How I Met AC Rainey
By Rich Hale
I was sitting in my office one day, at the Alaska Martial Arts Center, when an athletic looking gentleman walks in and asked me if we taught Kenpo. I tell him, yes we do. He says, "Ed Parker's Kenpo?" I again say, "Yes we do." He then tells me that he's a black belt in Ed Parker's Kenpo and that he's looking for a place to workout.
The odds of having a black belt, in Ed Parker's Kenpo, walk in off the street, in Anchorage, Alaska, in the late 70's, were slim to say the least. Never the less it could happen, so containing my excitement, I asked him if he's an Ed Parker black belt under "Ed Parker". He says yes he is, so I immediately say, please come, sit down, let's talk.
As he pulls up a chair, I reach for the phone and start dialing. With a look of slight confusion, he glances at the phone in my hand as I say, "Oh never mind this, I just have to make a quick phone call, please tell me about yourself, what's your name?" Still looking at the phone in my hand, more than looking at me, he says his name is AC Rainey.
Before he can say anything else my phone call is answered and I quickly raise my hand cutting off what ever he may be getting ready to say next. I say into the phone, "Hello, Mr. Parker - Rich Hale. Great sir and how are you? Say Mr. Parker I have a gentleman in my office by the name of AC Rainey and . . . Yes Sir! I extend the phone over to AC and say, "He wants to speak to you."
AC takes the phone and his side of the conversation went kind of like this. "Yes sir, yes sir, no sir, yes sir . . . yes sir, I mean no sir, I'll never be out of touch for so long again. Yes, sir, yes sir." Now having lost just a little of he color in his cheeks, he hands the phone back to me and I put it to my ear only to discover Mr. Parker had already hung up the other end. I set the phone back on the cradle and look over to AC.
With a look, on his face, somewhere between I thought I was going to die and I'm going to kill you, he says, "Don't ever do something like that to me again!" Almost laughing, I look back at him and say, "Apparently I won't have to."
After a few more minutes of small talk, during which time AC seemed re-gathered his wits about him, he says, "So who's your head instructor?" I look right back at him and say, "You are sir."
For the next several years AC Rainey was my teacher and head instructor at the Alaska Martial Arts Center.
