Don is a
self-avowed, full-blooded Apache. A warrior in its truest sense, though
it took me quite some time to see behind the mask. His
loudly-proclaimed ancestry made amazing amounts of sense until I stared
into his blazingly blue eyes. Hmmm. Not going there. No right. Definitely no invitation, though we did become allies over time.
Don
was scary. Tall, almost gaunt, with nut-brown skin and what remained of
his long dark hair tied back most of the time. He had received his
first black belt the year I was born. He refused to test after that,
until finally forced, but it had been decades. No one wanted to spar
with him, so I was blessed with that pairing almost every practice. He
and my sensei were close friends. Sensei was always telling me I needed
to toughen up. So…Don. And, a blessing he turned out to be.