Wrestlemania – for Bill

My dad was a soldier, a lifeguard, a wrestler and finally a bricklayer.  I posted this story about him in a comment on Cafe Selavy’s blog and he asked me to share it here too, with a picture. A few years ago a student I had was so impressed that my dad was a wrestler that my dad sent him a copy of this picture with this email:

YOU WOULDN'T KNOW ANY OF THE WRESTLERS THAT I WRESTLED. IT WAS A LONNNNNNNNNG TIME AGO.

WE DIDN'T USE WEAPONS,  WE ONLY USED OUR MUSCLES AND HAD TO BE VERY STRONG AND IN GOOD SHAPE TO HOLD OUT. SOME OF THEIR NAMES WERE-- ANGEL FACE --LOU THEISS- DUSSACK BROTHERS- THE RED DEVIL. THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON I CAME  IN CONTACT WITH WAS HEAVY WEIGHT CHAMPION BOXER, JACK DEMPSEY. HERE IS A PICTURE OF HIM AND ME.  GOOD LUCK IN SCHOOL.

BIG GEORGE

The only story I remember well from the wrestling days, which were before I was born, was this one:

After my mother and father were married he took her to a wrestling match. He was the referee that night for some women wrestlers. During the match the women jumped on my dad, pulling him to the floor and one lady wrestler was sitting on his chest, her legs wrapped around his head. The crowd went wild...people sitting near my mom kept talking about how lucky the referee was and how much he must be enjoying it and how it was all carefully planned beforehand. My mom wouldn't speak to him for days and that was the end of his career.

sometimes good things happen

take heed, take heed of the western wind

BORN IN THE 80'S

BORN IN THE 80'S

whispers in an empty room

 She sat in the silence of the tomb

and opened the  envelope  

 now empty and torn,

though it once held

a letter written on

perfume-scented paper decorated

with lavender flowers .

She knew the words by heart

reciting them to anyone

who might listen.

If she could give them all away,

then the words may

 have a life of their own

spiraling past chimney smoke

And gabled roofs to travel

to stuffy and cold sitting rooms

in far-away places,

each syllable finding a path

that will secure its own immortality

and flaunt  contempt

for those who hear the whispers

of the wind and mistake it for

their own voice.