Patrick Wong: a balanced life of millwork and poetry

Provided by Jon Hammond.

Patrick and Patty Wong have been married since 1974.

Past Forgiveness

Peace in the moment

Now transcending all judgment

Nothing to forgive

Tehachapi resident Patrick Wong is a man whose life has been shaped by both precision and the esoteric, by some things that can be measured and others that are difficult to define.

A retired union millwright, he spent 40 years doing exacting, highly technical work on turbine generators in nuclear power plants and other large facilities. At the same time, he created poetry and developed his own spiritual, philosophical approach to life. He was a millwright by trade and a poet by temperament.

Patrick's Chinese relatives came to America in the latter half of the 1800s to work as laborers on railroads -- possibly even on the Southern Pacific through Tehachapi Pass. One too many cave-ins that killed other workers convinced his great-grandfather that he might live longer in another line of work, so he took his money and opened up an import/export business in San Francisco, where Patrick's grandfather was born.

Much of the business took place in Canton, China, so the family returned there and Patrick's father was born in China. During the 1930s, when Japan's imperial ambitions were at their height, Patrick's father was involved in the Chinese resistance movement, gathering up donated valuables from Chinese people and trading them for dynamite to use against the Japanese.

Provided by Jon Hammond.

A portion of the Wong family: Amy, Patrick, Patty, Alaura, Alanna and Alex.

Concerned about their son's survival in the risky resistance movement, the family sent Patrick's father to the U.S. and he attended UCLA. He was drafted during World War II and joined the Army Air Corp, flying B-17s bombers over Italy. He became a flight instructor in the newly formed Air Force after the war, married a woman from Hong Kong and became a career military officer, achieving the rank of colonel.

"My parents had converted to Catholicism, and they had nine kids," Patrick says. "We moved around a lot as my Dad was assigned to different Air Force bases. Every one of us kids was born in a different state or country. My grandparents sometimes lived with us and there would be 13 of us cruising around in two station wagons." Patrick, the second eldest, was born in Astoria, Oregon on January 31, 1949.

Patrick and his family ended up in Minot, North Dakota by the time Patrick was 11. Although the Wong family were among the only people of Chinese descent in Minot at the time, Patrick says that he didn't feel like an outsider. "Growing up on military bases, you become very adaptable," he explains, "You lose friends, you make new ones."

Patrick graduated from high school in 1966 and then spent a couple of years at Minot State College. In June of 1968, Patrick took rode his little Honda Scrambler motorcycle to Washington with a friend.

Patrick was morally opposed to the Vietnam War, but got drafted. After leaving the military with an honorable discharge, Patrick ended up coming back to California with the sister of a friend, and took classes at San Pedro College. In 1972, there was a knock on the door of the apartment where he was staying, and two beautiful blonde girls from North Dakota were there to see a mutual acquaintance. Patrick and one of them, Patty Azure, hit it off immediately. "It's a life-changing experience when you meet someone you're ready to spend your life with," Patrick says.

Patrick and Patty ended up returning to North Dakota and were married in 1974. They have six children: Anna, Alman, Alanna, Amy, Alex and Alaura.

The Wongs were raising their children in North Dakota, and then in 2003 they came out Bear Valley Springs for two weeks to visit the eldest daughter Anna and her husband Brad and their daughter Sky Blue, and found that they loved the Tehachapi Mountains. When their home of 20 years in North Dakota burned to the ground, they decided that instead of rebuilding in North Dakota, they'd move to the Tehachapi area.

Provided by Jon Hammond.

Patrick before he retired after 40 years as a union millwright.

When Patrick was still working, he often travelled to Arizona, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah, typically working 12 hours a day, seven days a week when he was on a job. "I am fortunate that I was able to find a career that would support my family," he says.

When he was not away from home being a millwright, Patrick liked to work on his poetry, which continues in his retirement. He and Patty enjoy their home in Bear Valley Springs, spending time with their kids and grandkids, and sometimes attending craft fairs for Patty to sell woven baskets from Ghana.

Patrick has cultivated deep thought and a philosophical, accepting approach to life. "True peace comes from within, when you accept without resistance whatever is manifest in the moment," he explains. The balance that Patrick has achieved in his life is evident in his calm contentment, and the joy that he finds in simple natural observations.

Keep enjoying the beauty of life in the Tehachapi Mountains.

No Expectation

In the stillness of the water

The pond is not waiting

For rain drops falling

Or ripples in their wake

Jon Hammond is a fourth generation Kern County resident who has photographed and written about the Tehachapi Mountains for 38 years. He lives on a farm his family started in 1921, and is a speaker of Nuwä, the Tehachapi Indian language. He can be reached at [email protected]/.