HIS Karate-Do

I received some sad news about the passing of a former co-worker at IBM Corp, Mr. Harold Uehara.  Harold was 82, and the last time I saw him was some twenty years ago when he retired from Big Blue.  Everything about Harold was colorful and unique.  Even though we considered him an “old man” at 60+, he was extremely youthful looking, well-muscled and always looked very dark…hence his nickname of Koge.  He was a field manager at the company, rumored as the uncredited creator of the “barefoot” design that was a trademark of notes from him.  I always admired his handwriting – beautiful (a fast-disappearing skill in our modern world of keyboarding)!  As I recall, like Sensei Peter and myself, he was a former member of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in the US Air Force.  I think he once told me that he was flew in one of the three B52 bombers that circled the globe non-stop way back in 1957.  He was always extremely proud of his two children – in fact, his son worked for me at IBM for a summer, following his high school graduation.  At an IBM picnic way back in the late 1970’s, a couple of [...]

As many of you know, I love to read – always have.  My taste runs to history, hard science, social science, current events and the occasional good sci-fi book (hard to find these days).  Relatives have told me that they recall that I self-taught myself to read when I was 3-4 years old.  Whether that’s true or not, my parents used to credit the many Golden Books they bought for me when I was very young.  Despite their investment, I can only say that my favorite reading material when I was very young was….DC comic books!  I especially loved the DC Action comics which featured my favorite superheros: Superman, Superboy, Green Lantern, and The Justice League of America!! Back then, the comic book cost 10 cents – some years later, I remember that the price was raised a whopping 20% to 12 cents an issue! Since each issue had to last me until the next one arrived at the stands, I always made sure to read each and every page again and again.  When I say each and every page, that included the Letters to the Editor section, which sometimes was more entertaining and informative than the stories in the [...]

Later this year, Sensei Peter and I reach one of the major milestones in life as one matures – we become eligible for Medicare, haha! Truthfully, as federal retirees, we already have medical coverage via FEHB, so it’s not as exciting a milestone as…say, finally qualifying for purchase of a Zippy’s  Restaurant card!!  (Where your sensei’s gather after Saturday training to er…discuss martial arts history and um…secret karate techniques 🙂  Yeah, there’s gotta be a few benefits we can glean from getting old. Actually, for us men of Japanese ancestry, one of the big milestones is the Kanreki (celebrating one’s 60th birthday), which was a few years ago for us.  My wife and I were talking about how this appears to be a dying tradition among us sansei (not sensei 😉 and I rarely have attended one since my dad’s generation hit this hallowed mark some 30+ years ago.  Fortunately for me, I have a wife and kids who are among the best party and entertainment gurus around and they threw the old man a big one at the Hawaii Prince golf course back in 2011. My favorite memory of the festivities was when my daughter did a masterful impression [...]