Thank you Tom. I appreciate your comments.
Yes I am honored and privileged to have a friend such as Yasuhiro,
(Ken) Komatsu. I have known Komatsu-San for 20 years, first as
business associates then as friends. Ken was employed by a company
which was the Japanese distributor for my company's products.
Ken was the best English speaker with his company and as such was
sent to the U.S. for 6 months to learn better English and our company
products. As Manager Far East I spent much time with him. My company
also spent $ 7000 on Japanese language lessons for me, so we could
converse pretty well.
I have been greatly honored by being invited several times to visit
his home, not common in Japan where most entertaining is done
elsewhere, and he has visited mine. I became well acquainted with his
family; his father, wife and two children.
I took early retirement in 1992 and a few years later Komatsu-San
changed companies. I very much regret that I have not been able to
visit Japan since I retired, but Komatsu-San has been to the U.S.
twice and each time has visited me, at some effort since I live in an
out of the way community now. We correspond by e-mail.
Although during my career, I have been so lucky as to be able to
visit, often numerous times, some 40 countries in Europe, the Middle
East, Central and South America, and Asia as well as Australia, I
grew to love Japan and the Japanese people most. I have never met any
people who work so hard, and play equally hard, who are so worldly
wise, yet cherish their gardens, temples, and Cherry blossums. Had I
not had a business reversal losing a lot of money, I had planned to
try and live in Japan for a year or two.
While I can never repay Ken's wonderful gift to me, he sort of thinks
I have. He is a great fan of Glen Cambell and Andy Williams. During
one of his visits I took him to see Andy Williams in Branson and he
told me that was the best Christmas present I could ever give him.
Last fall, he brought his Wife to the U.S. for the first time and I
took them both to see Andy Williams and Glen Cambell.
What amazed both him and me was how his wife, who speaks virtually no
English, could disappear, going to the ladies room for what seemed
like ages, and when we would go looking for her we found that,
through the language barrier, she was conversing with an American
woman and within 15 minutes they knew all about each others children
and lives.
Perhaps its through such simple things that world understanding and
peace will someday be achieved.
Bud
--- In samuraihistory@yahoogroups.com, tom helm wrote:
> Bud-
> You are very lucky to have such a friend. Anyone who would go
> to such trouble should be cherished. You need aks him if it is a
> "shinsakuto"or a "Iaito" (mogito). If it is an Iaito then you need
> only keep it clean, if it is a shinsakuto you'll need a cleaning
kit.
> For a traditionally made Japanese sword a cleaning kit is
> tissue or better yet rice paper, a ball of uchiko and choji oil.
> Uchiko is a mild abrasive used to clean off the old coating of oil
> before an application of a new one. the Choji oil is usually a
> mineral oil with a hint of choji (clove) for fragrance, this is
most
> assuredly NOT the same oil used for toothache so be careful. There
is
> also Tsubaki abura, or camellia oil which some prefer because it
has
> little or no odor. Uchiko is made from the "sludge" or by product
of
> the uchigomori stone used in polishing. Literally "child of the
> Uchigomori". There are several grades but for Shinsakuto it matters
> little.
> If your saya is new, remember that it was likely not made for
> your climate but that of Japan. If the fit of the habaki or collar
on
> your sword/saya is tight do not force it but leave a 1/4 inch of it
> out of the saya. It is expected that in a new saya the opening will
> be very tight, in a dryer climate it may contract and crack. There
is
> little maintence for a well made saya...
> -t
>
> if you believe you have a true nihonto I invite you to visit the
> following link and to join the "nihonto@yahoogroups.com" list.
>
> http://www.geocities.com/alchemyst/nihonto.htm