55 YEARS FROM WHITE BELT TO BLACK BELT

55 years ago, on a cold, very windy, grey Winter afternoon... after Jr. High classes, I went to a convenience store by a gas station... actually a little strip center thing...out on the 4 lane parkway that serviced Travis Air Force Base, California. Idly, after getting some sunflower seeds, I wandered down the walkway, in front of the few businesses in the strip. One of them was a "Karate" school; I went in and looked around.

I had been skipped forward in school. so, not only was early adolescence making me smaller than the girls who were growing up faster, I was a year and a half behind the regular boys. I was small for the class. I got in fights, and often got beaten up. I was OK with it; I was smaller. But this "karate" thing looked pretty cool.

You are in 1963, before anyone named Bruce Lee had appeared. Before a judo, aikido, karate or ANYTHING movie. TV was made up of Father Knows Best, Lawrence Welk and Gunsmoke. Movies were three times a year, and were 1950's style westerns. Karate?? Who knew?

The Asian running the place guy spoke broken English and was quite animated. "Free class" "Free lesson" "Ka-Ra-Te"-- in I went. Soon, in my free lesson, I had mastered the technique to deal with someone grabbing my lapels and holding me...threatening me! Wow!

So I went home and begged my Mom to enroll me, which she did not. I never forgot it. I never lost the desire to start it and finish it. I remember that afternoon like it was yesterday.

Indeed, yesterday afternoon, after 7 years of training, and after a three hour belt testing session, I was awarded my Black Belt. Fortress Fighting/Combat Hapkido Style.