06-25-2020, 12:48 PM
My old man used to take the dog-leash to me when I messed-up. Later, when he was in his sixties
and I knew everything at eighteen years of age, he was getting ready to go to work on night-shift
and we'd been talking about boxing against today's manner of street-brawling.
(This was 1978)
I knew he'd boxed in the Navy during WWII and he'd always explained he'd fought fifty-odd arranged
boxing fights and never won one of them -which I found out later, wasn't true. He was a thin man with
thin wrists and large hands, but he was smarter than me when it came to hiding one's light under a bushel.
He stood up to get his coat and with my mother sat engrossed in Coronation Street on the TV, I said his boxing
prowess wouldn't stand a chance against the way I used to fight back then.
As I buckled due to my stomach telling me it had been hit by a train and then felt two quick punches to
my jaw, I heard my mother lazily-comment without looking away from her long-running series, "leave him
alone, Reg".
Without straying from boxing manoeuvres, he left me sliding down the door to our kitchen and whoever was
having an affair in Coronation Street, continued.
The guy who I've patterned my life of...? He went to work, the kids needed feeding.
and I knew everything at eighteen years of age, he was getting ready to go to work on night-shift
and we'd been talking about boxing against today's manner of street-brawling.
(This was 1978)
I knew he'd boxed in the Navy during WWII and he'd always explained he'd fought fifty-odd arranged
boxing fights and never won one of them -which I found out later, wasn't true. He was a thin man with
thin wrists and large hands, but he was smarter than me when it came to hiding one's light under a bushel.
He stood up to get his coat and with my mother sat engrossed in Coronation Street on the TV, I said his boxing
prowess wouldn't stand a chance against the way I used to fight back then.
As I buckled due to my stomach telling me it had been hit by a train and then felt two quick punches to
my jaw, I heard my mother lazily-comment without looking away from her long-running series, "leave him
alone, Reg".
Without straying from boxing manoeuvres, he left me sliding down the door to our kitchen and whoever was
having an affair in Coronation Street, continued.
The guy who I've patterned my life of...? He went to work, the kids needed feeding.
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.