Jeffrey Miller's Blog: Jeffrey Miller Writes, page 23

Winter in Daejeon

Winter is my favorite time of the year in Korea; especially when it snows. Having lived in Korea since 1990, I have seen my share of snow in Seoul, Daejeon, and my first winter wonderland at Mt. Sorak in 1991.

December was the snowiest month I have experienced in Daejeon as well as Korea all those years.

On New Year’s Day, another couple of inches was dumped on Daejeon and with the temperature not too cold, I trudged through the snow over to Uam Historical Park (a little over a mile from where I live) to take some winter photos.

I’m glad I did.

Read about my first winter in Korea, snow, and other things in Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm.

Buddha at Jikji-sa Temple — Kimcheon, South Korea

One of my favorite Korean Buddhist temples, Jikji-sa, is located not far from Daejeon in Kimcheon. I visited the temple twice in 2003 when I was a feature writer for The Korea Times. Back then I was writing weekly travel articles at a time when there were no bloggers blogging about Korea and places to visit.

Cold Duck

Or should I say, cold ducks?

On one of the coldest days of the new year, and one of the coldest days I have felt in Korea in a very long time, these ducks in a stream not far from SolBridge are oblivious to the cold.

Word of Mouth

Everyone who buys a copy of your book becomes your personal public relations liaison.

One of my readers left a message on my Facebook page to tell me that while she was at Sam’s Pizza in Oglesby, she strikes up a conversation with a couple waiting for their pizza. Turns out the husband and wife were originally from Oglesby and that the husband once worked for the Supreme Dairy. She tells them about Ice Cream Headache and before they leave with their pizza, they order my book via their iPhone and iBookstore.

That’s all it takes to make Ice Cream Headache a hit.

Pretty cool story, huh?

The Chosin Few: General Raymond Davis and Henry Danilowski

General Raymond Davis, Hartell House, November 2000

Henry Danilowski, Knight Field, November 2000

Just finished reading a superb book on the Korean War and the fighting which took place at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea: The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of US Marines in Combat.

I’ve read a number of books about the fighting at the Chosin Reservoir such as Eric Hammel’s, Chosin: Heroic Ordeal of the Korean War and Joseph Owen’s, Colder Than Hell and like any account of the war, it is hard for readers to imagine what it must have been like for the Marines and soldiers who found themselves at places like Chosin and Kunu-ri in the autumn of 1950. Bob Drury and Tom Clavin get as close as two authors can to describing the horrors of battle and the heroic stand the men of Fox Company made:

Of all the accounts of specific battles of the Korean War, none are more vivid, riveting, and intense as the one described in The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of US Marines in Combat. The authors place you right there with the Marines on Fox Hill in one of the most gallant, heroic stands of the Korean War. Although there have been numerous firsthand accounts of the war, specifically Martin Russ’s The Last Parallel: A Marine’s War Journal and Joe Owen’s Colder than Hell, The Last Stand of Fox Company: A True Story of US Marines in Combat deserves a place among these classic accounts of the conflict.

To be sure, the authors describe the horrors of those days and nights on Fox Hill from the perspective of the men who fought, survived, and died there. You shiver when you read how cold it was for the men; you almost can hear the bullets whizzing overhead, smell the cordite in the air and breathe a sigh of relief when the men of Fox Company survive another night. The authors excel in their detailed accounts of battle that allows readers to have some basic understanding of what it was like for the Marines on the hill as they fought to stay alive, surviving one attack after another, until help arrived.

In 2000, as a feature writer for the Korea Times, the oldest English language newspaper in Korea, I had the honor to meet two of the men who survived that ordeal: General (ret.) Raymond Davis, who led the rescue mission from Yudam-ni, and Henry Danilowski, who was a member of Fox Company. I was covering one of the Korean War commemorative events, which just happened to fall on a frigid Veteran’s Day, in the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. Davis talked about how treacherous it was for him to lead his men, the ridgerunners, over those frozen, craggy ridges to rescue Fox Company. The soft-spoken Davis, stopped a few times as he recalled that mission and that night, his voice filled with emotion when he described how the sudden appearance of a star in the sky on that very dark night was a sign that he and his men would reach the beleaguered men of Fox Company and survive that night as well as how he hoped he could return to Hagaru-ri one day and bring back the Marines still buried there.

If you want to remember and honor those men who fought in this so-called “forgotten war” this is one book that should be at the top of your list.

 

What was most interesting for me reading this book was of course the detailed account of General Raymond Davis leading his men to rescue the men of Fox Company as well as seeing Mr. Danilowski’s name in the Fox Company roster at the end of the book. I still vividly remember meeting both men in November 2000 during a ceremony on Knight Field located inside the Yongsan Military Garrison. After the ceremony, I had the chance to interview Davis in the Hartell House. That interview and my coverage of the commemorative event is one of the essays in Waking Up in the Land of the Morning Calm.

For What It’s Worth / Mr. Soul — Buffalo Springfield

Johnny Fitzpatrick, one of the main characters in Ice Cream Headache, plays drums in a band. In 1967-1968, like most teenagers living in Oglesby, he listened to WLS AM 89 and knew all the songs in the jukebox at M & J’s cafe by heart. Johnny’s musical tastes ran deep and far. I’m sure he was a huge fan of Buffalo Springfield.

WLS Top 40 for the week of February 10, 1967:

1. (I’m A Believer/Steppin’ Stone…………….Monkees

2. Georgy Girl……………………………..Seekers

3. Pushin’ Too Hard………………………….Seeds

4. Ruby Tuesday……………………….Rolling Stones

5. I Love You So Much…………………New Colony Six

6. I Had Too Much To Dream……………Electric Prunes

7. Nothin’ Yet…………………………Blues Magoos

8. Gimme Some Lovin’……………….Spencer Davis Group

9. Love Is Here…………………………….Supremes

10. I Think We’re Alone Now……Tommy James & Shondells

11. Green Green Grass Of Home………………..Tom Jones

12. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye……………Casinos

13. The Beat Goes On……………………….Sonny & Cher

14. Girl Watcher’s Theme………..Bob Crowe Generation

15. Now Winter Day…………………………….Tommy Roe

16. There’s A Kind Of A Hush……………..Herman’s Hermits

17. Where Will The Words Come From………….Gary Lewis

18. Pretty Ballerina………………………….Left Banke-Smash

19. 98.6……………………………………..Kelth

20. You Got To Me………………………….Neil Diamond

21. How Do You Catch A Girl………………….Sam The Sham

22. Baby, I Need Your Lovin’…………….Johnny Rivers

23. The Mechanical Man………………………….Ben Holt

24. No Fair At All……………………….Association

25. Color My World……………………………Pet Clark

26. Lovin’ You………………………….Bobby Darin

27. Indescribably Blue……………………..Elvis Presley

28. Tell It To The Rain…………………….4 Seasons

29. Sock It To Me………………………Mitch Ryder

30. For What It’s Worth………………Buffalo Springfield

31. Epistle To Dippy……………………………Donovan

32. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy……………Cannonball Adderley

33. Hey Leroy…………………………….Jimmy Castor

34. So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star………..Byrds

35. Go Where You Wanna Go………………….5th Dimension

36. Happy Together……………………….Turtles

37. Darlin’ Be Home Soon……………Lovin’ Spoonful

38. Oh Yeah…………………………….Joe Cuba Sextet

39. Stand By Me……………………………Spyder Turner

40. I’ve Been Lonely Too Long…………..Young Rascals

In 1968, the year that Ice Cream Headache takes place, I was listening to WLS and I was playing the jukebox at M & J’s. I watched the Monkees on television and would have heard “I’m a Believer” numerous times.

Want to sell more books? Spread the word one book at a time

I know its easier said than done, but if you a self-published author the one way for you to sell more books is to get your readers on board. Unless you’re willing shell out x amount of dollars for publicity and advertising (with no guarantee that you will sell your books) the most effective, not to mention cost effective, approach to selling your books is by spreading the word one book at a time.

Thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and Goodreads where you can connect with your friends and readers, getting the word out is a lot easier in the digital, social networking world we live in. However, you are only halfway there. Although you can lead a reader to your books and hopefully get them to buy them, you still have to get them to help you promote your book with their contacts.

The most effective way is for your readers to share your updates and links to your books, comment on your website or blog, and talk about your book. Just clicking “like” or “sharing” an update is not enough. One has to be more proactive by actually having something to say about the book. That is the real challenge.

I have a few dedicated readers/followers who do exactly that. As soon as I share a status update about one of my books or a blog post like this one, my friends spring into action by sharing these updates with their friends. Many times they will even comment about the status update which is also effective.

Friday On My Mind — The Easybeats

Today, we’re traveling back to 1967, the year before Ice Cream Headache takes place and music by The Easybeats. Turn it up!

I missed out on The Easybeats the first time around back in 1967. I might have heard them while I was listening to WLS AM 89 out of Chicago. However, It wouldn’t be until the 90s, when I got turned on to the Nuggets Collection, when I “rediscovered” them.

What an upbeat little tune, huh?

Needed some upbeat moments in 1967 that started off with the tragic fire in the Apollo 1 space capsule and America’s continued military buildup in Vietnam.

News and Events of 1967

Population: 3.485 billion

Biafra secedes from Nigeria (May).

Israeli and Arab forces battle; Six-Day War ends with Israel occupying Sinai Peninsula, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and West Bank (June 5). Background: Arab-Israeli Wars

Right-wing military coup deposes King Constantine II of Greece.

Communist China announces explosion of its first hydrogen bomb (June 17).

The US and USSR propose a nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Background: nuclear disarmament

U.S. Statistics

President: Lyndon B. Johnson

Vice President: Hubert H. Humphrey

Population: 198,712,056

Life expectancy: 70.5 years

Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 29.9

Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 27.4

Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 6.8

Racial violence in Detroit; 7,000 National Guardsmen aid police after night of rioting. Similar outbreaks in New York City’s Spanish Harlem, Rochester, N.Y., Birmingham, Ala., and New Britain, Conn. (July 23).

Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first black US Supreme Court justice (Oct. 2).

Astronauts Col. Virgil I. Grissom, Col. Edward White II, and Lt. Cmdr. Roger B. Chaffee killed in fire during test launch (Jan. 27).

Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars):   $833.6 billion

Federal spending:   $157.46 billion

Federal debt:   $340.4 billion

Median Household Income

(current dollars):  $7,143

Consumer Price Index:   33.4

Unemployment:   3.8%

Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.05

Sports

Super Bowl

Green Bay d. Kansas City (35-10)

World Series

St. Louis Cardinals d. Boston Red Sox (4-3)

NBA Championship

Philadelphia 76ers d. SF Warriors (4-2)

Stanley Cup

Toronto d. Montreal (4-2)

Pulitzer Prizes

Fiction: The Fixer, Bernard Malamud

Music: Quartet No. 3, Leon Kirchner

Drama: A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee

Oscars awarded in 1967

Academy Award, Best Picture: A Man for All Seasons, Fred Zinnemann, producer (Columbia)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala)

Grammys awarded in 1967

Record of the Year: ”Strangers in the Night,” Frank Sinatra

Album of the Year: Sinatra: A Man and His Music, Frank Sinatra (Reprise)

Song of the Year: ”Michelle,” John Lennon and Paul McCartney, songwriter

Events

Congress creates PBS.

Rolling Stone and New York Magazine debut, spawning the popularity of special-interest and regional magazines.

Movies

The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, In the Heat of the Night, Cool Hand Luke

Music

The Beatles, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Books

Donald Barthelme, Snow White

Elizabeth Bishop, Selected Poems

Robert Bly, The Light Around the World

Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

Stanley Elkin, A Bad Man

W. S. Merwin, Lice

Marianne Moore, Complete Poems

Joyce Carol Oates, A Garden of Earthly Delights

William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Manfred Eigen (Germany), Ronald G. W. Norrish, and George Porter (both UK), for work in high-speed chemical reactions

Physics: Hans A. Bethe (US), for work on energy production of stars

Physiology or Medicine: Haldan K. Hartline, George Wald, and Ragnar Granit (all US), for work on human eye

Antony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell Burnel (UK) discover pulsars.

Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall, Richard Taylor (US) discover protons and neutrons to be composed of even smaller particles called quarks.

The MIRV (Multiple Indepenently Targetable Reetry Vehicle), which allows one missile to carry several nuclear warheads, is developed.

Dr. Christiaan N. Barnard and team of South African surgeons perform world’s first successful human heart transplant (Dec. 3). The patient dies 18 days later.

Deaths

Ernesto “Che” Guevara

Spencer Tracy

Woody Guthrie

Langston Hughes

Alice B. Toklas

John Coltrane

You Were On My Mind — Crispian St. Peters / We Five

Time for another musical journey back in time and my soundtrack for Ice Cream Headache.

Today, it’s another journey back to 1966 and Crispian St. Peter’s, “You Were On My Mind”:

Although this was a hit for Crispian St. Peters in 1966, it was also a hit for We Five the previous year:

What was happening in 1966? Aside from America’s increased involvement in Vietnam, which is the backdrop to this novella, here are some events and statistics from that year courtesy of Info Please:

 

Population: 3.415 billion

France withdraws its forces from NATO. President De Gaulle visits the USSR (June 20).
Sukarno leaves office in Indonesia; Suharto assumes power.
Botswana, Lesotho, and Guyana become independent states within the British Commonwealth.
India suffers the worst famine in 20 years; Lyndon Johnson asks for $1 billion in aid to the country.

U.S. Statistics

President: Lyndon B. Johnson

Vice President: Hubert H. Humphrey

Population: 196,560,338

Life expectancy: 70.2 years

Violent Crime Rate (per 1,000): 26.7

Property Crime Rate (per 1,000): 24.5

Homicide Rate (per 100,000): 5.9

Medicare begins (July 1).
Supreme Court decides Miranda v. Arizona, protecting rights of the accused.
Stokeley Carmichael elected president of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Background: Student movements

Economics

US GDP (1998 dollars):   $787.8 billion

Federal spending:   $134.53 billion

Federal debt:   $328.5 billion

Consumer Price Index:   32.4

Unemployment:   4.5%

Cost of a first-class stamp:   $0.05

World Series

Baltimore d. LA Dodgers (4-0)

NBA Championship

Boston d. LA Lakers (4-3)

Stanley Cup

Montreal d. Detroit (4-2)

Wimbledon

Women: Billie Jean King d. M. Bueno (6-3 3-6 6-1)

Men: Manuel Santana d. D. Ralston (6-4 11-9 6-4)

Kentucky Derby Champion

Kauai King

NCAA Basketball Championship

Texas Western d. Kentucky (72-65)

NCAA Football Champions

Notre Dame (AP, UPI, FW, NFF-tie) (9-0-1) & Michigan St. (NFF-tie) (9-0-1)

World Cup

England d. W. Germany (4-2)

Pulitzer Prizes

Fiction: Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, Katherine Anne Porter

Music: Variations for Orchestra, Leslie Bassett

Academy Award, Best Picture: The Sound of Music, Robert Wise, producer (Twentieth Century-Fox)

Nobel Prize for Literature: Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Israel) and Nelly Sachs (Sweden)

Record of the Year: ”A Taste of Honey,” Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

Album of the Year: September of My Years, Frank Sinatra (Reprise)

Song of the Year: ”The Shadow of Your Smile” (Love Theme From The Sandpiper), Paul Francis Webster and Johnny Mandel, songwriters

Miss America: Deborah Irene Bryant (KS)

Events

The first Star Trek episode, “The Man Trap,” is broadcast on September 8. The plot concerns a creature that sucks salt from human bodies.
CBS backs out of plans to broadcast Psycho, deeming the movie too violent for at-home viewing.
The old Metropolitan Opera House is abandoned as the company moves to Lincoln Center. The new Metropolitan Opera opens with Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra.

Movies

A Man for All Seasons, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Alfie, A Man and a Woman

Books

John Barth, Giles Goat-Boy
Paul Bowles, Up Above the World
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
Robert Coover, The Origin of the Brunists
Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49

Nobel Prizes in Science

Chemistry: Robert Sanderson Mulliken (US), for research on bond holding atoms together in molecule

Physics: Alfred Kastler (France), for work on energy levels inside atom

Physiology or Medicine: Charles Brenton Huggins (US), for studies in hormone treatment of cancer of prostate; Francis Peyton Rous (US), for discovery of tumor-producing viruses

Insulin is first synthesized in China.
MIT biochemist Har Khorana finishes deciphering the DNA code.
The Food and Drug Administration declares “the Pill” safe for human use.

Deaths

Montgomery Clift
Walt Disney

Time Won’t Let Me — The Outsiders

Traveling back in time to write Ice Cream Headache, I needed a little musical help to get me back to the 1960s. It was also the chance to discover some music I missed as well as rediscover some music I had not heard for a very long time like this track by The Outsiders, “Time Won’t Let Me” which was released in 1966.

Another one of Cleveland’s great rock acts.