A guy knocks on your door one afternoon.  He has a friendly smile that is disarming, he’s polite, and makes you feel at ease.  He’s in his mid thirties and has brown hair and brown eyes.  He is of average height and weight.  His clothes are average.

He is completely forgettable in his average-ness.

And he’s looking for his lost dog. . .

Have you seen the dog?  Perhaps your wife has?  Would you get her and ask her please?  No?  Ok.  Thanks, sorry to bother you. . .

What you didn’t know is that the average forgettable man was wearing a hidden video recorder.  And he will be forwarding that video of you to the daughter you gave up for adoption at birth some 40 years ago.  And there never was a lost dog.

It’s not lying, it’s acting. At least that’s what I tell myself.

Acting for the sake of preserving the confidentiality of the client.

Today I’ll be saying that I’m putting together a family tree as a wedding gift for my fiance when your old neighbors want to know why I’m asking about your family’s where-abouts.  Even if they have your phone number, they won’t call to tell you I visited.  And that’s because I’ll convince them that the family tree is a surprise, and I don’t want anyone from my fiance’s family knowing about it.  And then they’ll forget about me.

And of course I don’t really have a fiance.

If you are in the situation where the creativity of an Ohio Private Investigator is needed to obtain some important information, please contact me at vic@vicmagary.com.

There’s Coda with his summer-time buzz cut.  He sure looks funny, but he is so much happier on his walks without his long coat.  Even though he doesn’t look too happy in this pic!

Before each class I would see Master Kim sweeping the training floor with a huge dust mop.  I would ask him, as would other students, to relinquish the mop and let me sweep the floor.  He would simply smile and send me on my way to practice forms or to stretch.

Master Kim was a Vietnam Veteran with the Korean equivalent of the Special Forces.  He had great stories of parachute mishaps and teaching tae kwon do to American soldiers high on marijuana in the 1970’s.  At no more than 160 pounds, he could bang out multiple 225 pound bench press reps with no problem.  He could hit double-unders with the jump rope effortlessly.  He could drop into full splits with no warm up.  Master Kim was 60 years old and he was an 8th degree black belt master.

Legitimate 8th degree black belts are rare.  Sure, in the United States the “self promoted” or corporate 8th degrees are common place.  But in Korea, that 8th degree is a true honor.  With a life time of training behind him, Master Kim had only recently been promoted to 8th degree at the age of 60.

And there he was, sweeping the floor before every class.  A true demonstration of humility through action.

But the greatest demonstration of humility and restraint that I saw from Master Kim came one day when a new student joined the class.

She was a soldier straight out of basic training who caught Korea as her first duty station.  She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old and god bless her for trying to learn the language of her new host country…

During her second tae kwon do class, and in front of the whole class, she addressed Master Kim as “Adashi”.

If I remember correctly, Adashi translates literally as “uncle”.  But it translates practically as “dude”.  It’s how you address cab drivers.  It’s how you address street vendors.  It is NOT how you address your 8th degree master tae kwon do instructor.

It was the classic nails on the chalkboard moment.  It was the needle scratching across the record.  When she addressed Master Kim as Adashi, everyone stopped.  No one in the class breathed.

But Master Kim seemed unfazed.  In his heavily accented, but otherwise perfect English, he looked at her with a broad smile and said, “Your hungul-mal is pretty good.  But everyone here just calls me Master Kim.”

And that was it.  Master Kim went right back to barking the cadence for the unending barrage of kicks that were part of every class like nothing had happened.

A true demonstration of humility through action.

When I tell people what I do for a living now, their ears perk up with interest. Many people have this glamorous image of the private investigator cruising around in a fast car on a tropical island (thank you Magnum P.I.) putting clues together to solve the unsolvable case. Although I do track down clues, I’m more likely to find them in a dusty tome of sixty year old court records than on a tropical island.

Most of my days are spent behind a computer. I have access to databases that are not available to the general public. But I also rely on the typical search engines of Google, Bing, and Dogpile to make sure that no stone goes unturned. I’m also on the phone a lot, often trying to use some gentle persuasion to get some information that would not normally be revealed. I’m not always successful with my attempts at persuasion, but as they say. . . it never hurts to ask.

Sometimes I’m in a hot car all day, driving from possible address to possible address in an attempt to locate a witness. And sometimes when I locate the proper address, I stay in the car because I’m in small town Ohio where people let their dogs roam free and there is a part Doberman - part Rottweiler standing between me and the front door.

No, my life as a private investigator is not glamorous. But it is interesting. I love piecing together the clues. Sometimes that’s tracking the family history of a woman from Europe who was adopted at birth. And sometimes that’s giving some peace of mind to the wife who suspects her husband is not really working when he is gone all weekend.

If there is difficult to find information, I will find it if it can be found. And I will do so with the highest standard of professionalism and confidentiality. If you are in need of such services, please email me at vic@vicmagary.com.