we spent the last four days at Heejeong & Richard's house in nearby Westerville, an act of generosity we'll appreciate forever.
And then we piled our stuff into the rental car and drove to O'Hare Airport in Chicago for the one-way flight to Korea.
The car we drove there was a Korean brand, Hyundai. Dad had returned our company cars shortly before he retired, and we rented after that. The Cadillac XT5 was comfortable but lacked a panorama roof cover. The sunlight soon became too much for us, and Dad traded it in for a Toyota RAV-4. A few weeks later, that car developed an oil leak. The rental car company then gave us a really sweet deal on the Hyundai Santa Fe, which seemed fitting. We had no problems on the journey to Illinois, spent one night in a hotel, and boarded the plane to Seoul late at night.
Aunty, Samchun and Ddori greeted us at the airport, and our new life in Korea began. I'll tell you more about that next time. Until then, thanks for reading my blog.
Tango 🐾
Comments