I was going to college many years ago, to be an Environmental Science Teacher. Though I didn't complete my degree, I met a gentleman from Japan. Jerry Masuda; he was my math teacher... originally born in Japan, came to the United States. What drew me to him was his condition; he had been a guitarist in an up and coming band. One night while sitting atop one of the pyrotechnics tuning his guitar... it went off on accident. He was in intensive care for many, many months. Had to learn how to talk, walk, eat again. His entire body was a skin graft (the explosion blew him in the air, into the upper scaffold of the arena), so needless to say, he "looked" quite un-human. But I have always been a person to "never judge a book by its cover"...

He was the first teacher that taught math, that allowed me to "get it"... and I hated math. This was in Kansas City, Mo; while walking through the hallway of the college one day, talking with Mr. Masuda, one of the well-known television anchormen was conducting a piece on the conditions there (I believe his name was Phil Witt)... anyway. As we are walking, I see Phil and all of a sudden, Mr. Masuda hollers out, "Phil!"... in response, I hear, "Jerry!" and I thought to myself, "who doesn't he know!".

Mr. Masuda explained that, besides his love for music, his second love was math... he invited me over to his house, fixed traditional and American Japanese food... we talked about things he had experienced growing up, from feeling the negative effects of discrimination, to how he volunteered to sit and talk with AIDS patients at the local hospital. He had to wear special gloves and protective clothing to be around these patients but to him... this was "giving back"