Month: April 2021

Eight o’clock arrives, but no detective, so I went up to order some dinner from the front. The little seedy man, the kind whose nickname is always  “Whispers” or “Pittsburgh Phil” in B movies, sidled up to me and said, “You say you know Jack . . .”

I replied, “I didn’t say that.”

He sneered, “But you said you’re going to meet him.”

“Yeah, I called him on the phone.”

“Just why did you do that?”

“Why don’t you find that out later. . .” and just looked at him, deadpan.

He couldn’t hold a direct look for very long, just said, “Oh . . .” and scuttled back to his seat.

I have moved this piece, excerpt above, to my Substack, where much of my shorter work, particularly that not directly concerned with martial arts, will be published. 

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When Milton A. “Hank” Gowdey, 67, was seven years old, some tough boys at Webster Ave School, Providence, called him a sissy and beat him up – until he began to study jiujitsu. [1] Gowdey sensei, born in 1919, would recall that he was bullied, because he was the only Scottish kid in a mostly Italian neighborhood. The other kids thought he was rich because he had a football. He began studying Yabe-ryu jiujitsu in 1926, at the age of seven. [2]

Tired of being bullied as a boy, he went to the dojo, or school, taught by Master Sesu Quan Setsu, a Buddhist monk, at the Biltmore Hotel. [3] “When I began [4] studies with the master, training sessions were after school three days a week, $7 for five lessons” he said. “Basic training was to serve the Sensei, or teacher. We students cleaned the dojo, cooked his rice and tea, never to his satisfaction – for at all times he was testing our humility. My parents allowed me to stay from Friday after school until Sunday evening. Sleeping was on the tatami (a straw mat). I came to conceive not just by words, but mostly by osmosis, an understanding of the way.”

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