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I leave a message at the academy for Hanshi. I want to know more. What do I call him? Hanshi? Sensei? Sir? And when do I call him, if ever, by his first name? The other karateka used all three [...]

Just off the main thoroughfare in Tinyville, NC, I find the Martial Arts Academy where I will begin karate lessons three times a week. I’ve never glimpsed the building before, and even as I walk [...]

Dad and I are parked at the Ace Hardware in SmallTown, NC and at first I don’t know where the smell is coming from. Then I look to my right and see it: An oversized Ford F350 with dualies, a [...]

The karate instructor is in his mid-fifties and has been teaching for over thirty years. He and his wife run an acupuncture clinic and the martial arts center and have five children, ages 18-28. [...]

This is what I have learned. When there is something that you think you want so badly, and the world is not offering it to you, listen to that as hard as it may be. Therefore, forget this [...]

Day 6 starts and ends with driving, but we take I-81 South this time and drive 675 miles in 11 hours, stopping once for dinner and finally at a hotel for the night. Day 7 flies buy, 325 more [...]

It’s one night here, another night there, thirteen relatives and a 180 pound dog named Bentley. And today, of all days, International Buy Nothing Day, my mother and I venture to Trader [...]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!!

Five hours and 150 miles later, we arrive to a houseful of kin in Derry, NH, with members travelling from as far away as Oregon and as close as neighboring Hooksett, NH. Whereas with the earlier [...]

The maxim proves true. Volvos DO fix themselves, and whose car was it that was used in the morning to take my uncle to the store in order to buy a new battery for his SUV that sat stranded in a [...]