FIGHT-NIGHT

By James R. von Feldt

Well, it’s that time again. I mean, it’s Easter season.

The season of Hope is here. The grass is greener. It seems like the sun shines more. The birds are chirping louder. I swear they are making more noise than usual. And, of course, the weather is erratic; 32 degrees and light snow last night. I remember back in 97 when we had an unexpected snowstorm that left three feet of wet snow on the ground. It caused several barn roofs to collapse.

Snow, this time of year, is good moisture for crops. So far, we’ve had an ample supply. I hear our neighbor, Nebraska, is in drought; that’s very dry. It will hurt their crops if it doesn’t turn around soon. My sister says there are wildfires in Texas because it’s so dry.

My other sister – the one that lives in California, hasn’t said anything about the weather this year. Usually, about this time, she’s telling me about the mudslides or fires ravaging the land out there.

I’m planning a trip. I’ll see firsthand what it’s like out there. I’m going to fly. The cost of an airline ticket was real low last month when I got it.

My sister and I started talking about a trip sometime last year. We were reminiscing about times when we were kids. That was back during World War 2 when we lived in the Portland Oregon - Vancouver Washington area. They needed over 40,000 workers to build warships at the Columbia River shipyards, so we moved. I was just a grade-school kid then.

We’re going to rent a place to stay in Portland, then drive around and see the sights for a few days. We’ve got an appointment to tour through the Academy. That’s the school we attended in Vancouver. It’s a historic site now.

I wrote a couple of books about that time in my life. One of the books is entitled; The Trading Post. It’s about the time we got lost in the woods. The other book is Kidnapped; it’s a made-up story. They’re on Amazon.

Last week, at the barbershop, Fred Meeks told us about his memories as a kid during the war. He was born in 33, making him just a bit older than I am. He was the only boy in the family; he has three sisters. His family moved to Ohio to get a job. Well, the real story, he said, was that they moved so his dad wouldn’t get drafted.

It seems that his uncle Charley worked at the Ohio Steel Foundry in Lima and helped his dad get a good job there. He was exempt from the draft because they were making the M5 tank for the army.

Fred stopped cutting my cousin Cliff’s hair and told us his story.

Lima, he said, was a small town in those days. With the war, growth of the Tank Factory, and new jobs, housing was very scarce. We lived in Uncle Charlie’s garage most of the year. When it got cold, we moved into his house. My sisters and I slept on the kitchen floor. Uncle Charlie had two boys in his family. They were older than me.

Before we moved, we had been living on the family farm north of Troy, right here in Davis County. I went to the first three grades in the Troy one-room schoolhouse. I was in several shoving matches but never got in a serious fight.

At Lima, I went to a public school with a whole lot of kids. My cousins teased me because the other kids chased me home after school. Eventually, my dad fixed that. He took me to Paddie’s.

Paddie was a black man who ran a boxing gym. It was about four city blocks down the street from where we lived. He held boxing matches on Friday nights. The place was always crowded.

Paddie’s was behind the Blacksmith Shop. It had a dirt floor, Boxing Ring, and a few punching bags; that’s about it. I had to go to Paddie’s every night after school until Paddie told dad I could hold my own. At first, I hated to go. I was scared.

The first few days, all Paddie had me do was jump rope. After I had that down and could do it for fifteen minutes without stopping, he showed me how to throw a punch and hit the punching bag. I didn’t have boxing gloves or anything, just my fists. They got bruised and toughened up quickly. After a few weeks of rope jumping and bag hitting, Paddie made me lift sacks of rocks. “Pick-um up here and put them down there,” he told me. It was supposed to make my arms stronger. It made my back ache.

So far, I was ok with everything. Others at the gym were much bigger and older than me. Paddie spent most of his time with them in the boxing ring. Occasionally two grown-ups would come in to spar for a few rounds. Paddie would give them tips on how to improve. We watched with riveted attention. I heard somebody say that Paddie had once been a great prizefighter.

Then one day, after school, I came into Paddies, and he told me to suit up. I didn’t have any boxing shorts, so he modified a pair he had with a safety pin so it wouldn’t fall down. Then he put boxing gloves on me. I got scared cause I thought I was going to get in the boxing ring and fight with somebody.

I was wrong. I was in the ring alright, along with two other guys that were hitting each other. My job was to jump around but keep out of the way of the other boxers. It was footwork. I was to pretend I was boxing. To imitate the others in the ring. That really made sense to me – especially since I wasn’t the guy getting hit.

Pretty soon, I was acting like I knew what I was doing. The other guys laughed at me and teased me – in a good kind of way. They egged me on, and I performed. I was eating it up, knocking out all my imaginary opponents.

Finally, one day after school, I came in, and Paddy had two black kids about my age in the boxing ring. They were taller than me. Also, they were “dressed up”; they had on boxing shorts and were outfitted with boxing gloves. I about panicked.

But again, Paddie surprised me. I had to tell Paddie what the boxers were doing hit by hit and what their feet were doing. The boys came together and threw a few punches, then backed off. I told Paddie what I saw. He would compliment my observation or correct me depending on what I said.

That’s all I did for two days.

I wanted to get in the ring with the boys the next day, and I did. By then, I knew how to protect my face, to dodge a punch, and how to dance around to get a good shot. The three of us did that for the next few weeks. Occasionally one or the other would hit a little too hard, and the other would try to retaliate.

Again, while we were sparing, I was getting teased. But finally, I realized I was the little guy in the ring fighting two bigger guys. I couldn’t back down now, and I didn’t. Sometimes I’d get hit hard, but I learned to get inside and punch back. Occasionally I’d get a bloody nose. Sometime I’d give a bloody nose.

From time to time, Paddy would sit us down and tell us about what happens in fights. He gave us courage. He said, “If you know there’s going to be a fight, hit first with everything you’ve got and never quit. If you are winning, never quit. If you are losing, never quit. If it hurts, never quit. No matter what, never quit.”

I don’t remember when, but sometime after that, I quit running away from threatened fights at school. At first, I just stood my ground. That was unexpected and enough to stop a confrontation. Then, one day two guys in my class, Berry Lightfoot and Allan Green, jumped me. They caught me in the corner of the hall when I was getting books out of my locker.

Berry knocked the books out of my hand. I didn’t wait; I threw the first punch – a good one that hit Berry square in the nose and followed up by rushing and punching. I fought hard. I never gave up.

I got a black eye, but I gave worse than they gave me. We were broken up by some bigger guys that laughed at us, but they patted me on the back and said, “atta-boy.” Everything seemed to change after that.

I kept going to Paddies after school and even participated in some “Smokers,” as they called it until mom found out and ended my fighting career.

When Fred’s story was over, he just stood there transfixed. You could tell he was lost in time; he was seeing something in the past we couldn’t see.

Finally, he blinked his eyes and said, “NEXT.”

Riley Hilbert got in the barber chair.

Well, that’s it for now.

From where the corn grows tall, and pigs fly.

Take care.

All my love.

Grampa Jim