Eulogies from Afar - The "Friendship" of Donald Miskel and Sam Lonewolf
Remembering friends and loved ones is always both a blessing and a hard thing to do. Eulogies are a way in which we can commemorate them, their contributions to the world, and finally a way for all who knew them to remember them fondly. This is more often than not the duty of the closest relatives or friends.
I have friends all over the place and that isn't a lie. But like my predecessor not many people ever get to know me in person. The reasons for that are simple. Yet knowing someone as intimately as you can, who they are and most importantly their motives and intentions in their heart are the mark of a true friendship. Hardly anyone ever met Gerald Gregory Greysmith in person and yet the messages I received regarding how he touched the lives of people were numerous. Upon his death many people who were notified immediately asked if they could post a memoriam on him. We of course asked everyone to not do that as Greg was very private about his life, his work and beyond that the legacy wasn't about him. It was about the people he and his partner helped.
So when Sam Delk wrote the eulogy for him it was by the wishes of those who knew Greg probably as good as anyone...his old partner and also with the permission of his brother. She and I were caretakers for him at the end of his life. No one wanted me to do it because I was now shouldered with the very real burden of carrying on his work as Gerald Greysmith. Sam however was very close to Greg and knew him like a big brother.
When people we love leave us those memorials often serve as reminders to each of us of the lives they lived. Were they Godly people? Were they horrible people? I have attended funerals in my lifetime for many of my family members and heard such things as "he was such a good man," by someone I never knew at all. In fact at one particular funeral in question I can assure you that the person in the casket was anything but good and the person speaking had never been seen amongst anyone in the family. Miserly and miserable was the words I would use to describe the deceased and as bad as that may sound I knew them quite well! I remember my father saying to me just to "let it be, this is what his wife wanted."
I suppose she wanted a lie from a stranger.
I would expect even in death someone should be honest about what they say in regards to another person. They're not here to defend themselves anymore, and that is two-fold. There is no sense in lying. And the person or persons who state anything about them should at the least have a working relationship on some deeper level with them. Deeper than say an occasional email every decade or maybe having met them at least more than once. And if the things said aren't true isn't it up to those who knew them best to stand up and give an honest account?
I would argue yes. I would rather in death be remembered for who I was and what I am than a lie be told.
And so it is with that thought in mind I want to talk today about eulogies, friendship, and the core of what builds those things. Because Sam Lonewolf's story isn't over. And today we look into the claims of a man who swore he knew Lonewolf as good as anyone, even to the point of interjecting himself into the narrative.
No. I would assume the story is just getting started here.
EULOGIES FROM AFAR -
THE "FRIENDSHIP" OF DONALD MISKEL
AND SAM LONEWOLF
by
GERALD J. GREYSMITH
In a link dated January 11th, 2013 Donald Miskel penned a eulogy for Samuel Lonewolf.
"I was hoping not to do another of these soon. I’ve had only a few mentors in the martial arts and another of those have passed. It’s a fact that as you grow older the frequency of the deaths of friends and family become more prevalent. This lets me know that I am getting old. I eulogized and buried one of my most senior grandmasters a few weeks ago and here I am again sitting with my heart broken at the loss of a dear friend and mentor in the martial arts.
Some of my students would swear to you on a truckload of Bibles that I’m the oldest living martial artist. They probably wouldn’t be far wrong but I do have a few seniors more advanced in age than myself. Dr. Samuel Lonewolf wasn’t one of them. He was actually a few years younger but he was a real bonified martial art master. He had almost forty years of experience in the arts and the luminaries he studied with and trained with reads like a who’s who in the martial arts. He was a master in karate, jiu jitsu and aikijitsu and was a grandmaster in kenpo.
I met Dr. Samuel Lonewolf rather early in my martial art career. In a sense he and I came up through the ranks together. He was rough around the edges but he was an excellent martial artist. Even with ill health and the of age he wasn’t above calling out some younger black belt. There are few of his acquaintances that he didn’t challenge at one time or another. He was totally unimpressed and wasn’t intimidated by size, age, rank or physical prowess. He wasn’t shy about any and everyone told. Doc was a martial artist, not a diplomat and he was quick to point it out to anyone who offended him."
"Doc was often misunderstood and was often both criticized and ostracized because of his blunt personality and for making his own rules. A lot of his critics, many masters themselves spoke ill of him and in all honesty he could be challenging at times, but if one had the patience and enough insight to look beneath the surface they would have found a diamond in the rough. He was about as soft as uncured leather and as tough as nails but he was a martial art treasure. He was one of the last of the rough and tumble, no nonsense old school martial art masters. Few had the patience to get to know the man beneath the question and controversy. He’d as soon slap a knot upside your head as look at you, and would more often as not leave you standing somewhere waiting for him, but if one took the time to really know him it was hard not to know him. Indeed the rough edges were the thing about him that endured him to those who loved him. I’m one of those. I was mad at him about something more often than not, but Doc was just Doc and I, like many others, loved him and felt blessed to know him.
Dr. Samuel Lonewolf was a Viet Nam veteran and had been a POW in North Viet Nam. That accounted for much of his character. Like many of us who suffered similar experiences, he was of effected by those harsh experiences. Somehow he survived what would have destroyed many lesser men and he excelled in the arts that he loved much.
Dr. Samuel Lonewolf was the senior grandmaster and a 10TH dan in the Hawaii Koso Ryu Kenpo Karate organization and was one of my grandmasters. I was honored to be one of the senior grandmasters of the organization and the system under his lineage. Doc Lonewolf was also one of the senior grandmasters of both the IFAA Black Dragon Fighting Society and the Black Lotus Martial Art Association.
Doctor Lonewolf was a minister and bishop in the Angleton church. That didn’t mean he was above blessing you out if you ran afoul of him and he was known to exercise what we ministers call ‘the laying on of hands’ on some misinformed individual. Many were placed on the straight and narrow by his none too gentle hands on approach to life counseling.
Doc was as unique as a snowflake. One of a kind. When God made him he broke the mold. Doc was truly a one shot deal. You would look far and long trying to find one who could fill his shoes. You’d probably still be looking when mankind has finished its sojourn on this planet.
Doc you were a friend and teacher. Once again I mourn the loss of a martial art master and friend. You will be sorely missed my brother; my friend. Rest in peace, Doc, and tell Dr. Day hi for me when you get on the other side."
---Rev. Dr. Donald Miskel
I swear this reads like Miskel and Lonewolf had some deep and solid friendship that transcends the boundaries between life and death. As though he were writing a letter to a friend he knew he would never see again...the grandmaster and Reverend himself truly was inspiring in these words.
There was just one small problem with this entire thing.
Donald Miskel and Sam Lonewolf had no such friendship.
The Sports Karate Museum (Again)
Okay for starters you can read all about the Sports Karate Museum and Gary Lee here, here and here. I am not going to retread how Lee in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary contends to be the inheritor of the system of Sam Lonewolf. No this article is about Donald Miskel and asking WHY he felt the need to interject himself into the (still ongoing) dispute Lee is having with the daughter of Lonewolf.
I will say this much: as of the time of this article Lee has yet to return any of the items he took from Lonewolf's widow to the family despite being given an address, and multiple demands from them. He still insists in an email sent to Samantha Lonewolf that he burned the items or threw them away.
Yes, apparently Sam Lonewolf's friendship meant so much to Lee that instead of returning the items he destroyed them. Or was it that he tossed them away?
Anyway then he decided to invoke the awesome power of one of his closest associates....that of Grandmaster Reverend Donald Miskel.
In an email dated January 7th, 2022 Lee asked Miskel to please send along his article he wrote about Lonewolf's passing. It must have been the eulogy from the link posted above. But as you can see this was Lee's way of passing the buck off onto Miskel to I believe hopefully outnumber Samantha in her demands for answers from the men. However Miskel did send along an email dated from the same day.
So right off the bat we now have Miskel intervening on behalf of Gary Lee. He speaks of Lee's son Garret being taken as a godson to Lonewolf. He then admits he cannot speak for the matter regarding Lee "inheriting" the system but that didn't stop him from taking a certificate with Lonewolf's name on it....did it? And as bad as it is that Lee claimed to have inherited the system by what RIGHT did Miskel have countersigning any certificates on behalf of Lonewolf? And why would he need to countersign any certificate for Lee if Lee was the inheritor?
I smell fraud.
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Miskel already had a response:
"Other than a kindred spirit and a sharing of spiritual values and philosophy I gain nothing from claiming affiliation with your father."
Is it because Miskel was trying as Lee was to ride the coattails of a man who is no longer here to say anything to contradict it? Was his eulogy as heartfelt as he claims or....was it there to mask what he and Lee were doing? These certificates in Lonewolf's system didn't write themselves. He says himself he gains nothing from affiliation with her father. So why does he have it listed he trained with Lonewolf on his site, holding what appears to be a high degree in rank, and no one from the entire family can remember him? Nor does he appear on any of the lists of black belts for Lonewolf.
Another issue was the timing in which Miskel claimed he and Lonewolf were supposed to attend a funeral in 2012. Lonewolf was deathly ill and suffering from debilitating health issues by that time. And according to his family he wasn't going anywhere. He was homebound and the family was caring for him exclusively. So that rowboat has a hole in it, too.
So it was that Miskel would try and salvage this situation as best as he could. In an email dated January 8th, 2022:
"I won't argue with you. I'm sorry if you find my intentions insulting. They certainly weren't meant that way. I have no agenda other than trying to make peace with between a friend and the daughter of a former friend. I thought the world of your father. We we're supposed to get together when I was in Houston in 2012 but it didn't happen. The next thing I heard he had passed. I regret not having a chance to speak to him before he passed. I won't try to contact you again but you're welcome to reach out if you care to talk. If not I pray blessings upon you."
Again he claims they were supposed to get together in Houston, how great a friend he is, trying to make peace....blah-blah-blah. But I want to draw the reader to another statement in a previous email....
He admits to never having been to Lonewolf's dojo or home yet has a certificate (two by my count if his statement bears fruit) and is defending at this point the man who was proven to have lied and finally admitted to NOT inheriting the Lonewolf family system in my previous article.
And in case anyone was wondering what the Lonewolf family had to say on the matter before this point? Well, I have an email for that, too.
And Miskel? Well he sent this along to Gary Lee but somehow included Samantha in it as well.
Yes indeed. Miskel was so close to Lonewolf that he can see a lot of him in his daughter....who he was trying to talk down to. Who he offered up phony and bogus certificates to as proof he trained with her father. Yet he offered no photos together with her dad, at least not at this point. I don't know about the rest of you but I have pictures from my earliest to most current days of training. Whether they be seminars, instructors, rank tests, I have them. It helps me for the day I inevitably open my own gym and teach. These would act as proof I had trained and come from a solid pedigree.
The Claims With the Strength of Pudding
Essentially speaking ever since I started writing on this matter I believe I have come close to a group of people who not only attempted to steal a legacy and a lineage, but were using it to rank others through cross-certification or worse still selling the ranks. At no time have Miskel or Lee offered anything remotely close to proof of any relationship with Sam Lonewolf.
A glance at any social media by Lee over the years shows he claimed multiple times to be the inheritor, however. And many times still he also held up people like Donald Miskel to be of some grand importance to him, his museum and his lineage.
Miskel himself has made audacious claims on his own sites of having what appears to be a great and lengthy relationship with Lonewolf as well. But according to the family this is all one pile of horse manure left in a field to dry.
It is known Lonewolf had some dealings with friends he had in the Black Dragon Fighting Society. However as they are often prone to do they use a relationship one of their few legitimate members had with another legitimate person and ride it into the ground....milking it for all they can get. And it was no secret Lonewolf had no love for the organization which Miskel himself is a proclaimed head of. His own daughter has said as much in her emails.
This makes me think they waited until he passed and Lee went to the family after the funeral as I had stated before and obtained items he had no right to. From there he and Miskel began making certificates. And if I'm seeing these emails correctly it appears to me they attempted to pass the buck back and forth between one another while simultaneously trying to get a story together to appease an angry member of Sam's family.
And as you can see it didn't work. From dips, dodges and the like neither Miskel or Lee could get their story to stick because Samantha KNEW they had no relationship with her father at all.
Upon asking for proof of their connection with her father beyond some sloppily made certificates with obvious flaws in them, they could not produce any evidence to the contrary. And to this day Samantha has yet to be presented with anything remotely resembling a relationship of any kind with her father from Lee nor Miskel and I seriously doubt she ever will.
The facts say they just never knew the man and their claims to have otherwise are all bogus.
In an email from June 3rd, 2022, Samantha sent this to me for the article:
After I questioned Mr. Lee about his actions, Mr. Lee claimed in his emails that he was sent there at the behest of a Don Miskel. He then inserted this Mr. Miskel, into our email conversations. Mr Lee claimed that Mr. Miskel could vouch for him and verify that had this “close relationship” with my father. Mr. Lee also had claimed that Miskel and my father had a relationship that went back years and years. Mr. Miskel may have indeed told Mr. Lee this and he believed him, however, no one in the family had even heard of Mr. Miskel. My father’s widow and caregiver had not even heard Miskel’s name mentioned by my father.
Mr. Lee tried to get Mr. Miskel to show me an article that Miskel had written about my father after he had passed. This article was supposed to verify that he indeed knew my father. However, the article is filled with “inaccuracies” regarding my father. Obviously written by someone who didn’t know my father and was content to make things up.
In an email to me Mr. Miskel did in fact claim to have known and trained with my father for years. When I challenged Mr. Miskel on this, he realized I didn't buy into his hogwash. In his second email to me he admitted that he did not know my father or did he meet him like he had originally claimed in his first email to me. In his third email he further stated that he had never been to my father’s home or his dojo. You have all the emails pertaining to this conversation between myself Mr. Lee and Mr. Miskel. Lastly, Mr. Miskel’s name doesn’t appear anywhere in my father’s list of black belts. or anywhere else for that matter. Neither does Mr. Lee's.
I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding, Mr. Gary Lee and Mr. Don Miskel tried to take advantage of the passing of my father, Sam Lonewolf to bolster their own agendas. That agenda was to insert themselves into a history that they had zero-part in.
Zero.
Neither Mr. Lee or Mr. Miskel have ever been spokespeople or representatives of my father's system. Neither man was at any time entitled to my father's system. Neither one is one my father’s list of black belts. They weren’t appointed or considered a part of my father’s system in any capacity.
As it stands today neither Lee nor Miskel have ever had this grand friendship or whatever this was they claimed with Lonewolf. And just as importantly in my opinion if they didn't then why is Miskel writing eulogies for people he has no relationship with?
Because in the grand spirit of all things people like them do they wanted to hijack something, make it their own, and use it to give credit to themselves.
What a stellar way to remember someone, guys.
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