STORY GALLEY
This page presents illustrated stories about my backyard boxing and other pugilstic pursuits of mine. In some cases, these stories may be more appropriate for the "Bad Hemmingway" contest held by Sloppy Joe's Bar down in Key West, Florida, one of Papa's (and my) favorite hangouts. I do hope that you like the stories. I would be pleased if you would send any comments about this page to me at oldbxr@mailcity.com.
Carl and Lee are friends and very competitive. Throw in a pair of boxing gloves and you have a very volatile mixture, ready to be ignited by the slightest spark. In some cases, the spark might be a girl they both happened to like, in other cases, it might be to see just who was better than who on any given day. Half the time I don't think they knew what they were fighting about, they just liked to box. If it couldn't be with each other, whomever happened to be around at the time would do. Yet, I never knew either one to get into a fight without gloves.
When these two did box, cats and dogs stopped fighting and took notes. Wars have been fought with less intensity! You can see the energy that these two brought to the competition. Not much on technique, but boy, could those two go at it!
Carl is throwing a right that if it lands is liable to send Lee into next week. Having parried the attack, all Lee has to do is to fully extend his right into Carls's face and listen to "thwack" and "ooooffff" as the glove hits its mark. Lee's aim will be off since he's looking away, but that's a natural reaction to Carl's "attack like a windmill" strategy. At that range, though, he can't miss. Carl committed the beginner's error of dropping his left guard, giving Lee a straight shot to Bhagdahd. The other thing that Carl will learn is that a roundhouse punch thrown at the same time as a straight right will always comes in a poor second. Carl didn't telegraph this punch, he took out a full page ad to let Lee know it was coming. All Carl got out of this exchange was a bloody nose and a hyper extended elbow. This round goes to Lee.
Lee worked on a ranch most summers and was wiry and quick. CaWe never could quite a
Carl did a lot of conditioning for his high-school freshman year on the track team. He was the stronger of the two.
Let's just say that neither one was going to concede anything to the other. It was a contest to see who was going to land the first punch and who was going to land the last.
The first boxing match these two had was quite accidental. Hanging out with his friend one night, Lee found an old pair black vinyl boxing gloves from Western Auto in the garage. One thing led to another, and without much provocation or style they started boxing. After a couple of rounds that were as much grappling as boxing, Lee suggested that they continue this contest in the future. It seemed for a while that the "to-be-continued" was continued whenever these two got together. After a basketball game, after school, whenever. I swear they would have boxed during church on Sunday had there been enough room in the pew, Sunday-go-to-meeting-suits or not. For them, the best parts of the match were before, during, and after. Whoever won got bragging rights until the next match. Whoever lost tried that much harder to win. I wish I could have sold tickets.