A story about Mr. Parker on the cover of Inside Kung Fu magazine

(recently told on Facebook by Mr. Rich Hale)

In the mid-eighties, I had a weekly Wednesday 10 am lesson with Ed Parker at his home in Pasadena. 

One morning I get to the house, and the first thing he says is, "Look at this!" and he shows me an issue of Inside Kung-Fu with him on the cover.

I go, "Wow! You're on the cover of Inside Kung-Fu!" 

He then shouts, "No, look at it!" 

I looked again, and all I could think was, damn, you're on the cover of Inside Kung-Fu; what could possibly be the problem?

Again he says, "Look, look closely." 

Okay, now I have no idea what I'm supposed to see and Mr. Parker is kind of yelling at me to see something important, but I just don't see it . . . I think I'm going to die!

Then he finally says, "They reversed the picture! My patch is on the wrong side!" 

Now, as much as I wanted to jump on board with Mr. Parker and be really pissed that they reversed the image, all my little brain could get around was - damn! You're on the cover of Inside Kung-Fu!

Years later when I was putting together a poster of the magazine covers Mr. Parker had been on, I realized the issue he was so upset with was from 1974. Yet, ten years later, he was still so pissed he brought it up to me as if the magazine had just hit the stands.

I guess that's what we had in common. We were both perfectionists . . . he was just a lot better at it than me.