KOREA 2 PEACE CORPS BIOS 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Anne Trosper Kahn..................................................................................................................................... 2 Bob Bercaw and Jerry Hodge ..................................................................................................................... 3 Carl Stephani & Marilyn Stephani.............................................................................................................. 6 Charles (Chuck) Ahlgren ............................................................................................................................ 8 Charles Looney ........................................................................................................................................... 9 David Eisenstein ....................................................................................................................................... 10 David Schiller ........................................................................................................................................... 12 Richard D. (Dick) Pallett .......................................................................................................................... 13 Edward Cherlin ......................................................................................................................................... 17 Frank Berry Lane ...................................................................................................................................... 20 George F. Delaney .................................................................................................................................... 23 Jim Dallas.................................................................................................................................................. 26 Jim Stroud ................................................................................................................................................. 29 Jo Ann Joseph ........................................................................................................................................... 30 Julie Boden Schmidt ................................................................................................................................. 32 Ken Nicolay .............................................................................................................................................. 35 Laurie Loken Axling................................................................................................................................. 38 Leslie Desmond ........................................................................................................................................ 39 Linda Neal................................................................................................................................................. 42 Lynn Harmon............................................................................................................................................ 44 Lynn Meissen............................................................................................................................................ 45 Mary Trude Lindstrom.............................................................................................................................. 46 Mike Aemmer ........................................................................................................................................... 48 Peggy I Perry (Turner).............................................................................................................................. 50 Ron Rezac ................................................................................................................................................. 54 Sandra Labes Gaines (aka Cassandra) ...................................................................................................... 59 Steve Moore.............................................................................................................................................. 65 Suzanne Kuffler ........................................................................................................................................ 67 KOREA 2 PEACE CORPS BIOS 2 Anne Trosper Kahn [email protected] | 6042 Rockrose Drive Newark, CA 94560 Cell Phone (preferred): 510-368-3398 Home Phone: 510-797-5161 Wow! A summary of the past 50 years! Well, after being summarily booted out of Korea, and after considerable lack of success finding a creative job, I stumbled into technical writing. It actually does allow a little creativity, so I have stayed in that profession, with occasional forays into the culinary arts and actual creative writing. On the professional side, I’ve worked mostly on top- secret user’s manuals for various government agencies. On the casual side, I’ve entered and won several recipe contests, and an occasional minor writing contest. In 1969, I married Lawrence Kahn (no children). Like all marriages, we’ve had our ups and downs, but I haven’t murdered him yet, mostly because of his sense of humor (no room to give examples, alas!) Together, we traveled the world and have a lot of terrific mutual memories. I retired at 62 to travel. In 2008, Lawrence decided he didn’t want to travel anymore, and after some thought, I started travelling on my own. I take about three trips a year, two short and one long, occasionally with friends, but mostly not. Most exotic destinations? Bhutan, Cambodia, the Galapagos, Macchu Picchu, panda sanctuary in China, tiger preserve in India, and too many others to list. Having rattled on at such length, I’m just going to answer question e (funny or unusual memories). The first one I would pick from Nashville is on the retreat in North Carolina, when a bunch of us grabbed blankets and camped out on a nearby hillside. Note that I didn’t say sleep on a nearby hillside. It turned out Larry Ridgeway couldn’t sleep and wandered around wrapped in a blanket, with occasional forays up a fire tower, making hilarious announcements that all started with “Attention, campers!” Came dawn and we crawled out of our blankets, wet, bleary-eyed, and unrefreshed, only to see Don Carey clad in full regalia of pajamas and robe, looking as chipper as you please. The second one from Nashville is when a group of us spent the night in Smoky Mountains National Park. On the way, we picked up a wonderfully nutritious dinner of hot dogs, buns, potato chips, marshmallows, and rum. As we were sitting around the campfire, a mommy bear approached with her two cubs. Confident in the power of our fire to deter any bear, we sat tight as the bear approached. At a certain point (I believe it was when someone yelled “Run!”), we opted to make a strategic withdrawal, while the ursine miscreant proceeded to eat all the hot dogs, all the buns, and all the potato chips. We were left with a bag of marshmallows and a bottle of rum. While it was not my most nutritious dinner, when you have enough rum, you just don’t care. The one I would pick from Korea is the time Max and I got picked up by two ROK soldiers and a soccer player, and ended up having lunch in a whorehouse in the DMZ. Wait! No, I can’t tell that one. Well, at least I kept this to one page. As the bottom margin is in sight, guess it’s time to sign off. KOREA 2 PEACE CORPS BIOS 3 Bob Bercaw and Jerry Hodge [email protected] 831 N. Van Buren Street Wilmington, DE 19806 Home phone: 302-778-0735 Bob’s cell: 302-530-6513 Jerry’s cell: 302-545-1580 Here goes: I left Korea (Incheon, Kyung-ju) a few month early because I had just come to the point where I was done. Yep. I had a great talk before cementing the decision to leave with one of our leaders, who I greatly respected, but whom I cannot remember. Landed in Tokyo and shared an apartment — Homma House—with Maxine, who had left Korea a bit earlier. We had some great adventures together in Tokyo, but she finally decided to return to the US. I stayed there for a bit over one year, teaching English, and eventually working as a curriculum writer and teacher trainer at TEC (Tokyo English Center). During that time, besides eating and gaining weight (made it way up to 140#!), loving the transit system (no more hopsungs!), I “accidentally” stumbled upon a gay bar—I have no intention of disclosing details about this “accident”! I became an instant member of the gei-baa society in Japan, frequenting mostly bars that did not cater to gaijin, as I wanted to meet Japanese guys, not other gaijin. One of my paramours became a long-time friend, who eventually moved to the US, became a citizen, and lives in Santa Fe, (where I lived for 10 years also). We stay in touch often. I found Japan fascinating and immediately was drawn deeply into the culture, wearing geta, and studying Japanese, going often to Kabuki-za, shrines up and down Hon-shu. Returning to the US, with absolutely no intention of living in Delaware (family home), I decided to go for LA, and took a ship from Tokyo to Northern California where I was met by Linda Neal, who drove up there to meet me. She let me stay with her for several months in LA, and then I eventually moved out and found a place of my own. I had every intention of going to graduate school in linguistics, (thank you Gerd Frankle) but somehow the gay life, albeit quite secretive and closeted at that time in LA, captured me totally: mind, spirit and body. Stayed