The Story of "Big Ear"
This remarkably accurate caricature of me (drawn by Arden Street of Hesper, IA) clearly shows that my left ear is considerably larger than the right.
Here's what happened.It was a hot July summer day in the cornpatch (Iowa), and I was a brand new, just out of high school Thermo-King refrigeration mechanic. I had been trained but little, and was getting "on the job training". Through a misunderstood instruction (never did figure out if I heard wrong, or was told wrong, and noone would back me up) I ended up on the ladder, working on the unit, and cracked open the 3-way valve after "pumping down" the refrigerant into the reciever tank. This was a bad move. As soon as the gasket seal on the valve broke loose, I got dumped on (literally) by aproximately 8# of liquid refrigerant 12. (lucky the condenser check valve worked, or it would have been all 14# in the system) I did manage to get my arm up in front of my eyes, so they were not sprayed, but the left side of my face, neck, and left ear got a serious dose of cold, and the ear was frostbit on a sunshiny, hot, humid July day. It thawed out right quickly, but the damage had been done, and thus the ear began growing larger than the other for some reason I still do not understand.
The Japanese style work that I am doing is signed with a two character kanji that says "O-Mimi" or "Big Ear", in english. I chose this for a couple of reasons. First, it is true, physically descriptive, I have one big ear. Second, it is a double entendre sort of thing about the way I see myself in relation to the knife business. When it comes to the heat treatment and metallurgy of what's going on, I know it very well, and am a "big ear" among the cornpatch that is the field of bladesmithing. And third, I live in the "cornpatch" (Iowa) and so it is a pretty traditional way to sign a sword, name, location. It is just too bad there is no old style kanji for corn. I could use "big ear in the rice paddy", but it just ain't the same. So, since I couldn't say "big ear in the cornpatch", it's just "big ear". And lastly (but not least) it's a joke. A way to poke fun at myself. Because I do sincerely believe that if one cannot laugh at himself, then life is not going to be a joyous thing. One needs a sense of humour in this world to get along, at least from my point of view.
So, there's the story behind "Big Ear", and why the swords are from Big Ear's Armoury. Now noone has to wonder any more.
Howard