11 Comments
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Frederick Fullerton's avatar

Thanks for the restack, @Pike's Peak. 🙏

Frederick Fullerton's avatar

Thank you, Lique, for the restack. 🙏

Geraldine A. V. Hughes's avatar

I love your UKE Early short story Frederick, these words just popped into my mind “real meat on the bone” and I’m sticking with that 🍯 keep the short stories coming and enjoy the ride 💛Lady G

Writer's Corner's avatar

This was quite the story, Frederick. Obviously Early not only survived the Vietnam war, but then he also made himself useful by helping others adjust after the war. What a guy indeed! He must have had a pretty high pain threshold. Love, Maria

Frederick Fullerton's avatar

Thanks again Leslie. I checked my post and found Clearly instead of Early twice, which I've corrected. Unlike many writers who post their stories on Substack, my short stories are 99% fiction. Although I trained in MA for more than 20 years, I didn't begin training until I was nearly 40! The character Sensei is based loosely on two martial arts instructors I knew. One with whom I only trained a handful of times and the other was more a long-distance teacher, who we saw only 2-3 times annually for a week of intense training each time. There was no uke who resembled Early. When we trained with an instructor, we all served as an uke. When we trained together without an instructor, we were each other's uke.

Frederick Fullerton's avatar

We can say that after his experience in the war, he had a change of heart about war…amd martial arts.

Leslie Baxter's avatar

I think your auto-correct changed Early to Clearly twice. What a great story. I knew about your love of martial arts, but did not know how long you practiced.

Frederick Fullerton's avatar

Thanks, Leslie, autocorrect http://is.my nemesis. I'll check the story again.

Teresa Dovalpage's avatar

Good for Early! I have little knowledge of martial arts, but this is good to know... I will never volunteer to be uke, just in case.

Frederick Fullerton's avatar

But as the sensei said, “If don't feel it, you don't know what it is.” 😂

Teresa Dovalpage's avatar

I don't want to know what it is :-)