Capturing Daily Life
|
Candidate Insider
Well...Sort Of...
May 28, 2004 (Saturday)
Actually, his name was Robert Price.
We knew him as Sabu. And it wasn't so much
a raft ride down the Mississippi River
as it was a walk down Canal Street
and through Manhattan.
I graduated from high school in June, 1968,
at age 17.
I entered the Navy in December, 1973,
at age 22.
I guess those years in between
could best be described as searching,
or exploring, or adventuring.
In the middle of it
(I think it was the winter/spring of 1970),
I ended up sharing an apartment
with a high school friend -
a 6th floor walk-up at Ave C and 6th Street
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
My friend was subletting from an older,
worn-out looking hippy girl, named Judy.
She moved back in and then Sabu started
coming over to see her. I enjoyed
his visits. We had left the comfort of
our parents' homes to experience
the legendary culture of the East and West
Villages of lower Manhattan, to mingle
and to learn.
One of the main social criticisms of the time,
especially on colleges, was that we didn't
know or understand blacks on a personal level,
and here was and opportunity.
We all went out together a few times -
to walk, or to visit, or to eat. Once we walked
a few blocks to a small park across the FDR Drive
on the East River and worked out.
We stayed in the room a lot.
For one thing, it was cold as hell
in the winter.
The window looked down on Sixth Street
and had a view of the top third or fourth
of the Empire State Building.
Sabu wanted to learn to play chess,
and we occasionally played a game.
He was as curious about us white kids
as we were about the locals.
I was nineteen and he was about thirty-two,
and he became a bit of a mentor to me.
But what I learned from him was not at all
whqt liberals would expect - not at all.
In fact, what I learned from Sabu
was pretty much the opposite of what
a liberal would expect.
Sabu was not angry or enraged
at white people. He said that
if a person was civil and courteous to him,
that was more important than their race.
I found out that blacks understood white
people better than white people realized.
He understood the "peace and love" mindset
of the young whites living in lower
Manhattan. I certainly was very influenced
by Thoreau, Ghandi, and Dr. King.
Sabu saw me as naive and tried to wise me up.
he convinced me to take karate by cleverly
emphasizing the meditative aspect
of martial arts. And he insisted
that I study at Sensei Peter Urban's
Chinatown Dojo.
Sabu held Sensei Urban in extremely high
regard, and so did I, very quickly. He is
known as "The Father of American Karate",
and he was like a father to his students.
He had studied and practiced karate under
Sensei Yamaguchi in Japan after WWII.
Sensei Urban was extremely intelligent
and highly regarded for his breadth
of knowledge. In 1972, during the
Fisher/Spassky chess match, he became
interested in chess and we students
would sometimes play chess with him
and each other in his office.
He could joke and tease a bit
and take teasing from his wife.
He was human.
People Need People
I went through a stage when I lived in a
tent in the mountains in upstate New York.
When I returned to his Dojo and he heard
about this, he said, "Too lonely, David,
people need people."
One day he was standing in his Dojo,
talking to two of his students, a third dan
and a fourth dan. "David, come here",
he called me. I hurried over. "David,
I want you to spar with (the third dan)."
Obediently, I took a fighting stance.
I feinted a punch with my right hand.
My opponent remained motionless.
Again I feinted a punch, and I spun
through the air and landed on my back
at his feet.
Use Your Biggest Muscle -
Your Brain
I studied at Sensei Urban's Dojo
for just a bit in 1970 and, when
I returned in 1972/73, I struck up
a friendship with Sabu again.
I had many Manhattan adventures with Sabu
that year. Sabu only strenghtened my
disillusionment with shallow liberalism
and the flaky left. Discussing the troubled
state of the world and the difficulties
of life, he quipped, "It...it...it not Nixon,
David. It...it...(searching)...it Cosmo,"
at once lampooning the liberals'
Nixon-bashing and the liberals' obsession
with Eastern mysticism (the cosmos).
I knew that Sensei Urban disapproved
of me "hanging out on the street"
with Sabu, whom he called Robert Price.
Eventually, I decided to straighten out
my life and get a job. I loathed liberalism,
now. I knew it from the inside,
and I hated it. For me, joining the Navy
was an act of rebellion against liberalism.
I was voting with my feet.
Besides, Sensei Urban was a Navy Man,
I think. And the military was somewhat
of a family tradition, and hence it was
healing in that regard.
Like Huck's ride down the Mississippi with Jim,
my ride through Manhattan with Robert Price
was a real and special experience,
and totally beyond the ken of a liberal.
Robert is a friend, and his greatest gift
to me was sending me to Sensei Urban.
Sensei Urban is my hero, a true
Renaissance Man, a living example of
Courage, Confidence, Fighting Spirit,
Intelligence, and Humanity.
"David," he said to me,
"use your biggest muscle - your brain."
Posted by dscully at 07:77 PM Top of Page
|
David Scully
email
davidscully
@hotmail.com
 |