Romancing San Francisco [Sketches of Life in the late '60s]

Romancing San Francisco
[Sketches of life in the late ‘60’s]









A Novel

By Dennis L. Siluk








Copyright @ Romancing San Francisco
By Dennis L. Siluk, 2003



For my mother—Elsie Siluk, who met me in the middle of my
First journey [adventure in life], in those far off days
In San Francisco


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Thanks goes to my wife Rosa my little Inca wife and
To Jon McWilliams for their ongoing efforts in my writings







Index/ Contents

Romancing San Francisco: --l968-69


Preface
Introduction

Chapter One: Sammie’s Bar
Chapter Two: Master Gosei Yamaguchi
Chapter Three: The Latin Family
Chapter Four: Dolores Street
Chapter Five: The Fillmore West/and the Indian Maid
Chapter Six: Meeting the Cat/ the Tournament

Chapter Seven: Lilli Ann
Chapter Eight: The Christmas Party/and Colleen
Chapter Nine: Mother’s Visit
Chapter Ten: Sammie’s [Apollo 11; Woodstock & Surprise]






“There is a time and season for everything,
Under the sun.”






“It was where it all started, San Francisco, if you were not there in the early to late 60’s ----you missed an unequaled era, to an unaccountable freedom, a celebration to life, have not seen since the time of the 1920’s, the Jazz Age, --in Paris, Berlin; --or Rome’s Pompeii----2000-years ago. And one may never come across it again.”
Dennis L. Siluk




Preface




For personal reasons many things have been left out of this book concerning the impressions of the times, in this unlikely story, that took place in San Francisco; -- the times were more of an observation, as if I was looking in the window of some big store in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, trying to wipe a circle in the dead of winter to see the toys. That is how I felt as a Midwesterner in this grand city called San Francisco, like a toy in the window, --in this new era of freedom, sweeping the country, and it did, all starting right here, right in San Francisco, the year, l968-69; --some names are fictional, some are not.
Neither have I expressed all the karate fights and controversy that filled the dojo and tournament of my day; or the training with Gosei Yamaguchi, and Buck, although I have not smothered all of them out either. There also were many times the gay community approached me, I again will share some of that, but again there is little mention of it for it is not what the book is about and determination not add or subtract from the theme, plot and if there is to be an insight, that; --that is, if one finds it. But more of the explorations of the area within and around San Francisco are the premise of the book, for lost era.
For the reader, if he prefers, it can be consider historical-fiction; that is to say, not all is fact, yet, interwoven into every paragraph lies truth.





Introduction
[1966-67]




I was twenty years old, and we all talked about the “Cat”, at our dojo in St. Paul, Minnesota. Especially during the cold two winters I studied GoJo Kai karate on ‘Cat,’ because of his ‘Cat Stance’. He was a 10th degree black belt in Japan. We all heard about him and our instructor who was a 2nd degree black belt had studied Karate in Japan during his Army tours, as he called them.
I was a green belt back then; --the belts go, white, green, brown, purple and black; --or so they did in St. Paul, in San Francisco, there was no such thing as a ‘Purple’, belt. In any case, several times I got thinking and talking to Jim about traveling to San Francisco ----where Gosei Yamaguchi opened up his Karate Studio in the early 60’s. He was the oldest son to Gogen Yamaguchi, the Cat, and was putting together an International, National and regional karate organization at the time I arrived in San Francisco. The Cat was a legend in his own time, and Gosei was like Bruce Lee, 6th degree, and unbeaten, at least in my eyes. We had heard he had beaten Yamamoto, a karate man who had killed a man once, and who had broken the horns off of bulls that challenged him; or maybe it was the other way around. But these were stories, rumors, no one knew for sure, or for that matter, how to sort the truth from the legends.
Chuck Skinner, our instructor had never met either Gosei or Gogen, but he talked about them enough. And the more Jim talked to me about going to San Francisco, the more we both became convinced to go. Finally we came up with a plan, --Jim would go first to San Francisco, with his family, find a job, apartment, and get to know Goesi, and I’d follow a month later, and I could stay with him and we’d both study under Master Yamaguchi. It sounded excellent we shock hands and waited for the day to arrive.


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Romancing San Francisco


Sketches of Life In
San Francisco in the Late Sixties







Chapter One

Sammie’s Bar

The Castro Area
[San Francisco]

◊

I had many difficulties the first six weeks in San Francisco, my friend from Minnesota wanted me to leave his house because I got poison oak. I went to a hotel, and had run out of money, down to one silver dollar so I ate at the mission. Then Gosei Yamaguchi, my karate instructor offered me to live in the dojo [the dojo being the gym] and so I ended up living there in and teaching in the morning karate to kids, and in the evening being instructed by one of the greatest karate masters in the world, Gosei, --and drinking at night in the Castro district. What I didn’t know was, I would get an unquenchable thirst for this new life I was entering into, and it would be a romance of sorts, but not with any certain person, rather with the city itself, San Francisco.

I had found a bar I liked in particular, about three blocks away from the dojo. After everyone was gone in the evening in the dojo, I’d step out and walk down among the busy district lights, with its overpowering charm, and go into the semi-crowed bar called: “Sammie’s”. It was not much of a bar, a lot of smoke inside, and a few drunks, many men, and a few women; --an older couple, Mr. and Mrs. Palace was quite friendly with me. I liked talking to them. I also enjoyed eating the free sandwiches, and chili they always had; --couldn’t figure it out, a small dingy bar, with so many people, and two male bartenders, --Ted and Joe. They seem to work well together though. They were quite colorful in their delightful way in managing the bar, and its customers, always so approachable. The people who frequented the bar seem to be for the most part, the same customers each evening, and all quite well mannered, quiet and friendly, even the few drunks that fell to sleep now and then followed this pattern. I never thought it too strange though. Maybe because this was one of the first places that reminded me of home somewhat, even though I was only twenty, I had been drinking in the bars back home for sometime.
Outside the bar was a crowed commercial area; along with a real live cable car up the block. There were also several bars cramped into a square eight block area, a few cloth stores, a small grocery store down the block, and a movie theater: --up the block on Main Street was that street car again [I was talking about] it went downtown, or if going in the other direction, it went under a bridge and out toward the University; --when I was about six, I remember them street-cars in St. Paul, but they had got rid of them since, so this was a novelty for me [I made sure I rode on them purposely], and along side that was the main street that went down town San Francisco, or what I called downtown. I had stayed in the hotel down there, the Freemont for a week, with my poison oak I had acquired across the bay up on some damn hill, while resting one afternoon and absorbing the beautiful sun; -- the hotel broke me, it got too be pretty expensive and my money run out, and I lucked out I guess one might say, when I got to stay at the dojo.

At the dojo, I slept on the sofa in the main lobby, and in the back of the building, within the dojo, was a stove and refrigerator, I occasionally used. Gosei would put a five or ten spot [dollar bill] under my pillow about once or twice a week, when he came in early the next morning, I’d be sleeping, but I’d kind of wake up when he’d do that. When I got up, he’d ask, “You eating all right,” and I’d say yes, I didn’t want to complain, I was there on my own free will, yet, I was a little ashamed I had to take the money. But I had also learned a lesson a year earlier, while traveling and living in Seattle for a month. I had run out of money, and had no one to help me with the food thing, consequently, I learned quickly about hunger, and it was not an option not eat, you had to. Therefore, I found a job but it didn’t pay for two weeks, and so I had to beg, borrow and almost stole candy from a boy selling it door to door as a Boy Scout, but I didn’t; I just allowed myself to get more hungry while in Seattle, that is. I did not want to be in that situation again, here in San Francisco.

Goesi would go to his semi-enclosed office behind the tall thin counter; --which was the first thing people saw when they came through the doors, and up the twenty plus steps to reach the top, and there the desk would be, and Lorenzo, whom I got to know quite well, would greet you. He was a light mulatto, and his wife a black woman, a first-degree black belt. Lorenzo had been studying karate for some thirteen years when I had met him, yet had no colored belt, he said he never took one; but as I got to know him, he was as good as any black belt.
The toilet in the dojo was fine, clean, but no shower, and so I just wiped myself clean daily, although a few of my karate friends were letting me know I was not smelling all that great.
It was summer time and the city was wide open with life, charm, it was a colorful playground for the new generation, the ‘Love Generation’, the ‘Flower People,’ ----life in San Francisco was as if there was a fest going on everywhere. The pulse of the city was going wild; two hundred beats a minute.


At “Sammie’s” no one seems to get too much out of place, that is, no one caused trouble, I liked it because of that. Furthermore, it seemed like I came to the city just at the right time, summer was warm and the parks were filled with people, and bands were in every big or small park throughout the city. Everyone smoking pot, everyone but me that is, I was drinking. I had been down to Hayed Asbury Street, a week ago, by myself at night with a wine bottle in my hands, and you couldn’t walk: --everyone, everywhere, asking if you wanted a joint or whatever, everyone with white and/or decorative colored shirts, with randomly selected hats of every color and type, -- and pants with patches and holes; ----more moccasins than shoes where being displayed on the feet of the inhabitants. In some of the more discolored corners of the archways to the buildings as I walked the street, you would get the whispers of whatever you wanted, it was for sale. This was of course a daily thing, meaning, night or day, for I had been there a few times during the day also. Some of the hippies were quite grimy looking, my age. I thought them to be lost at the time in this marvelous Saint Hood of a city. But in a like manner, so was I.
At Sammie’s bar, most of the people didn’t seem to be of the hippie type, or even with the times, more settled in one might say, or for some odd reason that is how I recognized it, even good old Mr. and Mrs. Palace seemed to be content with avoiding the trend and the times of the day; and again, --Joe, the older man [bar tender] always looked at me with a forked-look, as if he had swallowed a frog, and Ted, the thinner of the two, was more business like and said very little to me, or for that matter, spoke only when need be. But my thoughts on the matter were simple, people are different, let it be.
I walked down toward the center of this section of the city [Castro], not too far, yet south of the city was an old church, Dolores street was there also, and the way to the downtown area was a few blocks to the North. Over to the East was where I had started working, a place called Lilli Ann, a dress designer outfit. Adolph Shuman owned the place to my understanding, and had his name on many of the labels attached to the cloths. I had not seen him yet, but I was told he’d show up at the most unexpected times, and was told to just keep out of his way, by my boss Mr. Arthur Blair from England, a dress designer. I think he had a few undesirable run-ins with him. I had soon found out that Lilli Ann was one of the most famous women’s clothing outfits in the world. I’d sometimes have to go down to the fur room, have to bring some furs to the women working, they were beautiful, each time I did this, I seem to have been under a watchful eye until they got to know me better, that is.
The clothing was exceptionally well done, suede, faux mink, other fabrics like mohair wool, etc. I would live to find out, some thirty-five years down the road that Lilli Ann cloths would outlive itself; --and remain world famous. In addition, I would have a dress made for my mother, the women liked me there and so they were kind enough to use their spare time to make the dress for me, and I needed only to buy the fabric. It was worth $85, more than a week’s wages for me. Two other times people asked me to ask the women to make dresses for them, when they found out they did it for me, and they again, made them for me twice more, but then I stopped asking, feeling I was abusing my friends, and the people asking were abusing me. I would also meet Mr. Shuman, the multi-millionaire four times. As I looked back I was always bumping in to history in the making.

It was a warm, friendly and pleasant evening, for the most part; I was about to venture downtown but decided to go back to the bar at the last minute. There I walked in, took my jacket off, and sat on one of the stools. It was a long bar, like back in the days of Jessie James, with tables to my back.
“What’re you having again,” asked Ted.
“Tap beer, as usual.”
“You got it,” said Ted.
A woman somewhat drunk at the end of the bar was checking me out, or so it seemed. The beer went down my insides like a cool breeze refreshing my every pore, on this warm evening. The girl was pretty, but she didn’t really seem to be too interest in me, only curious for some odd reason. I smiled, and she returned it, and started talking to one of the men standing by her at the bar. And so, unabated I went on daydreaming, drinking and smoking.

I sat thinking about how my karate adventure to travel some 2000-miles and meet one of the great masters of karate, one of the best in the world, and possible somewhere along the line I might get to meet his father the ‘Cat’, Gogen Yamaguchi, was a thrill of a lifetime. I ordered another beer, looking at the girl at the end of the bar again --before I fell back into my daydreaming state.
I thought about San Francisco, how I was getting to know the city, and she was starting to belong to me: --along with this new era, the place and especially this bar. I felt alone at times, yet, not lonely, inasmuch as, anyone might, had they left their home behind them. It pained me to think had I not gone on this venture I might have lost out on a golden opportunity, that is to say, one I might look back at in thirty-five years and say, ‘Yaw, that’s where it all started.’ I had always felt a little lost, but better to be lost than sad.

٭

I had not made love to a girl yet, --that is, not in the last six weeks I had been here in San Francisco. Maybe I was leading up to it. I had met two girls at the dojo: one Japanese girl called Kikuyu, very pretty, but she had it for Buck I think, my 4th degree black belt friend. Every time he and I were by them she ended up floating on air, not sure if Buck took note of that. And Karen her girlfriend, whom was too bare for me I felt, liked me. Wasn’t that the luck of the draw? I would have liked to have changed girlfriends with Buck, but felt, leave well enough alone. First Buck wasn’t really interested in her, and second, I had learned that when a woman was interested in one person, that was it, he could be with fifty other guys in a naked group, and she’d wait for him to emerge.
As I ate my ham and cheese sandwich, Joe asked me if I wanted to go to a party which he was having in two weeks, writing his address down, he pushed it over towards me on the bar.
“We’re having Oysters,” he said, adding, “Ted and Mr. and Mrs. Palace would be there [knowing I liked them], so try to be there.”
“If I can make it Joe, I will … [hum] thanks.” He gave me that look again; but this time the look entailed the cat eating the mouse.

I finished my sandwich, drank down my 5th beer, paid the bill and readied myself to leave the bar.
“Thanks again, Joe for the invitation,” I said as I walked out the door, back down the street, taking a right to go up the hill, and another right to go up a second hill. The dojo was in the middle of the second hill, Collingswood.




Chapter Two


Master Yamaguchi Teaches
[Buck becomes a Friend]

◊


The weather was warm in the summer of l968, a breeze from the bay seeped through the city, and the Turtles, the Doors and the Beatles music were being played everywhere, along with “Elvis’ Comeback”. Everyone dressed like Sonny and Cher, or the Momma’s and the Papa’s it seemed everyone but me that is; inasmuch as I liked the way everyone dressed, I found myself still quite conservative.
The trees along many of the streets especially Dolores Avenue were glossy green. I bought some bread, and white spread-on cheese, brought it to the dojo and put it in the refrigerator; I liked it, something new that I picked up here in San Francisco. Along with a corner store that would make any kind of sandwich you wanted.
Because of the change in weather from Minnesota to San Francisco, my eating habits were also changing, --to lighter foods that is, and less meats; --more Chinese foods also; I really didn’t care for Japanese foods. Some one brought in raw snake, or so it seemed with white rice in the middle of it, and offered it as a treat for us at the dojo one evening, it must have been Goesi, --but that is a guess, I can’t remember. Although I always seemed to have a good appetite, after a bite or two of the treat, I lost it for the rest of the evening; but as I was saying, with all the walking, and now working at Lilli Ann, the dress designing outfit, and doing my Karate everyday, my appetite was vigorous.

It was great to walk the night away along the oceanfront with my karate friends, looking at the many fires along the Pacific Coast. The warmth of the fires shifted all the way to sensory-senses, smelling the burnt-wood on the fires, all several of us, watching the flickering of the flames, its sparks trying to ascend to the asteroid belt; --as the shinning moon glided across the water right to the edge of the coast, as if it had its orders stop right there. I felt it was a good time to be alive. I loved the water; --the sounds of the huge waves hit the banks of the coast: the white foam splattering all about. My days seemed endless, filled with so much
back in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Mississippi runs right through the city, all the way down to St. Louis, and onto New Orleans; and you got it, right to the Gulf of Mexico. As a kid I’d play down along its banks with my friend Mike Rosette. We were quite the team. We’d run in and out the caves along the cliffs that paralleled the banks of the Mississippi sometimes dodging the drunks asleep snoring away the morning or as sometimes it would be, the afternoon. But this was different, this was not the Mighty Mississippi, Mark Twain’s haven, as he so loved to write about, as I loved to walk beside as a kid, --but this was the Gigantic Pacific Ocean, what I heard about, read about and now was in front of. It was hard for me to adjust to seeing so much water. Much alone, not see an end to it. It took my breath away, like standing in front of the Empire State Building looking up, or looking down the Grand Canyon. I had to run up to it just to say I touched it, got wet; as if it was sacred waters. But then anyone from Minnesota would have done the same I’m sure, or lied that they didn’t, --at first glance anyhow.
Also, along the Mississippi, you’d see rats as large as fat cats, or small dogs, here you seen white jelly fish, colored sea shells, among a few things. To everyone else it was common, to me I was spell bound. In St. Paul, they stopped allowing fires back in ’63, too many false alarms, and the fire company, or stations got sick of running for every fire around. We used to burn our trash in fifty-gallon drums back then: after about six to nine months, grandpa would have me and my brother tip it over and empty it out into a dug out hole, and bury it. But those days were gone to; along with burning the fall leaves, I liked that also, the fall-smell of the leaves, the sparks, just like these fires. And so seeing the fires brought back memories, even though the relationship was quite different, they had their similarities.
“Buck,” I said, asking, “The police don’t do anything about these people having fires, and sleeping the night away… smoking pot, or whatever?”
Buck looked at me strange, “No Chick, it’s just the times…everyone leaves everyone else alone here; or tries to. These people are just here for a short period of time, anyway.”
We stood and looked over the camps, the flames, until we finally got tired and headed back to the dojo; it seemed it was the meeting place. At least for me, because it was where I would sleep.



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The following evening Gosei was instructing a class, there was about thirty of us sitting around the dojo, legs crossed this evening. I was there three weeks ago when Big John, now a first degree black, had just gotten his belt promotion to black belt, then a week later, he was training with Buck, and was suppose to pull his punches because they were working on form and technique but Big John did not agree with the limitations it seemed, and smashed Buck in the face. Now a week after that event, here we are training and warming up for this evening, Gosei had us all sit back down after about twenty minutes, towards the walls, and called Big John out to help him with a demonstration. I felt something was going to happen; it was in the air.
About this time I was getting to know Gosei’s ways pretty well. He was a small man, quiet, but as fast as lightening, and you just never knew what was on his mind, as if he was always thinking. I’ve seen he throws combination after combination of punches and kicks, while demonstrating with Buck; I just never could get the camera to take quick enough pictures, there seemed always to have a blur in them showing the velocity. When the pictures got developed they by way of the blur, it was amazing to examine the picture and figure out how to work around his combination. And every time he did something, he had perfect balance. As I had learned in life, is the secret to life, in everything, physical, mental, spiritual, and psychological. If one of those elements were missing, I had a problem, or would have. On the other hand he was the most sensitive person on earth, and loved mankind in his own careful way. And knew somehow, the nature of a man, as he mixed it with his culture; that is to say, whatever was expected of the Japanese student, in Japan, was not necessary what he expected of Americans in America. Something I would pick up, not quite knowing where I had inherited it from, but as I would in the future do some traveling, I learned how to adjust in several different countries without any difficulties for extended periods of times. It is a mater of reasoning. In any case, and Goesi was the first to present this combination for my life travels I would need after I left San Francisco
as Big John got into his stance, and at this time I was a Green Belt, ready to get my Brown Belt any day, so I knew many of the moves that would take place, and had about a year and a half of karate practice under my belt prior to coming to San Francisco, of which a few months were with the Master Yamaguchi. As I was saying Big John was in his stance --and GoJo Ryu being a defensive style of karate, someone had to start and so Gosei made a false move, meaning just to motivate his opponent; possible this is what happened to Buck and John taking advantage of it because it was practice. In any case, then it happened: --Big John started throwing his long arms out, and Goesi got under them, around them, and must of hit him a half dozen times in the process; for John fell into a corner trying to push the punches away without much affect, which was another mistake of his, Gosei cut him done like a big oak tree because he left himself open then, until he was almost on his knees combinations were going faster than the eye could calculate, then he pulled back and stopped and bowed, walked away, and instructed the rest of us on what to do next. Nobody was talking about what happened, but I knew the subconscious of many were working overtime, mine was. I loved it. I knew Goesi was particular on how his students used their knowledge of karate, and one lesson was --I suppose, no one cares how much you know, until you show how much you care. And Goesi showed always how much he cared; and to be quite frank, so did Buck.


٭

Buck came over to me the next day and asked if I wanted to go to the Japanese movies with him; he really liked the sword fighters, the samurais. I liked doing that, --that is going to the movies and witnessing the samurai in motion, --I was in a different world, an interesting compared to my St. Paul world. Matter of fact, I would always hold a little interest in that area, after San Francisco, also; as well as Sumo wrestling of which I would attend one some thirty years down the road in Japan; as well as bullfights, I would attend in Mexico, and cockfights in Peru, and all matters of combat, I could absorb: --I even ended up in Argentina for a South American Championship boxing match some thirty-four years later.
I think Goesi had asked Buck, --in fear I’d go astray—or go drink myself to death, to befriend me a little. He was a real father figure for me, plus a hero of sorts, and was turning out to be a friend as well. And so we went. I like this particular one, or personage in the Samurai movie world, he was blind and could use his sword like Yamaguchi could his hands. If I’m not mistaken, once this Samurai cut a fly into. I think they had real good special effects in Japan for that movie; but I liked it. Buck liked Edgar Rice Burroughs also, he had read I think all seventy or eighty of his books, to include Tarzan, the Mars books, Venus ones and god knows what else. I couldn’t believe he read all them.
I was learning something from Buck, not only how to be a friend, and fight, but how it might be possible someday for me to go to college, it was in the back of my head----way back there; I was learning many things were possible. I guess I had never thought about it, or even put it to a vote for myself, but he was inspiring me, as I was learning. And in the years to follow I would end up going to four Universities, getting two degrees, and a Counseling License. At the time I’d have never dreamed of that. At best, possible a truck driver and that is not a cut, but reality.

The following weekend, Buck, Lorenzo and his wife, Tom [the banker], Coleman, the 2nd Degree Black Belt [a small black man], Joe, 2nd Degree Black Belt [Spanish], and I all went out to Golden Gate Park. It was monstrous. Every one playing freeze-bee a fun game of sorts: you simply threw a disc made of rubber and the person on the other end would have to catch it like a ball. I learned it quick, good for the reflexes Buck said. We all just walked around the park, played about, stopped and Lorenzo’s wife made some sandwiches, and we lay upon the grass waiting the day away; something I again was not used of doing, I was quite the restless person. As we left the park, there was hundreds of hippie kids all about, smoking joints; a few bands playing, car radios being played loud. On one side of me I could hear the song “The Battle of the Green Berets,” and on the other side was the theme of “The Good, Bad and the Ugly.” And the live band was playing: “We’ll sing in the Sunshine.” As we got into the car, I was hoping when Lorenzo turned on his radio, I’d hear some Elvis, or Rick Nelson music, or even Johnny Cash, but I knew most of my generation had shifted to the newer music, but everyone was talking so the radio never got turned on.

٭

Goesi and Buck were seemingly very close. Buck was about 5’10” about 180 pounds, short hair, very flexible with his body, a warm voice, slow to speak, yet quick if need be; --broad shoulders. He had a tan color to his skin, and was quite handsome. One might liken him to a loner, but I’d prefer to be the loner, and let him be the private person. I was never his companion to speak of, yet I might be considered his unrefined friend of sorts.
Often when I’d go into the dojo at night, Goesi would be working on some file, or doing some accounting, writing letters, signing certificates, I’d let him know it was I, and he’d ask me to play the guitar. He liked listening to it. I sat on the sofa and played, and sometimes I’d play for an hour or so. He liked several songs I played, one he kept asking me to play over and over and I did. Then he’d leave, lock the door behind him, the lights would go off and I’d go to sleep.

There was an old haunting story about this old dojo that scared the best of the tough black belts that would come around each year for the International Go Jo Ryu tournament, along with the ones that came were here on an everyday bases; also, no one, I mean no one wanted to sleep in the dojo. I guess they had in the past but after they slept once they never did again; it was the tapping of the ghost. I slept there all the time, going on three months. What everyone was scared of, I didn’t believe, ----I asked, and every time I did, it would come up “The Ghost.” Again, maybe a dump Midwestern didn’t get the drift, but I had time, I’d only have to wait for the tournament to come about, which was going to take place at the Cow Place soon, it was set for December, 1968. And then I’d sort out truth from fiction. It was all about ghosts for the most part, and the racket [noise] he or she made. I heard ghost’s stories before, you know them one everyone talks about, but no one experiences’. And I would guess until you do it sounded like foolishness to the best of men. But these people were telling me they had experience them, and in time, so would the black belts from around the world tell me the same story, and again, no one would sleep in the dojo. Ghost or not I was staying, plus where else would I go, so if he existed, he’d have to get used to me, and I to him. Plus, each night when I went to bed, I was half drunk anyway. So if he was around, he never woke me up.

I was somewhat ambiguous to everything, yet it didn’t matter, I was just living a dream, one unheard of for a person like me, coming out of a neighborhood of thugs, although in their own way, they were good folk, but none the less, drunks and thugs. And to be able to see the great man Gogen Yamaguchi in the near future, was a grand prize I didn’t expect. In the mean time, Goesi was teaching me how to use his expensive camera for the tournament. I would be the major photographer, he always seemed to give me more trust than I deserved, not sure why; and that to would stick with me, --as a good omen [it gave me confidence in other things along my road of life]. It would only be black belt participation, and they would come from all over the USA, to include Hawaii, Alaska, and New York City. Goesi wanted me to get trained and possible represent the Midwest with his blessings I guess. I would also get to meet his father, the “Cat”, Gogen Yamaguchi, one of the few 10th degree black belts in the world. The longer I stayed, the more San Francisco seemed to be pleasing to me, in a festive way, and a number of other ways.
As the day drew closer to the tournament, Gosei asked --leaning against the archway to the dojo, as I sat on the sofa about to take my karate coat off, and go on down to the bars. Not sure if Gosei knew I was spending time there, but if so, so be it, plus I don’t believe he knew how very much time I was there, “You will be the main photo man for the tournament, ok,” he said to me and smiled, “Yes sir,” I said, as he added, “You doing well with pictures. Are you eating?” Then he hesitated. I nodded my head yes.
He added:
“I get some complaints from neighbors that someone living here, and it is not good for apartment; something about city code. You must move in few weeks, Joe will help find place for you, I’m so sorry.”
He looked hurt to have to tell me, but he knew it couldn’t be anyone else. It was silly to think I could live here forever, well –it was rather a matter of when I had to move, not if I had to.
“…Its fine sir,” I told Gosei, “I’ll start looking myself. He smiled a bit and walked back into his office. Looked at the piggy bank I gave him for his child. Funny I thought he left it there on his desk, not sure why. I never asked way, or for that matter talked back to him, it was much more interesting to listen to him, and learn, he was wise in many ways, and I would become the person I would become no matter what.

I didn’t buy many cloths in those days, I couldn’t afford them, plus at work, Mr. Green was giving me his son’s old cloths. He was much like my grandpa, always ornery, and nobody got along with him but me. My boss didn’t even get along with him, and was afraid to confront him because he would dominate him, and get him fired. But I seem to walk by him and never pay any attention to his moods, like grandpa back home whom my brother and I were raised by for the most part, that is, he and my mother. Grandpa would walk by me all the time mumble this and that. I seemed to absorb it like fish does water, and it rolled right off my back, or over my fins. My boss was shocked he was bringing me cloths. But then I was also.
Mr. Green would say, “The boy doesn’t wear this anymore, it looks better on you, --for the most part, take it…” I’d say, “You sure sir, it looks new…” and he’d look with a grin at me, then I’d say, “Well, I sure appreciate it,” and take it quickly so not to offend him, plus I did wear them; and needed them. Sometimes when I did wear them at work, I’d go out of my way so he would see me with the shirt on, and he’d show just a little pride around his lips. I learned some of the old grouches of the world were the most willing to give; --it was just that life had been hard on them. I suppose he got more appreciation from me than his boy; or so it sounded.

٭

Sexual Education



The weather was starting to change --coolness was coming into San Francisco. As I got to know my friends, and was partaking in the bars around the area, Joe looking for a place for me to stay, I was learning I was far from being educated in the world of sexuality. That is to say, I didn’t understand the world of homosexuality, and in San Francisco, especially the Castro area it was famous for it, if not down right swamped with homosexuals. Again my midwestern lack of education came into play. I had been noticing a few things happening that was coming to light. If I knew anything in this area it was primitive at best. And for being prejudice, I didn’t even know the word existed. And so I was an unlearned as a carpenter needing an apprentice.
I had gone into a bar the second month I had been in San Francisco, about a block and a half away from the dojo. I sat in the bar and drank for about an hour, and a young good-looking man came up to me buying me drinks. I thought it strange at first, but back home it was common for someone to buy you or the whole bar a round of drinks, --nevertheless, having said that, as the time went on, he would not allow me to buy him any drinks back. Then he asked if we could go to his place and drink. I asked, “What for…” he said, “You really don’t know?” He quickly found out I didn’t, and I said I think I need to go. I explained I was taking karate at the dojo around the corner, and I was from Minnesota. I do not think I impressed him, other than being a virgin I suppose, in his eyes.
“Look at the pictures on the walls, around and towards the ceiling, the ones hanging by wires,” he asked me. And so I did.
“Now what do you see?”
“Almost completely naked men,” I said.
“You’re getting it,” he commented, “And don’t worry about buying me a drink, but you will be back for me, I know.” I told him I really had to go but I liked our conversation. I kicked myself in the ass for being so dump, when I left the bar. Then I got thinking about the guy who picked up my matches that fell out of my hands the other day, he almost fell over and got hurt trying to pick them up. He wanted to take me home. Things were starting to fall in place.
Under questioning myself, I tried to recall a few more instances. The guy in the bar by “Sammie’s” kept trying to put his arm around me one early evening, and I told him to stop or I’d get mad and have to do something. He just kept it up, and the bar tender didn’t’ do a thing, so I gave him a solid right elbow in the side of his rib, and he fell over onto the bar, I think I heard it split, and the bar tender called the cops on me.
I said:
“Why are you calling the cops on me, he’s the one attacking me, I’m just defending myself,” it wasn’t all-truthful, and he knew it, but he was trying to violate me.
“Get out of her before the cops come and haul you in Mister,” he hollered at me, in fear I’d start trouble. It took me a while to put two and two together, and figure out it was a gay bar. Poor man, he was just trying to come on. I thought what next. I left the bar quickly, and watched my language, back then I hardly ever swore anyhow, it was not the thing to do. My mother chased me out of the house at age nine-teen for swearing and I guess I don’t blame her, and this was not the time or place to start.

Year’s later people back home would tell me I was living in a city of sin and perverted people that I had most likely slept with, to include men. I said nothing, for what could you say –these were people from my hometown, and they would never understand, I mean never. And if I defended myself, they’d take that as a yes to me having sexual relations with men, and it would just get all around, and god help me with my mother, and you got it, everyone. Again, it was best to leave it alone when I did leave San Francisco.
But as I had learned in San Francisco, it was just a world I knew nothing about, it was part of the times, and it was the way it was. Like old man Mr. Green, it was just the way he was. If anything, I tried to understand, what I didn’t know, which was a lot. I never made protests for anything, Vietnam, Gays, you name it, and life was just too short to get so involved with trying to persuade or change someone to be like you.
I didn’t like drugs either, nor was I experienced in the homosexual world, or for that matter, not all that much in any world besides St. Paul. I had sex one evening with a white prostitute down on Mission Street where I worked by Lilli Ann, I was half drunk, and she was not at all what I wanted, a beast of the raw kind. Another time I had sex with another prostitute downtown San Francisco, she was a black woman, we screwed for hours and she said, “Man, you like to fuck, but I got to go make money honey, you can sleep it off here.” She left, and when I woke up, she never took a thing, and I simply walked back to the dojo.
I wasn’t looking to carry on any long term relationship, and to be quite honest, I was wondering why men were finding me attractive, but felt it was best in leaving well enough alone, it would go away. If anything I was more scared to find out which ones were, and what approaching new friends might be of that nature, I needed to kind of rehearse and let them know this was not my preference. I guess it was not acceptable to me to hate, or for that matter beating up people for their likes and dislikes. I would prefer to fight for honor, sport and practice, or safety.



Poetry &
The Ghost



It was a Thursday evening, I had walked back to the dojo, --it was going on 5:30 PM, I had stopped at a Chinese restaurant, ate dinner, some rice with beef and dark gravy and green peppers over the rice, it was delicious, and had some tea, that sunk to the bottom of the tea-pot, that also was excellent. Then again, back to the dojo. By the time I reached the dojo, everyone had left, it was 7:00 PM, usually I got back early to work out, and Friday nights I avoided going back to the dojo because it was Black Belt night until 8:00 PM. None-the-less, I entered the dojo, and sat back placidly against the sofa, the counter to my left, the archway to the gym [dojo] straight ahead stared at me; as it normally did. And then it happened; it was close to 10:00 PM -- what everyone had told me about, the ghost that is what happened, oh yes, I met him. I can’t describe it emotionally with prose, so I had to write it down after the meeting in poetic verse, I never did give it a name, the poem that is, so let’s do it now, how about “The Ghost of the Collingswood Dojo,” ok? And now for the poem:



I heard him last night
About 10:00 P.M.
(In the silence of the wind)
Trying to get in;
Tapping at the windows,
The podium stand;
Knocking over wooden chairs –
As I was half-asleep
In the gym.

I heard him last night
10:05 P.M.
I was standing by the archway –
To the gym;
Alone—in the black-silence
Of his night.
His footsteps passed me –
I saw the wooden floor
Absorbing them…

I stood in a warrior’s stance
(I remember) --
And said with a cry of sin:
“I wasn’t about to let you in.”

Then with hidden strength
I called to the Lord (although
Something told me to
Challenge him)
In less than a second
I heard the silence in the wind:
Evaporating-shifting,
Leaving in all directions.


Ten years had passed [l978]
Since then—whereupon,
I met a woman: she
Seemed to understand more than I
What really took place
In the silence of that night?
(Maybe I was too young back then)
To realize what was really happening):
But before she left—like in
The silence of the wind –
I heard/she said:
“It wasn’t a dream,
But a scheme;
Thank your Lord;
You didn’t challenge Him.”

Even now [l982] as I write –
I can feel his pulling
On my pen.


Note: Originally published in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, Independent Newspaper, “Insight,” January 6th, l983, under the title “About 10:00 P.M.



The evening was a chilling experience, after the event, of yelling into the wide-open dojo, where no one really was, the chairs that once were rocking, as many of black belts had told me, and feared to sleep overnight in the dojo, stopped. The steps that made the wood crackling noise as if a giant was walking by me, I could see its [his] weight upon the wooden floor absorb into it, I stood still as still could be. The windows stopped chattering, and went back to its stillness, which was part of the night’s atmosphere, notwithstanding. I would not move out of the dojo, unless told to, the spirits or ghosts would have to deal with me, as I would them. And so I fixed my pillow on the sofa, put down a fighting stick, and went to sleep, as usual.
At all events, I was surprised that Black Belts, highbrowed and such felt they had no power over the unseen world. Stern as they portrayed themselves to be, was this all the courage I could find in them, nothing beyond the visible; doubtless, however, no wonder envy got them. For I did not envy what they had, as they did I; --and I thought I had very little, although Gosei and Buck’s friendship was a treasure. The black belts could not understand, or maybe they could, I was simply enjoying what they had found, the wisdom and golden grain of the Master Yamaguchi. Yet with all this fuss, I was not thinking anything bad of them, for they originally made me feel at home, and I loved them for it. But now they did not like my relationship with Goesi.

٭

One night after eating at the Japanese restaurant, Joe told me he found a place for me to stay with a Mexican family, that he’d show me the place the coming weekend. He then said something very strange.
“The black belts don’t like you chumming up to Gosei so much, I’m telling you to pull back for your own good.”
“What if I don’t,” I asked.
“Well, I’ll have to kick the shit out of you.”
“Listen Joe,” I said, “I might be backward in this big city, and you being a second degree black belt I’d be crazy to fight you, now what do you think I would do.” He looked strange at me, and said, “You tell me.”
“I’d have no choice; I’d do what anyone in my old neighborhood would do, that is, go buy a gun and shoot you.” I was kidding, I think.
He started laughing, “You’re kidding…” then looked at me for an answer.
“You don’t know us Midwesterners do you.” I said cunningly. That was it, he never brought the subject up again, and we remained distant friends, although he let me go to his house the following day to take a shower, I had not taken one for three months, and he throw two bars of soap in and told me not to come out for an hour. To appease him I stayed in for about 40-minutes; couldn’t find another area to scrub.

I didn’t know how anything was going to turn out, only that I wasn’t willing to accommodate the black belts in their game, and they were starting to take a disliking with me, and again there was not much I could do about that. If I had learned anything in Minnesota, it was you do not back away, if need be you get your ass kicked. I guess they had their own commoroady, and I was in the way.




Chapter Three



My New Home
[The Latin Family]


◊

Joe came over in the morning with his mother’s car to bring me to this Latin’s family’s home, ---I was to rent their screened-in-porch attacked to the house. It wasn’t all that far from the doJo, which was located on Collingswood Street, not far from Market Street, which went into downtown San Francisco.
It was Saturday morning, Joe came in the dojo, I could hear the doors open, then up the long flight of stairs, I heard his heavy feet, when he reached the top, I was looking at Buck’s gallery of books in the back of the dojo, I was always amazed how he could have read all these paperbacks, mostly Edgar Rice Burroughs. Sometimes I thought he read them for a distraction, you know, so as not to have to think about maybe unpleasantries at home. Not sure how his home life was though, only met his mother once and they he and his mother both seemed pleasant, and very much to their own, although they seemed to have gotten along also.
“Chick,” Joe called loudly, I heard him. He was always tanned, a natural tan, that Latin look. He had very white teeth, short hair, about 5’ll” and with a leonine head.
“What you up to,” he yelled, ----Goesi was not in yet, and it was 8:30 AM.
“We’re lucky, “he commented when he saw me at the other end of the dojo, on the stage area checking out the books.
“Why’s that Joe,” I said.
“Mom needed the car, but decided at the last minute I could use it, in spite of, au--grocery shopping, I suppose. I told her I’d be back before noon.”
“No problem, I got everything ready.” I didn’t have much to carry, just a small suite case, and a medium size box filled with cloths, karate suite, and shoes, a jacket.
“They’re good Spanish folks, you’ll like them,” Joe tried to convince me. I think the whole black-belt committee felt a little safer now, --I say, --safer because now they could have Goesi to themselves. I’ve never competed for his friendship, he gave it willingly, and I was always overwhelmed that he liked me, and proud of it; and at the same time, not really knowing what to say half the time.
I also think part of this move I was about to make was because of Coleman, the black young man, 2nd degree black belt. He had come in one night, it must had been around 10:30 PM, expecting to see me sleeping, he caught me with a girl, a Latin gal from Nicaragua. I had met her on the bus coming to the dojo from work about a month ago, and went over to her house, and her mother jumped all over us with this Spanish lingo, only thing I remember was my little Latin beauty saying in Spanish she didn’t understand, and adios, and we took off. She was slender, with a fine looking face, about 5’4”, and boy she could kiss. We laid in the back of the dojo, where there was another coach for the visitors, and she was half naked and Colman came in. Well, he got even I’m sure.
“Come on let’s go gooo…” said Joe; --he also was anxious to get rid of me. Joe could be hilarious at times, that is, in a concealed annoying way. I don’t think he ever was on his own for a day in his life, but he tried to be a good guy, nonetheless.

As I got into his Volkswagen he drove down Castro Street. I was thinking of the tournament coming up soon. I would still be part of it all. Maybe not be able to go with the black belts anymore, but Buck would take me back to Berkeley possible, see Goesi in action teaching out at San Francisco State. And possible I’d see the garden spot in the hills and the Claremont Hotel and Tennis club, once again, it was pointed out to me once, I think it was that big white structure on the hill. Things would change, but they had to.
We drove for about ten minutes, we ended up down around Mission and Dolores, in a small neighborhood, to the South of us was these old expensive looking mansions, and the street was filled with beautiful palm trees lined all the way up the street. Now why was I not going into one of them houses I asked myself?
“Here we are Chick,” said Joe. I got out, and he walked me up to the small house, and introduced me to the woman of the house, Joe spoke Spanish, I never knew he could, and spoke it very well.
“Hola, amigo,” she said, “We ee, happiee to oo tenerte, --hav u,” she was trying hard to speak English, and called for her boy, “Georgeeeeeee…

Puedes ayudarme a traducir para el gringo [Can you help me to translate for the blond hair boy]?”
Quickly the young boy who was about eleven years old appeared, in front of me answered his mother by saying: “Si mamá [Yes mother].”
She said something, and I quickly learned he was going to be our interpreter.
“Well, Chick,” said Joe in a happier voice, “I hope all turns out for you.”
“Yaw, thanks Joe, it was real nice of you,” as he removed himself from my presence quickly to get his mother’s car back, for he had to drive back over to Oakland, and it was a little ways, he never turned back to look at me.

٭

“Tienes hambre?” the mother said to me, and George translated it to “Be you hungry?”
“No,” I said, but thanks. George showed me my bed on the porch; --by the looks of things I’d have to find another place soon, it had screens and windows all around the porch, but it didn’t have any heat ventilation—I told myself, first things first.
“Do you play chess,” George asked, and I assured him I did, but wasn’t too good, but felt I could beat a ten year old. “I’ll play a game as soon as I get settled, ok.” He smiled.
It didn’t’ take me much to get settled. The mother showed me where the bathroom was, which amounted to me having to leave the porch area, and walk through a doorway into the kitchen and the bathroom was to the right. I had to use it at that moment, and when I shut the door to take a leak, you could hear every drop, I felt funny, as if the whole house could hear. But the place was temporary, and it only cost $5.00 a week. And I was making $70.
As I left the bathroom and met George, he introduced me to his father, his father’s brother, and four kids, not sure who they belonged to, and another woman about thirty-five; --then George and I went to play a game of chess.

The game lasted about two hours he beat me. I think he could have beaten me in about twenty-minutes, but it was I who had to do all the thinking, and he sat quietly as I moved my chessmen. I got the feeling he knew I was going to be easy pray. But I was happy I had a place to stay. People are given gifts in life, when you do not appreciate them, it becomes part of your attitude, and life can be quite hard on you. That person who was going to help could be lost in the wind, and so I tried to show as much respect as I could, and appreciation.
As the weeks went by, they had me in a few times for meals, but I didn’t eat all that much; --I worked at Lilli Ann Company, and in the meantime, played chess with George, and of course he beat me all the time. At night I’d go up to the Castro district and get drunk, usually stopping at least for an hour or so at Sammie’s.
One time at Lilli Ann, I met Adolph Shuman on more human bases, other than work. He had stopped in the café up the street; it was a small Chinese place. He brought in his small white dog, I think it was a terrier, a few people by me were complaining, but I paid them no heed. The manager of Lilli Ann, spotted me, and had me come over and meet Mr. Shuman, for some odd reason I was quite scared, but played it down, and he looked at me as if I was not recognizable, but said hello, and I went back about to eat, and the manager said again, sit with us. And so did, and I just kind of froze and tried to eat, but my hands were a bit shaky; or so they seemed. The rest of the group at the table, which was a blond assistant to the manager, a pretty young lady about five foot six inches, --reserved looking always, a calm voice, and a sensitive manner; --then the manager himself, Mr. Rosenberg, who started talked. I found my head bobbing up and down to smile but I didn’t know what to say, so I started thinking about the first small novel I had bought and started to read, about a relationship between two Italian lovers. And then they got up and left, all saying their good-by’s, and Adolph waving his hand somewhat, as a goodbye jester to me, since he could not get to saying it directly; although he did mumble something under his breath. I suppose, I thought, power and money can do many things to a personality. He seemed a busy sort of fellow, and tried to show his human side, and/or equality side. But you could see the guarded side of him. And of course, owning a big business, people always try to take advantage of you, not really knowing who's really on your side, and his fooling around with the models at work. I suppose I’d be a little restless.
On weekends I’d walked down by the Golden Gate Bridge a few times, even across it. At night when I was down there I loved seeing the patched clouds in the evening, looking over the Golden Gate, I loved to watch the sun go down, with its bright yellows fading into its red and gray background. It was like the clouds wanted to hide it, so I couldn’t see. I suppose when you’re alone a lot you think the sun follows you; one takes things on a more personal level.
Sometimes along the shores out by the Cliff House by Sutro Heights you could hear the sounds of the expiring waves that seemed to sooth my hot blood. I had no complaints, matter of fact, no one back home would believe me if I told them my story, all inclusive, for the most part: to include, meeting and befriending Goesi, and working for a dress designing company for Adolph Shuman. I had not met him on a personal note yet, that but indirectly I did, he was being chased by a beautiful model throughout his dress factory, and she had a giant pearl on her finger I noticed, I guess it was a gift from the millionaire. He told me to hold a door for him so she would not be able to get to him. I did for a moment, and then let the door open again, thinking this was foolish. She was quite tall, but beautiful, with a very healthy looking body. Later on that day my boss Mr. Blair also showed me his Rolls Royce in the garage next to the building I worked in.


٭

The Karate Test and the Dentist


Another few weeks went by and my teeth were starting to hurt, I had two huge molars in the back, and I needed to do something soon, they seemed to be hurting more everyday; --at work my boss had told me I had a red line going down my neck and it was starting to get infected, I was scared it go to my heart. They told me to take off a week of work, and get taken care of, but really could not afford to, but I did.

Lorenzo at the dojo gave me the phone number of the San Francisco State University Dentistry; I called them and made an appointment. It was a free clinic and the students worked on you. I had to wait until Monday it was Friday now. I was starting to get a little fever over this also. I was getting a bit restless on my free week off, and doing a lot of resting. I even bought my first novel, it was only 109-pages, but it was interesting. It was about this Italian man who found this woman, and she had breasts that fit perfectly into his palm. I got thinking, she was real thin, or he had big hands. Never read anything like that before. As I waited for the day to come at for the dentist I finished reading the book, took me all of four days.

As Saturday came, I walked up Castro Street to the dojo, it was kind of a big day, and I was a little under the weather, but ok. We had a test today, an endurance test. As I got ready putting on my white karate jacket, I stood bowed to the Master, and did some exercises to get ready for the test. Then Gosei called us all to order, and he and Buck stood at the end of a line of which thirteen karate men were standing in line; --some black belts, brown belts, green belts like me, and a few white belts.
Tom the banker was there, he always seemed a bit rigid, his body that is and so I was quite surprised he ever made 3rd degree black belt, but he did, he also kept the books updated somewhat, for the dojo to my understanding, but I could be wrong, it just seemed he was involved in that manner, and from what I heard; and I think some of the degree titles were given out for longevity and for services rendered, other than for outstanding skill, but then do we not do that for the sake of love, and regard to those who have devoted themselves in one way or another to your cause, I have seen it more than once at my young age, it is not the unpardonable sin, if a sin at all; I told myself how many colleges have given out a mess of Ph. D’s because they got a donation here or there, or for that matter, for lesser things done in the name of higher education. I am not saying he wasn’t worth his belt, but his skills never impressed me; --incidentally, he is one of the judges today.

“Ok,” Tom told everyone, “…you will fight for three minutes sparing, free style, ---pull your punches from the face, we’ll be able to see if you hit or not, it takes more skill to actually pull your punches than to have physical contact [hit]. And you will get a ten-second rest, and when I say next, you will shift to your next opponent.”

I started out fairly good; I had to fight another green belt, which I was twice as good as he, and a lot faster. But then I had been a green belt for two years, and normally you are only one for a year. I was hoping to get my Brown Belt after Gogen comes to San Francisco, for the Tournament, we would have to do another test and then we’d be able to upgrade our belts.
“Next,” Tom said. “I now had this young Black Belt, that is, he was my age, and we went in circles for a minute, and then our hands and feet went into a fast pace, he was quite impressed with me, I blocked everything he threw at me, and countered his with a good offensive three step attack.
“How long you were practicing Karate,” he said as I shifted into a Cat Stance, as we settled down for a moment, we usually didn’t talk, I smiled, “Three years…” I said.
“I thought so,” then he threw a back kick but I caught it, and he was on one foot, but I let it drop and went in for an eye contact with my fingers, I knew it was forbidden but I did, and just touched his eye lids, and pulled my fingers back. I had hands faster than lightening. I’d practice daily in front of the mirrors for two hours my fingers poking at eyes; I visualized eyes in the mirrors all the time, --I felt if a man could not see you, he could not fight you, and it was working. Most of my fights were quickly dispersed to a stop once I did that. Touch his eyes and do a back kick, and the man was out, --and if you happen to hit him in the groin without a cup on, down he went, that happened three times, meaning, I did it to my opponents.
“Next,” now I was fighting with a wild white belt and just trying to avoid his swinging wildly. I figured if I went in for a sold punch or kick, and missed I’d look bad, and he was looking bad enough now, for the most part.
“Next…next…next…I now was on my last opponent, I could hardly hold up my hands, and my feet under me were becoming noodle like. My reflexes were down, and I just wanted to get it over with, but I needed to keep a good show and so I become extra, or overly defensive, allowing the other person to be more aggressive, --I could block most anything anyone could throw, so I felt safe doing that. Once I went into an offensive action, he could counter me, and I’d be off balance, and I was too weak to allow myself to be put into that position.

“Ok, STOP!” Tom yelled.
“Very good, everyone was very good…” Gosei said, but I knew he was being extra kind. This was no time for decision-making, and we’d all find out how we did later.

As we all were dismissed I went and sat in the open area where the sofa and counter was, it was kind of a gathering area.
“Did you call the University,” Lorenzo asked.
“Yaw, Monday they’re going to check me out.”
“I hope so, the red line is at the end of your neck Chick, and you’re looking a little more worn than usual.” He was right, I was. My fever was getting worse, and most likely this work out might have help it along.
Gosei came by and said hello, and gave me his powerful smile, asking how my new living quarters were. I told him fine, but it was getting a little nippy, and there really was no privacy. But he did more than his share to help me; so I left it alone. I think he just marveled at the fact I would come 2000-miles to learn karate from him, and respected that or me. Plus, I was a greenhorn in a big city I was not used to. He was kind of a father figure for me.

٭


That day I asked Goesi if I could free fight him. He looked at me shocked.
“You do not know what you are asking,” he said, and gave me that smile, then asked Buck to take a picture of him and I standing in a stance looking solidly at one another as if we were going to fight. Then he gave me the picture. I then turned around and took another picture of him, after asking him how high he could kick. As years would go by, I would hold on to them pictures as if it they were a treasure, and to me they still are. But as Goesi walked away, with that smile again, Buck came to explain to me, and he also was like a big brother, “Chick, Goesi meant no disrespect when he said what he said, but what he meant is/or was, you could not block his combinations, or anticipate them; I have a hard time doing it, and I’m a 4th degree. I think he does want you to get hurt.”
I said:
“Thanks Buck,” with a little sighs of relief. I never complained, and I think that is what Buck and Goesi like about me. On one hand I was simple, and on the other, carelessly too brave for my skills. But I loved them both.


٭

The Nippy Porch



Well, it was Monday morning, I had my alarm clock go off, and when I got out from under the warm blanket, I rushed to get into the bathroom, it was a bit chilly, and damp, but not bad --and then I put my cloths on. The Spanish mother and sister were sitting in the kitchen having coffee, they could see me through the doorway, and it was attached to the kitchen. Actually there were two doors to the porch, one to the kitchen and one to the outside, so I wouldn’t have to bother going through the kitchen should I just want to leave unnoticed. I went to the bathroom, smiled at them as I came out, I’m sure they heard the waterfalls again; I hated that, then quickly went back into my outside den, and put on a light jacket.
I caught one of them big-electric busses called streetcars I actually liked them. Down on Market Street they were digging underground, it was all torn up, building some kind of transit system. As I sat on the streetcar, I felt my face, --it was getting puffier than I had notice before, and it was starting to sweat.
“Next stop, the campus…” I got off, and found my way to the dentistry department. They took me right away. The young man who situated me in his medical chair, waited for another man who was working on a client next to me to come over. Then the older man looked me over, pin pointing what had to be done. He recommends that the lower tooth be cracked, so you can get into it to pull out, because it was too large, and the upper one would simply come out straight without cracking it. Both teeth were pushing the rest of my teeth into a crooked state. He told him to be careful, he didn’t want the poison in my system to shift, and gave me a shot of something in fear… of whatever big words he was using, it meant seriousness if it was done wrong, for me that is.
A long time seem to have gone by, and then one by one the two molars came out. When it was all over, the apprentice-doctor told me not to go to work for a week, but it would be wise to rest, and absolutely no karate, or wild activities. He wanted the infection to just goooo away. I thank them both, and left. But I was in route for “Sammie’s” bar, I needed a drink, but first I called Lilli Ann, and tried to get a hold of my boss, Mr. Blair, I always liked the way he talked, like he came out of Scotland Yard, in London, but the secretary said he was out to lunch, then I asked for the Manager, Mr. Rosenberg, he was a Jew, like Mr. Shuman, who had help him out with this job a few years back. He was a bit worried these days though, he told me Mr. Shuman sometime ago had put a friend’s son into college and he was graduating soon, I think in June, and had promised him a manager’s position, and felt his job was the one he was giving away. I didn’t say anything because Mr. Rosenberg was always quite fare. And he wasn’t asking for advice, rather he needed to talk, and someone simply to listen; someone that is that didn’t cost $100 an hour like a Psychologist. He was in his early thirties, possible about 33-years old. When it got hot in the departments he would get a wheel barrel and fill it with ice, and soda’s and go all over the floors of the building, and across the street to the other one story building, giving them away to all the workers. He was a little odd, but I always felt, who was I to be calling anyone odd, I mean, it has been suggested a few times already in my short life here on earth, I can just imagine when I am older.

“Mr. Rosenberg,” I said, “I need to stay away from work one more week, the doctor told me so, --and my fever is going to get worse not better in a few days. I had two molars pulled and my face is like a balloon, I hope this is all right?” I’m sure he heard all the stories in the world for not wanting to come to work, but I was too simply minded back then to produce such a good lie.
“Sure,” he said, and that was that. But of course I knew it would be with no pay. But what could you do.

I arrived back on Market Street and Collingswood where the dojo was, within the hour, but I didn’t go to the dojo, I went to the bar. There was Ted and Joe, and the elder husband and wife team, the Palace’s. Everyone greeted me with high spirits, and Joe came over saying, “The party is tonight Chick, coming?” I was low on funds so I said, sure, and he gave me the address. It was 5:00 PM already, a long day to say the least. So I left the bar and went to another one up the street on the corner and sat and drank. I had not been in this one before it was a different crowd.
As a few hours passed sitting at the bar an avalanche of people came in, one big guy with several of his friends. He had not been there long when he caught my eye. If anything I had good senses. He was trouble. Joe had told me the party started at 7:30 PM and that is what time it was, but I did not want to get there too early. So I got up and went to the bathroom, the big man hit my shoulders a bit, “Watch were you going Mister,” he told me. I looked at him, “You hit me, not me you, what’s your beef…”
“So I did, I just don’t like you.”
“I know you don’t, but do what you think you can, right here…”
“No outside…” he said.
“Well, if that’s the case how about me going up to the dojo and getting my friends, just like you have, and then we’ll go out side. You got your protection all around you I see.” He didn’t like that comment.
“I’ll see you out side Mister.”
“As I expected”; I then went to the bathroom, and back to the bar, had two more beers, and then called a cab to take me to Joe’s house. He lived a ways from this area, by Telegraph Hill, where Coit Tower’s was, I liked the area, and the Tower, with all its surrounded shrubbery, and its lording over the hill.

When I lived in St. Paul, I never seem to have to go very far to get drunk or find a bar, we had two neighborhood bars, and St. Paul, was only about 240,000 people compared to this big city. But I liked it.
I knocked on the door, Joe opened it, “Haw, it’s you, come on in my young good looking stud.” My eyebrow went up: --thinking what is he talking about. He grabbed me by the arm and showed me around his apartment; when he got to the bedroom, he said ‘If you need to use it later you knowwww…where I am’. I got the message, but not the desire.
Odd I thought why is he talking that way. It was every one from the bar at his house, and there was Ted, tall and lanky, with a half serious smile. Joe was the heavy set one, jolly and in slow motion for the most part. As the night went on I was getting drunk and eating oysters one after the other. I was really hungry. I was getting the impression Joe thought I’d get so drunk he’d get me into his bed. But I assured myself this would not happen; I memorized the cab company’s phone number.
In those days, I never knew who was who, but I was getting my senses to tell me they were not heterosexual bar tenders, yet, I feared to say anything in case I was wrong, but how wrong can a person be, I mean he was coming on to me; yet back home, us guys goofed off with on another while and after drinking, no big thing. We did some pretty out of sight things, but no one carried it to the bedroom level. Finally, I told Ted and Joe, and the rest of the folk at the party I had to go. I had eaten two-dozen of them boiled oysters, which I had never eaten before, and drank about ten beers along with the beer I had prior to arriving. I think I was drinking myself sober. It was 2:00 AM in the morning.
Joe called the cab and as I got my ride back to the house, I could taste those oysters throughout my whole body. In the morning I felt sick, and every thing I did I tasted oysters. For the rest of the week, I had that oyster taste reeking out of my pours along with the beer, but I was over my fever, and the red mark on my neck had gone away.



Chapter Four



Dolores Street



One always knows when things need to change. The winters in San Francisco were not like Minnesota by far, but I knew it was creeping in, and I had to leave the Latin families hospitality. When I conveyed this to the boy, George he had a tear in his eye. I was never really sad in San Francisco, but I knew I’d miss him. Part of you stays behind in such cases. I never did beat him in chess. George knew as well as I, when the frost and dampness came in a little more, I would be getting sick if I did not find another place. I had an idea, there were rooms for rent in many of the huge mansions on Dolores Street, and I liked the street besides. It was a bit frightening to start all over again to find a place to lay my head; this was going on number three, of the five times I would move. Once at my friends when I had first arrived in San Francisco, across the bay, then the hotel downtown San Francisco the dojo, and now the Latin family, and hopefully I’d find something on Dolores Street, in the near future.

Ð


As I walked up and down the lovely Dolores Street I found a mansion, I stared at it. Leroy, an elder man of about forty from the bar had told me about this one, it just dawned on me, and he did odd jobs for people up and down this street. He drinks at “Sammie’s”, matter of fact, about three weeks ago one night he and I had sat outside, and he gave me his life story. He seemed to like me to. I really wanted to get away from him, he looked as if he could be dangerous, but nothing happened, and he was a good conversationalist. I looked in my wallet, yup, sure enough, 206 East Dolores Street, here I am; --I kind of knew I might be using this number, but was not financially ready. I wanted to pay Goesi back for all the money he lent me, and for my karate lessons he was putting on a tab. He said an old woman had just bought the house, a retired Colonel from the Wax, the female branch of the Army. Her name was Dorothy Hamburg.

As I knocked on her door, an elder white haired woman came to the entrance,
She said:
“How can I help you?”
“Miss Hamburg…” I said, and she commented, “Yes,” with a surprising look to her eyebrows. She was well kept for an older woman, but must have been in her fifties, about 5’6”, 130 lbs, stern looking, sold built; kept her posture erect as she looked at me, and she seemed to look you straight in the eyes, no fear, just assurance, no insecurity in her direction.
“A mutual friend of ours, Henry from the bar in the Castro area told me you might have a room for rent.”
“Yes, Henry has done some work here, and just who are you?”
“I am Chick…”
“Yes, yes, I remember Henry saying you might be looking for a place to stay; you’re from Minnesota, and do the karate thing up in Castro. Is that right?”
“Yes, and I work for Lilli Ann.”
“That’s good, you have a job. Well I can show you the room, it is not too big, and you will have to share the bathroom with whoever moves into the big room across from you. Both your room and that big room have the bathroom between them, so you will have to share.”
“I don’t mind sharing.” She then took me in and showed me the room, it was about 150-square feet, and the big room was about 200 square feet.
“Well,” she said, “What room do you want?”
“How much are they,” I asked.
“The small room is $15.00 a week, and the big one is $20. If you want room and board, it is $25.00 a week.” I had just got back to work, and surprisingly, the whole 200-people that worked on the three floors within the building and across the street in another one floor building, Mr. Shuman owned, took up a collection, and gave me $70.00, a weeks pay.
“I can pay for two weeks right now if that is ok, and pay you every two weeks,” I told her.
“That will do, --and just when do you want to move in.”
“Today.” She smiled, “Ok, that sounds fine,” and I handed her the money.

٭

I didn’t own much and so it was a simple matter of collecting the few things I had, which I would do, and bringing them back, by way of walking; --for it was only about a mile away between the house I had been living in and my new apartment. She then gave me a key, and showed my room on the second floor.
As you went up the winding stairway--which the railing was made of varnished oak--you almost could walk into my room, just shift to the right about two feet; ----to the left of me was the big room, and across from that by the stairway, was even a smaller room, maybe one hundred-square feet total, all three had beds in them.
Then she took me to the attic, where a man and his girlfriend lived; the woman was pregnant lying down by the chimney on a mattress. It was huge, the attic; they paid $40.00 a month for it, and were on the third floor. The chimney went right through their living space and through the roof like a rocked. They had mattresses all over. I guess they had been there when the old lady bought the place some six months ago. Jane, the pregnant woman told me the person who was living in my room before me was a young man going to school to become a doctor. He had one night parked his car in the garage and the carbonados had killed him. Jane looked a little like being art of the hippie scene. Jane explained she was unmarried, but had a lover named Phillip.
Jane and I took a liking to one another right away, Phillip I would find out would be gone most of the time, and when not gone he was high on pot, laying about, or out riding around town with his friend Lance.
Dorothy took me downstairs to the basement, there was a huge fireplace down there, it was like out of a Frankenstein movie, and I loved it. I knew by looking at it, I would be spending sometime down here in the near future, drinking and resting. Then she showed me two huge dogs German Shepard’s. They were wild looking; she kept them tied up in her back open area, which must had been used before as a small court yard, which had high cemented sides so the dogs could not jump out. They barked at me. But I walked into the lions-den none the less, and touch them, and for some reason they did not attack me. I touched them again; --Dorothy was so impressed she told me I could feed them and run them everyday if I wanted. That she could not even get near them anymore. I simply did not show any fear. Either out of stupidly or some kind of animal sense I must have displayed.



Chapter Five


The Fillmore West
& The Indian Maid


I just left the ‘Fillmore West’, I didn’t stay long, I wanted to see the concert, but after stepping over two or three dozen bodies sprawled out in all direction in the theater, blocking the door ways, some sitting on top of others, others laying down, drinking alcohol, smoking pot… all in another world, --yet I got through the mess, right up to the bandstand, in spite of the odds. I saw the Turtles playing, yet they were foggy to say the least. I must have been fifteen-feet in front of them; I heard the song “Sound Asleep,” a little on the wild-eyed grab-bag psychedelic side; --then “Elenore,” a little satire for the bones. The vocalists sounded good, but I just really never new much of the group. Then the song came, “That will be the Day,” I knew that one for some odd reason, and after that, “It Ante me Babe,” kind of a schizoid aspect to it.
Henry, a friend of mind told me about the Turtles, to be quite honest, otherwise I would not have know them, although I had heard a few of their songs on the radio.
Henry left for LA a few days ago after almost hitting another car with his van. Henry was on heroin all the time; --no, not all the time, often he’d get high for three or four days, go puke his guts out, and walk a straight line for a week or two, then go back into the same routine. Getting back to that van, it chased us for an hour around San Francisco, I think --now that I think about it, Henry did hit the side mirror off the guy’s car. But we got away.

I walked across the street from the Fillmore West, where there was a bar, and so I went in, sat at the bar, and ordered a glass of beer. To my left was women, she looked a little older than I; say about twenty-four or so. She had long black hair, thin, dark eyes; for some odd reason I thought Minnesota was the only state that had all the Indian tribes around. My neighborhood had one family of Indians to it, the St. Clair’s; I used to date one, the younger one named Jackie. Not sure why it didn’t work out, but it didn’t, she was cute, thin and nice eyes. That was a few years back though, maybe when I was fifteen.
“Buy me a drink my young good looking friend.” She asked, and then sat down besides me.
“Sure, why not, what you drinking?”
“Whisky and coke, with a beer chaser, the coke on the rocks, and the whisky on the side,” She new exactly what she wanted, that was for sure.
As the night lingered on, she ordered a few more rounds.
“You like Indians,” she asked me.
“I like pretty girls with black hair and dark eyes, and you fit the bill.” She smiled, “Where’s your apartment?” she asked.
“Not far from here, let’s go,” I said.
“First let’s get a six pack of beer to go.” I agreed, and bought the beer, and had the bartender call us a cab. It was going on 12:30 AM.


The Thief


As we got to the apartment, we walked up to my room quietly not to disturb the Colonel, she somewhat frowned on anyone bringing in stray’s. Then as we opened and shut the door, Joan, my new Indian-date, was in bed quicker than I could shake a stick, her cloths left on the floor; she looked very comfortable in my bed, too comfortable.
“You come…?” She commented.
“Need to take a leak, be out in a minute,” I ended. As I opened the door she was moving about in the bed trying to get situated. I had left my pants on the floor. I picked them up and put them on the chair by the door when I came back out, then jumped into bed. She quickly grabbed my dick and moved it every which way to get it hard, and then she positioned it to go into her opening. We had intercourse for about twenty-minutes, and I was bushed, too tired to go on, and fell quickly to sleep.


4:00 AM


“What’s that,” I asked myself, I tried to focus my eyes, I seen a shadow by the chair, I looked beside me and Joan was gone, then I turned the light on, she had my wallet in her hand. She quickly dropped it.
“I need money, just a little.”
“You need a kick in the ass,” I jumped out of bed and she covered her face, a bit frightful. She had her pants and shirt on, only her jacket; I grabbed her jacket and threw it at her.
“You got four minutes to get the fuck out of my sight, or I’ll kick your ass all the way down the stairs and out.”
“Please, I need the money…” I put my pants on, and started toward her, I was outraged. She quickly opened the door, grabbing her jacket tighter at the same time, ran down the stairs and out the door. I watched her walk down Dolores Street, trying to tidy herself up.
“Who’s out there,” said the Colonel.
“It’s just me, I needed some air.”





Chapter Six


Meeting the Cat
And the Tournament
[The big event]



The tournament was in the makings now, people from all over the United States had arrived, those who were at previous tournaments agreed with the black belts of San Francisco, that the dojo was haunted, and none would stay there, and so from Hawaii, New York, California: Bakersfield, Foster City, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, San Francisco State College, San Mateo, Stockton, Ohio; --they all came. In addition, representatives from such Headquarters as Kent State University, being the Great Lakes Regional Headquarters; New Jersey, the East Coast Regional Headquarters, and the Midwest Regional Headquarters being Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was not really the Midwest, because I was from the Midwest, and Goesi was hoping [I think, and so he implied to me] I would stay long enough to get my black belt, and he’d most likely have me as a reprehensive of the thri-state area to include Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. The Far West was the same as the National Headquarters in San Francisco, which included Sonoma State University. Notwithstanding, they all came and I met them all.
Gogen had come into the city I had heard, I had not seen him yet though, but Goesi had picked him up last Saturday evening, and today was Monday.
The Physician, Judges, of which Buck would be one of the ten in all; -- contestants, tournament manager Chairman, director, Counselor, treasure were all being put onto the Tournament handout as well, sponsored by Goju-Kai Karate-Do, National Headquarters, and I was the official photographer.

It was hard to believe “The Cat” was here, I told myself as I worked out in the dojo, and then he showed up, I got a glimpse of him, my heart dropped. Then Goesi introduced him to everyone, and he stuck by his son and his wife during this time.
I was teaching the younger students the art of GoJo Ryu Karate do [Kyohan]; when Goesi introduced Gogen to me, it was just prior to the championship tournament. I had been given a picture of him, and he signed it, and I would during the tournament take a picture of him, of which he would also sign: --in all I would have three signed items from Gogen, the cat, but the miracle didn’t happen yet, no, it was about to though.
The black belts envy pained and amused me at the same time. To detect the tremor of thin minds, that which frighten them to making threats, I disregarded them with the weight of their own lack of insecurity. But I am getting ahead of myself.


٭

The Tour to Be



About six-days before the Tournament, Goesi was going to take his father for a tour of the city. Several black belts were going to go along. They had rented three limos to parade through the city. I had just turned 21-years old I remember it quite clear. Goesi was assigning everyone to a certain limo,
He said:
“Chick, you will ride with my father in back of car…” I looked at him as if he mispronounced it. He did have a hard time with the English language back then. I think I opened up my eyes wider than I had ever done before, took a deep breath, and said: “Really!” What else could you say to something so breathtaking: --a little young grasshopper like me with Goesi and the famous “Cat”. No one would believe me if I told them that back home.
I accepted the gift with dignity, and disbelief, and held my breath to see if it would come true, and as the days passed, I was given a free ticket, the camera and told I’d have a ride to the Cow Palace, arena. In the mean time, I was starting to get threats from the black belts who had come to participate in the event, and the ones who were supposedly my friends at the dojo, the local ones also. They were insanely jealous. I heard the threats mounting; at the same time everyone was talking about the Kumite Scoring System to take place, and the Kata Scoring system and the main Judge, and referees and tournament procedures, to include form. I was right in the middle of all this commotion, and the last thing I wanted to do was bother Goesi with the issue of the threats but it was coming to a point of a dangerous dilemma. The Yamaguchi spell was all over the dojo; and their fuss of this matter was marvelous to witness, yet no matter what I still grew to love them, it would be sad justice for me to carry on like them I told myself, so I didn’t; --in the first place, I was the new kid on the block, and they were the old worrisome souls at best.
I am not sure what they expected me to do, --maybe forfeit the invitation by way of being sick so someone else might take my place. But it never occurred to me to disappoint Goesi; I would be ashamed to do such a thing. By and large, their silent loitering about during these days, did very little to persuade me anyhow. I got a threat one day that implied a few black belts wanted to kill me, but I couldn’t believe that.


٭

Informing Goesi


I then had to tell Goesi about the threats I was getting. I do not remember telling him about the killing one, I thought at the time the others were bad enough, and would have been too much for him to stomach. He had a lot of pride in his black belts. When I told him, he looked at me with something like an illness befalling him, if not down right shame. He was not only let down but almost lost for words. I told him who had told me these things, one person being Lorenzo, and a few others. He went and talked to a few of the people I had mentioned.
It reminded me of the time when Buck his right hand man, and my friend took me to the side of the dojo and told me Goesi wanted him to spar with you; I at first took this as an honor, but what he was really saying was that I was getting a little too careless with my speedy hands and fingers for my own good, and hurting people in the dojo by blinding them for a moment, and then taking advantage of that moment; --which he was right, I was doing exactly that. And so Buck was to teach me a lesson, and he knew I had too much pride to avert the free-style fighting with him along with too much bull-headedness, which I’m sure I displayed now and then: -- we fought, and fought and fought, not really knowing how long but it seemed like forever. I got to the point I could hardly hold my hands up, and Buck would knock me down again, pick me up, wait for me to get into a stance, and knock me down again. I got the message loud and clear, and deserved that, plus I got to fight with a 4th degree black belt, whom I loved; it didn’t matter if he beat the shit out of me, I’ve had that before. Nonetheless, I stopped the eye contact, and got on with business. You can’t hold grudges when you know two people are trying to show how mad they are.


٭

And I was right there, living in the middle of all this. Up to this point I had learned a lot from Goesi, especially GoJo Ryu’s style of karate, which was more for defensive I felt, which would come in handy in the future, and save my life a few times [not knowing it would save my life in less than a year in Augsburg, Germany by two thief’s with knifes, but that’s another story]. And with such a style --what you do is counter your opponent, which leaves him at a disadvantage being the aggressor, or offensive. An example might be, -- should he blink an eye, or throw a punch, and I block it at the same time of the counter I could go for a deadly blow, should I wish. And of course that is what got me in trouble with Goesi, and my ass kicked by Buck. That is, blinding people by poking shut their eyes --knocking them off balance, and knocking off their glasses, and contact lenses. In any case, once you found your perfect balance, which is really the main thing, you go through your combinations. Matter of fact, it keeps occurring to me to put in how it saved my life in Germany, by balance.

I was walking in a dark alley in Augsburg, Germany, and out of the blue came two black guys with knifes. One stood to the left of me, while the other in back of me, with his hand around my neck as he walked me to an area where there were a bunch of cars. They had already taken my billfold, and I told myself, leave well enough alone, but now this was a new agenda, they were going to kill me. And so as I walked I leaned forward on my left foot, leaving my right one to back kick the person, and I took my right arm grabbed his wrist, and pulled the knife away from my throat while kicking him in the stomach, he flew down like a rock. Then I shifted into a cat stance, and his friend flew away like a scared bird, as the one on the ground was rolling around like a snake, he got up and ran like hell.

But going back to the ill look on Goesi’s face, I almost regretted I had said anything, what now was going on in his mind. It was a scene I was not used to, inasmuch as, it seemed to me to become a bit out of control. Goesi told me He’d take care of it, and walked over by the register behind the counter slowly; --I left well enough alone, not knowing what he was going to do, just that it was enough said. But I was assured in my mind for some reason it was over for me; that is, Goesi would settle it once and for all.


Notes: When I took pictures of karate exhibitions, events, etc, I often found I was capturing the moments of the black belts point of contact, along with Buck and Goesi, also. But with many of the black belts I got them in what they considered awkward positions; --meaning, they did not like it that I was capturing them being hit. It was kind of a no win situation, --that is, someone had to loose. One black belt told me, “You never get me in a good offensive move; it’s always when I’m getting hit.” If there was truth to that, it was not on purpose. But I was like the green horn sticking my nose where it didn’t’ belong to them; yet not really knowing it. The truth of the matter was Goesi and Buck always gave a good if not awesome performance. They were throwing combinations so fast that the camera when it caught them, it caught one of the person’s combinations, while the other person was blocking and shifting and in the mist of a counter. I wanted to end my stay in San Francisco on a high note, not a bitter or jealous one and so the bulls of the arena, the black belts got no disrespect from me.
In those days there was enough civil unrest in the country, as well as in San Francisco. There was at that time a gun shooting that took place downtown San Francisco, I remember it quite well. I thought it was quite a thing, for people to ride by, shoot out the window at another car. But when I showed a little disbelief, if not shock, I got the eyebrow, as if to say, ‘You’re just a hick.’ So I learned to hold my emotions somewhat.
On another note, I had found a number of good friends, in the bar, at Lilli Ann, at the dojo, and else where, and felt in the passing world, and for my own safety—for I had some months in the city—I need not make any excessive preoccupation with the threats, for the most part, they were premature anyway. I needed to work, keep a roof over my head, and eat.





Peace Was Restored
[The Cat and the Mouse]


Some how I felt like the mouse in all of this, but nonetheless, another two days passed, and not a word about “killing,” or “hurting” me was spoken. I was on guard for it but it never came about again. I went on the ride around the city, --sitting with none other than with Gogen in the back seat, Goesi and the driver in the front. Gogen was around 63-years old at the time, to my understanding. We ended up at Fisherman’s’ Warf, we all walked around, everyone taking pictures, etc. And when we got back into the limo, Goesi who was sitting up front in the automobile looked back towards us, his father inches from me: --I guess he couldn’t help but look back now and then to see how we were getting along. I caught a few smiles, as if he was happy for both of us, and for his decision for Gogen and I to remain in the back seat, he seen we were getting along quite well for a Master karate man that could not speak English, but it didn’t matter, we got along with the language of sound and facial expression, and simple body language. Gogen pulled out of somewhere a small looking camera, and shook his head, looking at it as some kind of American puzzle; --Goesi still checking us out, I took it from him, --with his permission of course, and showed him how to use it. Then he got on his knees on the back seat looking out the back of the car window and started taking pictures, just like any tourist. Goesi smiled again, and left him and me to us. It was a grand day to say the least, and it seemed neither one of us felt uneasy --to the contrary.


Innocence


In a world where there is little innocence left to measure, I seemed to have found a bit in both Goesi and Gogen, and possible they had found some in my ignorance of youth. But the innocence I found can’t fully be defined. And yet, if I were to try and define it, it was one of those moments that I caught Goesi looking back at me, in the back seat of the car with his father. I didn’t know what I was doing, for the most part, other than grabbing the moment, I was only a kid trying to grow up, and had some karate cloths to show off in, and quick hands, --and here I was with two of the worlds most profound karate Masters, kings of Karate, one might say. Even the well known Bruce Lee had met Goesi, wanting too free-style fight him, and after seeing him to a three-strike flying kick, changed his mind. That was before I came, but Lorenzo was at the dojo when it happened; and I do believe he told me the truth.
But as I was saying, here was two giants in the karate world with me in their car, such people like them knew the consul General of Japan, the faculty Adviser of San Francisco State College, and they were the Heads of the National and regional Headquarters of the USA, and of the Japanese Karate do in Japan. Here was the man “The Cat”, that knew the founder of Go-Ju-Ryu, Shihan Chojun Miyagi, in a back seat of a car with Chick, the little-grass hopper. And so, history would record.
The day would end, as all days must, but this would be one of the great days we all wait for in life, and go back to throughout our lives. I think Goesi knew this. And then came the championship day.


Championship Day


I arrived at the Cow Palace, as the chairs and tables were being set up, and Goesi caught a glimpse of me, and walked over, gave me instructions on the area that the contest was going to take place. As always he gave me a smile, and joined his father and other judges as everyone readied for the tournament. It was at trying day to say the least, although I didn’t seem to be any more frazzled than anyone else, matter-of-fact, I was much less. I kind of walked around half-hazardly, not quite knowing what to do to keep myself busy. If anything in life, I was restless. My mother once said as I sat at the kitchen table when I was about twelve years old that she counted my moving the pepper and salt shakers thirteen-times in one minute, or was it ten seconds; something like that. I guess she was timing me. And often she’d tell me to get out of the house and go run all my energy out of me, I think I could drive her crazy; but it simply was me. And she knew if I didn’t go out side, I’d stay in and walk back and forth like my grandpa did all the time, it was in the blood you know. My family just could not hold still. Matter of fact, my son Cody, and his son Cody Jr. are both the same to this very day.
And here I was doing just that, like a hungry lion, I was walking to the outside doors, and back to the tables and here and there, all over the arena.
I knew all the black belts from the San Francisco, Headquarters, I was hoping one would win, and to be quite honest, a few of the people at the dojo not from around the Bay Area, felt no one would allow anyone but the San Francisco Black Belts to win; thus, taking the title out of San Francisco was unheard of…. I thought this a little rude, and said nothing, I guess if it was true I didn’t want to believe it, plus they were saying the judges were biased then, and that would have included Buck, Goesi and Gogen. So I swept that thought out of my mind, true or false.


GoJo


All of a sudden the lights were dimmed, and the speaker came to the stand, there was not many people in the bleachers, about 20% filled only, I was a little disappointed. And then the names were called and the fights started. I laid along side the fighters getting within a few feet of them looking up at them as I snapped my camera as they performed their katas and free styles fights exhibitions. Later on Goesi would look at these pictures, and be astounded at how good they were. For some reason I was quick enough to get out of the way when need be, and close enough to get great pictures. Again Goesi knew me better than I knew myself. As the fights ended, it was a long day for all involved. And the champion ended up being this tall first-degree black belt. I was surprised he won it. I guess I thought he was a little slow, and not quite as flexible as I would have thought he should be. Maybe too muscle bound. But he won, and it couldn’t have been to a nicer person. I talked to him a number of times getting dressed at the dojo, and he always was friendly, a big kind of fell-a.
Then I caught Goesi squeezing his nose. He gave me the strangest look. When I showed him the picture a few days later, after the tournament, he laughed and shook his head
After the fights and demonstrations [one by Buck and Goesi], Gogen went into the center where the fighting had taken place, put a rug on the floor the lights went out, and just a few on him remained, and he did some karate and meditation movements [Yoga]. He was fascinating. Later on I would have him sign one of the pictures I took of him during this very demonstration, for myself: --of which I still have and prize.




Chapter Seven



Lilli Ann
[Work and Play and Colleen]



Many things were starting to happen after the tournament was over. It seemed my life had stopped for a moment in time. I had been working five to six days a week, mostly five. Met a guy, my age called Dan, at the karate studio one evening, he was just watching, and we got talking, and I helped him get a job at Lilli Ann. He was assigned to Mr. Green and would eventually be reassigned down stairs in the packing department. I was assigned in another department, which was one floor lower than his. He started falling in love with a Spanish gal, and wanted me to help him out by asking her why she was so down right rude to him. And so I did, it must have worked because they started dating, thereafter.
Well Dan’s brother came into town, he was eighteen-years old, and again Dan and I were both twenty-one. The landlord would not allow two people in their apartment so I talked to my landlady and they ended up renting out the big room. I liked them both, but Dan was a little more levelheaded. His brother smoked pot night and day, Dan occasionally.
About this time my mother said she was coming down to visit me after Christmas, which was not too far off. And so many things were happening. And as the weeks passed by I would often go downtown San Francisco after work and go to the double feature movies, they were older ones but very cheep, .75 cents during the day, before 6:00 PM, and afterwards walk around. I can remember a few times walking down a side street by a little café and Hell’s Angels were hanging out there. One time one of the Hell’s Angels, gave me a strange look but paid me little heed, and went back playing some kind of game. I had to walk around all the motorcycles for they hand them parked in the street, on the sidewalk, and every which way… and them seeing me trying to dodge the bikes to get around them, probably gave them a little groan, one that might have meant, ‘…don’t tip them over sunny.’ And I didn’t bump any.
At work a few of the Spanish gals up in Mr. Green’s area were eyeballing me up, but I found out they were married and so I paid little attention to them afterwards. And a few Japanese girls, older women talked to me often, but I never got to date any of them. Then one evening, after work, Colleen with her sparkling white Catholic seen me waiting for a ride by a street car stand, and asked where I was going, I said down by mission street, and offered to give me a ride. She was around thirty-three years old, whit a healthy looking body, and was hunting I presume—that is, looking for something.


Colleen


As she drove down Mission Street, she knew exactly where Lilli Ann was, I guess many people did, it was very famous for women’s exclusive clothing, and they had dresses in Harpers Bazaar, some famous magazine, and advertised in London, Paris, New York, and here in San Francisco. I closed the window a bit in the car, the air was cool this morning, I told her, but I shouldn’t complain, it was nothing like Minnesota; for weather in December at 57 degrees is like heaven sent; I had heard them say on the radio, that it was going to get to 66 degrees before the end of the day. Not bad, in Minnesota we’d have about forty inches of snow by now, and most likely it would be about three to five below zero. January was the coldest month, in Minnesota usually, reaching many times ten degrees below zero or lower, and February had all the snow it seemed, sometimes twenty inches in one month; sometimes sixteen inches in one day. Some years we had ninety inches of snow.
I was inclined to ask her for a date, even though she looked much older than I, but she said first, as I opened the door to get out,
“Do you drink wine?”
“Occasionally,” I said, for I used to drink some back home, but it was that cheep Ripple crap or Thunderbird, rotten gut stuff. But I didn’t want to tell her that.
“The dry wine is even better than the sweet if you have the right bottle, and it’s aged some…” she added as I stood up next to the car, “I’ll pick you up after work, say 4:30 PM, does that sound good?” What could I say, the Cadillac girl was leading, and I had nothing better to do. I hadn’t gone to karate practice going on three weeks now. I think Yamaguchi was a little disappointed in me, surely not his black belt bunch though.
“Ok,” I said as I started to turn around and walk inside of the three-story building. Things were always happening so fast these days I hardly ever questioned anything. Dan had me meet a friend a week ago, some guy who was selling dope, pot or whatever, we talked and he offered me a job at twice the amount I was making, but I turned him down, I didn’t want to be his or any bodies body guard, end up dead with some heroin stuck in my ass, or down my throat. This was safer, work here at $.1.75 per hour, and just enjoys life; live longer.
It was funny, when I stopped to talk to a young man, my age who wanted a quarter, and back in those far off days, they were all over San Francisco, --at any rate, I told him to go get a job, and he asked how much I made in a week, I said $70-dollars, and he laughed, saying: “I make more than that in a day, $75.” Oh well, I guess I still have values. I just couldn’t sit down on the street corner and beg; it wasn’t even a thought. Or should I say, it never occurred to me.


٭


The day went fast, Dan was flirting with his new Spanish girlfriend, who worked in the office at Lilli Ann; I think she was happy I set them up, but I was a little jealous now, I guess I would have like to date her, but I was always drinking, going to movies, and before karate, running around town. No real time I suppose. I think she was wondering why I didn’t smile as much as I did before when I met her halfway going up and down the stairs a few times a day. But I tried. My mother wrote and said he’d be in town now in January. Not too far off.

It was 4:35 PM, I just slammed the heavy door behind me to Lilli Ann, and there on the street was that white Catholic, and Dan was not too far behind me, he’s seeing me go to the car, I told myself, not looking in back of me, I’ll hear about it tomorrow.
“See yaw later Chick,” Dan said, I think it was to get Colleen’s attention; I turned around and smiled a bit and shook my head.
“I did show up, didn’t I, I bet you thought I wouldn’t?” Said Colleen.
“Not sure what I thought,” I admitted, and I seem to put on a dumb look.
“I always like wine in the fall, --woops, soon to be winter in a week or two.”
“Always --” I said-, opening up her car door, and getting in.
“Always my new friend, now let’s go to the Bay and look at the Golden Gate.” I nodded my head yes, for I even liked walking along the bank and dock area, by the railroad tracks also.
As we got to a certain spot, evening was starting to set in, the once white clouds were turning light gray, and I opened up the window a little. I loved to grab the moment, absorb what was happening. San Francisco was so very much different than my conservative St. Paul, and it seemed like I was starting to own it a little. There in front of me was the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge I would never forget it. I had walked across it, seen it a dozen times, and I just never got tired of it; but one thing, I only walked across it once, it is far…longer than one imagines. It was a settling evening. The cars with their horns, the people at work, I was starting to calm down. The night was creeping in. On one hand I was hoping it would never end, and on the other hand, it was a fast pace city for me, it could slow down a bit.
“Are you thirsty Chick,” said Colleen.
“Oh yes, very much…” I took the bottle from her and drank right out of the top. She pulled out two glasses, then hesitated, and put them back in her back seat saying, “We really don’t need them I see.” I guess I might have seemed a little uncouth, but it was I.
For a while we talked about the earthquake everyone was talking about; how the evangelist’s were saying San Francisco was going to be sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Many people were taking long vacations to get out of town. It was supposed to be on a certain weekend coming up (or within the month of January). They talked about it at the bar, at Lilli Ann, everywhere.
She smiles, said,
“Of course,” as she took a drink. I think she was thinking about her youth --for whom at twenty-one runs around looking for a glass when you got a bottle. We sat just drinking, and looking at the Bay and the bridge, silent for awhile, some people don’t like too long of a period of silence, but it can be golden, --she lit a cigarette, and so did I, and we took turns drinking. She told a few dirty jokes, and I pretended to think they were funny, and when she laughed I laughed, not because they were funny, but because she was.
She commented, “You’ll have to let me know when they have the fabric sales down at Lilli Ann, I want to buy as much as I can.” I didn’t quite understand what she was talking about then, but I did find out later on that they had sales about every four months, and employees could buy fabrics not usable. I would however purchase some for her, during our short time romance.
“Let’s go eat,” she commented.
“Where…” I said.
“I’ll pick up something at a store or restaurant.”
“That’s perfect,” I replied, as I put the cork back into the bottle, there was not much left to the wine.

Colleen stopped in front of a fancy restaurant, --went inside and ordered some burgers made up for us.
“Dolores Street right,” she asked, and I gave her the address, “They’ll taste better relaxing at your apartment.” She said. I explained she was welcome but I only had a small room, and my friend, whom was Dan, she remembered the person who had said, “By Chick”, lived in the other room next to me, --I explained we shared bathrooms.
“So she rents out rooms,” she commented.
“Yaw, why, you need one?”
“Not quite yet, but could be soon, or in a month or so,” she ended her replied with.
As she stopped in front of the mansion I lived in, my hunger had changed from food to lust, or so it seemed, the burgers did not seem at all appealing; nonetheless, we went directly to my room.
As we entered the room she looked about, “Quite cute, and yes, you were not kidding, it is small, but cozy, enough for a single man. I had a little dresser by the side of the bed where I kept an ashtray, and a light, along with a little radio. A closet in along side of the bed, a little to the right of the doorway you might say, a window behind me overlooking my bed, and the door to the bathroom on the right also, of the bed; --if I was laying on my back I’d be looking at the doorway in front of me
She put the burgers on the small table, took a last drink of the wine, gave it to me, there was one swallow left, I drank it, as she undressed, then she jumped under the covers. She had big breasts and a semi tight body for her age. She was not thin, nor fat, quite healthy looking. I got a hard-on immediately, and like a dog in heat, we pulled our lust together and she grabbed my item and directed it to her warmth.
We made love for about 45-minutes, and I fell to my side a bit, rested, and pulled her over to me again, and stuck my penis back into her private area. She was very warm inside, and my body shook as I climaxed.
“We should get some sleep Chick,” she said with a chuckle. It seemed she found what she wanted, but I felt a little out classed for some reason. She had a degree I had found out while sitting by the Bay over looking the Golden Gate and she worked as a legal assistant. I couldn’t sleep, so I looked at some of the rooftops of the houses out my window; San Francisco was very complicated for me, all its old and new mixed into a whole, and Colleen laying next to me. But I told myself to go to sleep tomorrow was another day.
As I rolled my body back under the covers, I could not hear anymore car horns, the radio was quiet, Dan and his brother must have fallen asleep, and his girlfriend gone home The wind was making a bit of noise on the window sill, but that was tranquilizing, if anything.





Chapter Eight



The Christmas Party



Well, Dan was dating the Spanish lady, and Colleen was coming over picking me up on regular bases now. She even got to know the Colonel a little, and Dan and his brother Jack. I think she was eyeing up the little bedroom by Dan’s big room. In-between our dating that is.
During this period in San Francisco I was working, and I wasn’t seeing Goesi much, going to the movies as I usually did, and we had a Christmas party coming up in a few days. Mom had written and I expected her to be flying into San Francisco, in two weeks. From here she’d stay a week then fly down to see my brother in Montclair, Southern California.
The weather got a little colder also, but why argue it was still in the 50’s during the day, and low 40’s at night. Some rain but not much. I now was running the dogs for the Colonel; I had a hell of a time taking the “Beast,” out. I called him that because he was up to my waste when on all fours, and had teeth almost like a saber tiger; he looked more like a wolf than a dog. He ran like a horse, and I had a choke chain on him; --thank god I could run with him, I think he liked that. And people jumped every which way when they seen us coming: --and a few times he got away from me whereas the panicked started all around me, people jumping far away from the on coming beast, I didn’t blame them.



The Confrontation


I knew when I left San Francisco; I’d miss the dogs. Matter-of-fact, one night a neighbor came over and was hollering at the Colonel, and threatened her about the dogs, I was in the hallway upstairs listening, had a few beers in me, I came down slowly, and she told the guy to go because I was the one running the dogs, which the guy noticed, and that with my karate, and temper it might not work out too good if he sticks around;” adding, she said,
“I think he heard you hollering at me.”
“So what, let him come…” and then out of the blue I was five feet from him on the outside stairway, he was two steps down, and the Colonel was against the beam of the door way.
“You better take care of them dogs and shut them up before…”
“Before I kick you ass, that that…” I leaped toward the man with my hands in the air as to block the man if he thrust the knife at me, and landed on the second to last step, about two feet in front of him, and in a circular motion, threw several blocks to off set his focus, he jumped back, pulled out a two inch knife, he was terrified.
“You better not come closer,” he said. I started laughing.
“And you mister, better shut your mouth, go home and never, I mean never come around here again, and if I find out you’ve cause any trouble for my landlady, I’ll find you and stick that knife up your ass…get out of her NOW!!” He moved as fast as he could. Yes, I had my wild moments, as most people have.

Said the Colonel, “I hope he doesn’t cause trouble for me, but I sure liked the way you handled him,” and she had a smile half a mile wide.


Paranoia



I was getting excited about the Christmas Party, and so the folks in my department at work assigned me to make the greeting handout, and so I drew a picture of a drunken fat man with his hair standing up; --everyone liked it. In the mean time, Dan was having a number of parties at his house. One evening, a few days before the Christmas Party, I was in his apartment, he and his brother were smoking some pot, some stuff from Mexico. I got too high too quickly off the pot I think; I had a few beers before hand also. I had not really smoked pot much before, other than maybe a drag here or there, but nothing like this. I mean I took some heavy drags, smoking a whole joint with Dan. I hadn’t done that before.
I sat back then, in a sofa chair and tried to get my senses back. Dan knew I was struggling a bit.
“You all right Chick?” He asked.
“Not sure, boy I feel something…not sure if I like it either,” Dan kind of chuckled, and sat back, lit another joint up, --his brother then came in, seen me, said hello, I gave him a smiling-smirk, and he joined his brother to help finish off the joint he was smoking.
Said Jack to Dan, his brother, “Chick keeps staring…matter of fact, and he’s staring at me right now, look?”
Said Dan,
“Pay no attention, I think he’s going into a bad trip, leave him alone, he’ll come back to us.”
“Fuck no, he’s staring at me,” said Jack. I was staring, but not for reasons he was thinking, that are to fight or provoke, I was paranoid. He was then talking to Dan saying he was going to punch me, I moved my head a little looked at Dan and Jack, I seemed almost frozen, and told myself, if he did, I’m not sure what I could do, but I’d have to jump quick, even though I was under some kind of panic I didn’t understand. Jack stood up from sitting by Dan on the floor, moved over by me thinking he was going to do something, but didn’t get too close. Dan knew I’d defend myself if I had to, and it wouldn’t be pretty, yet neither one knew how frozen I was in this limbo state. Could I move out of the way quickly enough? And was Jack getting paranoid also. Dan jumped up, grabbed Jack, “Back off Jack, I don’t want any trouble. If you want to talk to him after he comes out of if fine, but not like this.”
Jack stepped back, he seen me follow each of his movements, I felt I’d try to do what I had to do, but if not, I was playing poker, and Dan knew it would never end here, and I’d have to put Dan down also, and I would.
Two hours passed, I came about, and out of this trance like stage.
“You ok, Chick,” Dan said.
“Yaw, I’m fine, how about your brother?” Dan knew now it was time to sort things out.
“Listen,” he commented, as his brother sat on the floor smoking another joint, “He didn’t understand how you were, he’s young, you know.
Jack jumped up, “I’m not afraid of him.”
“Jack,” I said, “I’m not subdued anymore, the best you can do is sit back down and let your brother talk, or go out side with me, and I’ll kick your ass down, you’re no match for me, not now anyway.”
“Chick, if you take him on you got to take me also,” Dan said, adding, “I know he did wrong, but I stopped him, and I apologize for him.”
“Dan,” I calmly said, “I’ll walk away, but if he gets in my way, if I have to put you both down, I’ll do it.”
“He’s not going to get in your way, nor am I, we’re all friends here, both of you shake hands.” Jack hesitated, didn’t want to, but for some reason didn’t want to walk around wondering I suppose if and when I’d get drunk some night, and out of control, in short, then go looking for him.
“Ok, maybe I was a little pushy, I like Chick, and I just didn’t like the staring. Ok, let’s shake,” and he extended his hand, and that was that.


The Party



Well finally the party day was here. I quickly washed up at work, and joined everyone in the backroom at Lilli Ann’s; Adolph Shuman was present himself, along with Mr. Green, Dan, Mr. Rosenberg the Manager, my boss the London designer, Dan’s Spanish girlfriend, and the fifty other folks. I guess when he first started the company; they said he gave out money, and expensive gifts. I guess it was a long road for him, he first started selling dresses in the windows on consignment in downtown San Francisco, stores, then one thing lead to another, and he became rich. Not sure how that all worked out. He must have had a head on his shoulders, and public relation skills. Nobody gets far without that in this world.
He started handing out bottles of expensive Scotch, “Here,” he said to me, handing it to me personally. As if he forgot who I was—again. He had gotten so mad at me one day he told the Manager to fire me after he almost stuttered trying to tell me “DDDDDdoooontt drop the materialsssssss...” he lost it I think for a moment that day. I said, “No problem sir…” and he shook his head hollering, “Get rid of him, fire him.” Oh well, I don’t blame him for getting mad, I suppose he spent a life time trying to build up a business, and its name, I was not what you might call the best “Bundle Boy,” trying to see where else I could fit into his company; actually everyone but me was trying to advance it seemed I thought, but never acted on promotion. Actually I was doing a little bit of everything, cutting material, and this and that --and in-between, doing what they called “Bundle Boy,” things.

The party went on for a while, food was all about, and the punch was spiked with some kind of liquor everyone liked. The two Spanish gals that liked me up in Mr. Green’s working area were eyeing me up again, but I paid little attention, I didn’t want any problems with married people, but they were cute. Dan and I got a ride home from Colleen, and when we got back into our room, Colleen told me she had moved into the small room. Great I told her, not sure why it was kept a secret, but so be it. Dan traded me for the bottle of Scotch, I didn’t drink hard liquor, and he and his brother liked it.
It was Friday, and I was getting a little ill, so I went to bed early. Colleen came over to visit me, see how I was.
“Can I help you?” she said sitting on my bed, adding, “Boy you’re really hot.”
I said,
“I’ll come over a little later, if I’m feeling better…” she responded, ”Now how can you do that, you’re as hot as an oven, you stay in bed.” And she went back to her room. About midnight, I ended up knocking at her bedroom door. She let me in.
“I can’t believe it, get back in bed,” and I said no, and jumped in her bed and had sex. “You are one stubborn person,” she said --insisting, I go back to my bed after about forty-five minutes of sex, and so I did.





Chapter Nine



Mother Comes to Town




As another ten days came and left, I noticed Colleen spending more time in Dan’s room. Not sure if they were getting it on, but I also knew he had his full and healthy looking Spanish girl, and I suppose I was a little jealous, and so was she, the Spanish girl that is. For some reason it seemed to me and Dan’s girlfriend, Colleen was throwing herself at the two brothers and Dan was getting a little nervous.
During this time, Colleen came over to me and asked if I would go over and tell Dan we were just friends, not ultimately lovers. I told her I’d do no such thing, and what she did was her business, but I really didn’t like her attitude, and so our six-week relationship dissolved at that point. She had been seeing, I think, older man all along, in any case, she was simply hungry for whomever she could get her hands on, in many cases, and perhaps most, she preferred younger men on the short term bases, or so felt, and possible older for safe keeping. Dan asked if I could talk to his girlfriend, Nancy, and I did, telling her Dan was more or less being chased by Colleen, which she already knew, -- notwithstanding. After she cooled down, she asked me why I drank so much that Dan had said that’s all I did. She kind of liked me as a friend, but didn’t understand me. I simply told her to mind her own business, and go visit Dan if she cared to put things back together, and so she did.


Mother’s Day


I met her at my house on Dolores Street –she had taken a cab from the airport-- she was excited to see me, and I her. She surprised me that she even came; she would stay here in San Francisco for a week and then go to see my brother in Southern California. Maybe it was her chance to see California, especial San Francisco, which was a legend in its own right, and everyone knew where Disneyland was, even the Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev, I guess he even went to San Francisco in September, l959, couldn’t resist the city; matter of fact he went to a supermarket in the city checking out the cartons of milk like it was a nuclear arms plant. And oh yes, he was in the good old Midwest, in Iowa CHECKING OUT THE CORN. Not sure if he made it to Minnesota though, if not he missed the best-kept secret in the US, St. Paul.
As soon as Mother’s plane come in she got a rent-a-car, it was great, the first time I got to drive in 7 ½ months. Then we went to her hotel after leaving Dolores Street, it was a small motel, but comfortable, but not as small as my room was which just shook her head, thinking it was way too small for me. Then we went out to eat the first night, it being Friday. I couldn’t take off work for being sick two weeks before, but would get off work early this week, at 3:00 PM, not 4:30 as usual, and would take off Monday, giving us the rest of Friday, and three additional days. She would leave next Thursday evening.

In any case, Saturday we went to Mere Woods, about twenty miles from the city, and she got to see the giant ancient trees. Then we went to China Town that evening, my mother, Dan and I; and she bought us both a good Chinese meal, his brother was not invited, simply because he was not as close enough friends, plus we didn’t need more bodies to feed.
Sunday we went down to Fishermen’s Warf, and looked at the crabs and wax museum. That evening we went to the Coit Tower, on Telegraph Hill; from there you could see the bay area with all its shadows and splendor. And we drove a few times across the Golden Gate Bridge, and onto a ferry, for a boat ride to Alcatraz, which has a nickname called “The Rock,” and around the little concrete island we went. On one of the building roofs on Alcatraz was the word painted in hung letters ALCATRAZ
There was a scary moment in all this riding around, it was at about 5:00 PM on Monday evening, I drove to what was known as the “Crocket Road,” a steep and winding road in the San Francisco area, and got stuck on it. But that was not the real scary moment, I then went beyond that road and up another steep one, the car almost fell over backwards, --I had to turn into an alley very slowly, I could see gravety was not in our favor, and so I made sure the turn was not too sharp. We could actually feel the car starting to sway to the side, as if it wanted to roll sideways --down the cliff.
After that we went to “Sammie’s,” where all my drinking friends were, and as I got my mother into a booth, which I normally did not sit in, we got some soup, --her a coke, and me a beer. I introduced her to everyone, I was so proud to have her meet all my friends. For some reason I did not bring her to meet Goesi, I was feeling he was a little disappointed in me, for I had not went to karate practice in awhile. It was now about 8:00 PM, and the weekend was ending, --and having Monday part of it, made it long. So we went back to her motel, I slept on the sofa. In the morning I went back to work.



The Cliff House



My mother had asked were the best place in town was to eat, --she wanted to take me there, and so I told her I didn’t know, but I knew of the most famous place, which was the Cliff House, it was by the bay, and it was surrounded by gardens; also, at the lower left side of the building was Seal Rocks, populated by sea lions.
Cliff House had pictures of everybody famous on its walls. We sat overlooking the giant waves hitting the rocks below us. I ordered beef, and when it came, I got four little slices I looked at them for a minute, not knowing if to cry, laugh or get mad. My mother looked, and we started laughing. I think a McDonald’s Hamburger was twice as much meat, but we ate it none-the-less, she paid the outrageous bill, and we walked around a bit thinking we owned the place, or at least I did. It was a good moment, a good week.


It was a good as good as it got better, if not grand week, I hated to see her go on Thursday, but she did; and I knew my brother Mike was anxious to take her to Disneyland in Southern California, and so back to work, but a surprise was yet to come.





Chapter Ten



Sammie’s Bar
The Eagle and Surprise





July 16, l969
Sammie’s Bar Day One



At 6,198-m.p.h, the Saturn 5 was in space, it was 9:32 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time Cape Kennedy, --Neil Armstrong was in the Phoenix with his crew, within a space of 363-feet. The journey would take them 250,810 miles to the moon. At 11:57 p.m. The astronauts were sleeping with 77,992 miles yet to go; their speed had gone to less than 5000 m.p.h. I had heard it on the radio, but was at the bar during the sleeping period.



July 17-19, l969
Sammie’s Bar Day Two


At 10:53 p.m. the astronauts are 147,802 miles above the earth. I watched the T.V. above the bar, with everyone else, they had a Color T.V., and so they had a 36-minute telecast of the flight, showing Apollo entering the lunar sphere of influence. They are now traveling at 2,037 M.P.H. a voice said.
On July 19th another 34-minute telecast was shown in Sammie’s bar, and again we all watched it, eating chili, and drinking beer.



“The Eagle has landed” …


I got to the bar early this Sunday, July 20th 9:00 o’clock a. m. And there were no seats at the bar a few minutes after I arrived. I got one of the last ones. We all sat in anticipation. Mr. and Mrs. Palace sat next to me, and Ted and his partner both standing close by one another, all looking up at the T.V. It was going to be a long day and night I felt. Around 10:00 a.m. Apollo 11 disappeared behind the moon, no radio contact with Houston. It was 12:57 P. M. now I grabbed some sandwiches.
“I’m staying here all day and night until I see the end of this,” I told Mrs. Palace. She smiled. As the hours went by, we heard the engines were shut off, it was 4:17 PM, the Eagle had settled on the moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Neil Armstrong reported, “The Eagle has landed”. At that moment I was remembering back when I was in grade school, and President John F. Kennedy said we were going to the moon. I was in the printing shop working on my California-job-case, sorting out letters. And here, now it happened. And we beat the Russians this time life was good.

At 7:13 p.m., Buzz Aldrin gave a message to the world, to pause for a moment and thing of this event, and give thanks in our own way; --and then the preparation for walking on the moon started; --at about 11:00 p.m. I’m still watching T.V. and Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon. He says, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Then right after that he steps onto the moon. Man oh man, you couldn’t hear a sound in the bar, then everyone was saying, “He’s on the moon, the moon, the moon.” After about twenty minutes more I went home.



Ж

The Surprise



Many things had happened to me in San Francisco, and now I got a letter in the mail saying I had to either be drafted in/or out of, California, or go back home to Minnesota and be drafted, and so I chose to make my freedom last a while longer by telling the draft board, I was on course for home. Realizing it was July, l969, and I’d leave in the middle to last part of August and most likely once home take a few months to go see whomever I had to, or wait for my letter from the draft board. I didn’t mind, it wasn’t the end of the world; just the end coming to my voyage here in San Francisco, and to be quite fair with the whole deal I told myself it was time. The Manager at Lilli Ann was not told the truth, or for that matter no one but Goesi knew in San Francisco I was being drafted into the Army. I’m sure the black belts felt a whole lot more secure after I would leave. As always, Goesi was as gracious as the day is long. A little sad I believe, and disappointed things did not work out as he thought they would. But then, life does not always work that way; and that he knew.

It was the 25th of July and I was to go home on the last week of August, around the 21st. I walked into Sammie’s, everyone smiled, took a straight posture, not much different from what I was used to. I hadn’t even told the folks at the bar what my plans had entailed.
The old couple came over and sat by me, as I ordered a beer and got a sandwich and come chili.
“Chick,” said the old man, and his wife by his side, not sure if to look or not.
“Yaw, what’s up?”
He said as a father telling his son:
“We all really like you here, and bringing your mother was quite the surprise. We all want to thank you that you would think of us in such a manner.”
“Oh, but I do, you are my family away from home, that is you and Goesi.” He smiled as if he really did not want to go any further with this. I didn’t look around to see any faces, thinking it was something he had on his mind; more or less you know -personal.
“Yaw, is there something else,” I asked.
“You could say that. Let me explain. You kind of know a few people here, and everyone knows you. Matter of fact, every time you come in, Ted and Joe, kind of signals everyone.” I looked a bit bewildered, what was he implying.
“Go on,” I said with my eyebrows us.
“Chick, we’re all gay here…!” I couldn’t swallow, now I looked around, “Everyone?”
“Yes, everyone.”
“But what about you and your wife, you’re not gay?”
“Oh yes we are, you might say bi-sexual…though”
“What is that,” I asked.
“Chick listen ----that is when people have certain preferences for both sex, but may like the company of their spouse and are willing to share her or him.”
“Boy of boy, I don’t know what to say, but everyone looks…”
“Chick, they look non-active because of you. They like you so much they stop everything, every-time you come; --they play a role I suppose one can say, for you. But we got thinking it wasn’t right to continue with it.”
“Oh, yaw, I suppose,” I said not knowing what to say. “But you know I still like everyone here. I really like you and your wife. You know I’d never let anyone hurt you.”
“Chick, you got to do what you got, and if you want to come to the bar, we’d love to have you here, and no one is going to bother you, but if you can’t we’ll understand, but we will not be playing anymore games with you.”
“I got drafted, I got to go home in a few weeks, but you know, maybe if I had a lot of time left I could adjust, but I’m sorry I just can’t at the moment. I…I, I’m not sure what to say, but I feel embarrassed that everyone had to go out of their way for me, how very kind. Yet I can’t come back, you know that.”
“I figured as much,” said Mr. Palace, --then Mrs. Places added “… but I want to write you, keep in contact for as long as you’d like. I know with going in the Army, you might head on to Vietnam, and it would be nice to keep track of you. “
I got to leave, I didn’t turn around, not sure why, but I was happy. I would receive letters every Christmas for the next five years from the old couple.


A Big Event



It was August 20th, l969, I bought a ticket on a bus to go to Southern California to visit my brother, and he and I were going back to Minnesota, together. And as I got ready, I got thinking about all the things that happened, especially this past year or so. Just a few days ago in some place in New York called Woodstock some 400,000-kids had an anti-war gathering of some kind; they called it a festival of sorts. I never heard of such a gathering before. I’ve seen pictures on the T.V. and it was raining and people were smoking and pissing and there were traffic jams, and a lack of food and water.
Some of the groups that were playing there were the Grateful Dead, whom I heard about, but never paid much heed to, and Jimi Hendrix, he fell into the same category, the only one I knew, and thought could sing halfway decent was Janis Joplin, and she looked more like the gals in San Francisco than in New York, but I guess folks said she was from around here.
When I met my brother in Montclair, we took a quick trip down to Mexico, and then headed back to good old St. Paul. It wasn’t long before they got me into the Army, October, l969. Mike my brother went out to the induction center in Minneapolis with me. I guess the way I seen things was, I was about to have another adventure, and the Army was just as good as any place –matter of fact, free transportation all the way.





Afterward



San Francisco in those days was where it was happening. Where the music seem to seep out of, or from and penetrate the rest of the United States. I was many things in San Francisco, and if it taught me anything it taught me I could become, chase a dream, and by accident, things do happen. By being there, being available, things do happen, just someone liking you for whom you were, could open doors, as long as your door was open. If all I had done was meet Goesi, my main objective would have been achieved, and so everything else was a plus. Oh yes, there were hardships I am not bringing out, but what for, it is not the crust of bread or the topping of a cake we are looking at, notwithstanding, but rather, the nice ending we all want, and it did end up that way. Yes I did go to Vietnam, but that is another story. Incidentally, I was told I was given orders to go to Augsburg, Germany, I wonder how it will be there. If you really want to know, read the book, “A Romance in Augsburg.”



End to the story and sketches of,
“Romancing San Francisco”


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Note: A karate tournament actually did take place but it was in October, not December, at the Cow Palace, and I was the photographer. And the names of the black belts throughout the story, or novel, are all fictional, except Buck [his last name for that is how I remember everyone, even I always call him that [If he ever reads this book, and I doubt he will, please take no offence, none was meant] and both Goesi and Gogen Yamaguchi. The woman, Colleen is not a fictional character, although again it was not her real name; --also, there was a bar I went to quite often, but it was not called, “Sammie’s”, and Mr. and Mrs. Palace, are again real people, with different names. All the public people’s names are for the most part real, and these occurrences did happen. And I felt the liberty to use their names because of that. Such as the Turtles, Adolph Shuman, Hell’s Angels, etc. Again although this is a book of fiction, as I said before, historical fiction—historical fiction for the most part, there is truth to every sentence.


٭



Picture of the author in San Francisco, with Gosei Yamaguchi, l968, at the National Headquarters GoJo-Kai Karate-Do, USA