In America, a stranger will love you on sight, and you are simply expected to allow it. I entered a coffee house. The young man behind the counter beheld me as though I were his brother home from war. "Hey man! How's it going! Love the whole look." He loved my look. We had known each other four seconds. In my country such warmth is earned across years, or across a battlefield. This boy had granted it before I spoke a single word. I resolved at once to be worthy of so sudden a friendship. He asked my name, to write upon the cup. I understood the weight of this. He wished to record our meeting for all time. I drew myself up and gave it the breath it deserved. "Nobunaga." He paused. He nodded slowly, as a man does when he has heard greatness. Then he wrote, with great care, "NUGGET." I looked at the cup. I looked at him. He was beaming, proud of the gift. A samurai does not correct a gift. To refuse the name a friend bestows is to spit upon his kindness. He had heard my name, weighed it in his heart, and returned to me something he believed finer. Who was I to say he was wrong? So I became Nugget. When the drink was ready he called it out with feeling. "NUGGET!" I rose. I answered to it as a man answers to his own honor. I bowed to the room. Several people clapped. I did not know why, but I accepted their respect for the name I now carried. I have returned every day for a week. I am Nugget at this establishment. The whole staff knows me as Nugget. They greet me warmly. "Nugget's back!" I have built a life here, under a name I did not choose, given by a boy who could not hear me, and I find I do not wish to give it up. So tell me honestly. Eight hundred years my family carried one name. I lost it in four seconds at a coffee counter, and I have never felt more welcome. Was it a fair trade? Because Nugget, I think, is happy.