Chapter 4: There's Also David. The Quiet one
David Daniel Ackerman III. That was his official name. This is the name that appeared on his birth certificate; the golden plaque next to the door of his bedroom, and inside his five-star notebook. That's how his parents presented him whenever they were hosting galas and introducing him to the guest that came to visit. To his parents it always made him sound like he was a sophisticated young man; to David, however, the name was just too cumbersome. His friends called him David, Dave, or Davey, and that was it. He liked it better that way.
David usually spent his days either inside the dojo downstairs learning Tai-chi from his grandmother, Jane Ackerman, or playing baseball outside in the baseball diamond at Gallagher Elementary School on weekends. No one said that they could not play there anyway. On occasions, he and his friends would go down to the local ice cream parlor to get a root beer float, or a banana split. That was the idea of a perfect afternoon for him as opposed to a boring night at one of the parties his parents would have with a bunch of "snooty-faced adults" as he put it. He even admitted that watching his grandfather play chess with one of his elderly neighbors was more exciting than that. David spent time watching his grandfather do even that on Wednesday afternoons, while he ate out of a bowl of prunes. One word…BORING! It was a good thing that his grandmother was more adventurous than her husband, otherwise David would not want to spend time with any of them at all.
He and his grandmother had many amazing adventures together. They did rock-climbing, they did cross-country, and down-hill skiing, they went to watch hockey games, they played hockey together, they went fishing, they did wind-surfing, they participated in NASCAR races, they did rollerblading, swimming in the ocean, horse-back riding, tai-chi training, bungee jumping, and sky diving. Jane was the most exciting woman David had ever met. It was amazing how much stamina she had and how she did everything with such vigor in her old age. She was quite the daredevil! David never regretted a day when he chose to skip playing outside with his friends to spend time with Grandma Jane because there was always something in store. One day, David had woken up early; it was about seven o'clock in the morning. His lower back was hurting a little because the day before he had done horse-back riding with his grandmother, and a mouse was encircling David's black stallion. Startled the rose with its hooves kicking in the air as it neighed loudly, leading David to fall off the horse and land on his backside. What made it worse is that he landed on a pile of steel horseshoes. He did not want to continue his horse-back riding adventure that day, so Jane told Jim, the owner of the farm where the horses were kept that she was going to go home with her grandson.
It was morning now, and he was feeling a little better than he did the previous day. He got off the bed and washed his face in the sink of his bathroom. Then he left his bedroom and went downstairs to the dojo. There he saw his grandmother sitting on a bamboo mat. She was in her white robe, barefoot; and tied around her waist was the black belt she had earned in her youth. Jane Ackerman was a ninth degree black belt.