An Almost Impossible Stroke of Good Luck

I don’t know if I have written about Lee’s katana This is a very sharp lethal weapon. A sword. He purchased it from his judo sensei (teacher) a number of years ago. This is not a replica or a toy. Think of a 3 foot long razor blade and you have it about right. Lee had to work with the bokken (a wooden sword) for over six years before he was allowed to train with the katana . After Lee’s passing, one of my first worries was where to sell this item. You can’t do it on eBay. The school that he had attended had closed quite a while ago. I mean a number of years ago. I did contact a couple of judo schools, but they did not do sword work.

Yesterday, when I was going through Lee’s papers, I came upon a small slip of paper, quite yellowed and old, with a man’s name and telephone number on it. Also on the paper was a note saying the man was a sword student of Lee’s sensei. I really doubted that the number would be good, as I have run into a number of dead-ends with phone numbers–people are switching to cell phones–but I called it anyway. The number was live. I was ecstatic and left a message explaining the situation and giving him my number.

Mid morning today the phone rang and it was sensei himself. I never expected to hear from him, but evidently the man I called had called him and told him my story. Long story short–he (sensei) said he will do the legwork and ask around and he probably will be able to find me a buyer. He also said he would try to get me more than I paid for it.