Shortly after I retired from the business, I met a man who became my friend for the rest of his lifetime on Earth. He was small in size but had a rotund stomach that jiggled when he laughed. He was a wrestling fan for a lot of years and attended many live shows at the Toledo Sports Arena.

Jose Flores (Mexican Joe to his friends) was a great family man who had 13 children of his own. He raised them on a meager salary from the Alfalfa Mill that was his life nine months out of the year, twelve hours a day and seven days a week. His children were all very polite and courteous to anybody that came to their small home. They also never wanted for anything material, as Joe's wife saw to that. She also attended to a large garden on their property that supplemented their food needs.

All of his friends supplemented his income in the off-season by selling their old, tired, worn-out cars to Joe to be torn apart and carted to the junkyard on the back of Joe's go-to-work wrecker. Joe did very well in scrapping cars and trucks, and his eight sons had taken an interest in salvage as well.

Joe enjoyed bringing his wrestling books that contained many pictures of the stars that had come to Toledo over the previous 30 years in which he followed the action. Joe had a lot of the pictures autographed, and each had its own story to tell. He would spend seemingly hours each day looking at them and remembering the events as if they were taking place again right then.

Joe would invite me over to his home a lot, as he enjoyed the company. There would always be a commotion in the house with new grandchildren or his kids inviting their friends over. It was never a dull moment at Joe's house. I still don't know how they kept up with the names of all the kids---but they did. Joe had an easy way. If he didn't remember, he would just yell out, "Hey You!!!" and the kids came a-running. They knew their role and acted in accordance with Joe's wishes.

The first thing we would do at his home was bring out some of the piles of wrestling magazines that he had stored in his bedroom. Some of the stacks were at least six feet in height, and they covered a huge corner. Some of the books were in English, and a lot of them were in his native tongue. Some books he had were from as far away as England and Germany and Japan. He may have not understood the printing on the pages in those books, but he enjoyed the many pictures on the pages.

"Lucha" (wrestling) is a huge sport in Mexico. Many of the masked men who wrestled in Mexico also were huge movie stars, like Mil Mascaras and El Santo. They have their own way of moving in the ring and out of the ring that brings a lot of excitement to the fans that attend. The high-flying and daredevil style is still in effect all over Mexico and has been introduced into United States arenas by great stars like Louis Martinez, Pepper Gomez, Tito Santana, and Omar Atlas, just to name a couple, along with many masked stars that have ventured north of the border.

Joe enjoyed humor and practical jokes as long as they were not played on him. He would often find time to aggravate some of the seasonal workers that came to the alfalfa mills to work with him. Joe's job was foreman, and, as such, he was not doing any one thing at any given time. It gave him an opportunity to pull jokes on guys that were unsuspecting.

I remember one incident where a guy had sat down on a big metal outdoor lounge chair that belonged to Joe. It had a piece of pincore rubber about four inches thick on the back and seat of the chair, and it was covered with a serape that belonged to Joe. The guy had been so comfortable that he didn't hear the truck backing up to dump another load of freshly cut alfalfa onto a conveyer that pulled it through a huge dryer before sending it to silos where it would be stored.

The guy must have been awfully tired and continued to sleep. Seeing this, Joe tried a few times to raise the guy from his chair, but his efforts were no good. Joe disappeared for a few minutes and came back with an M-80. For those of you that have never heard an M-80, it is a firecracker that sounds like a bomb going off when detonated. Joe yelled at the guy and he did not move, despite the noise going on around him. The guy just continued to sleep; that is, until Joe lit that M-80 and threw it under the chair. When it went off, the guy jumped at least four feet straight in the air and started screaming bloody murder. Joe told him, "That's my chair, and you stay the HELL out of it---there is nothing hurt on you except your pride." Two of Joe's sons that worked with him at the mill came to his side, and the guy went back to his work, seeing that he was outnumbered.

On many of my Uncle Basil's visits from Florida, we would go to Joe's home, as my uncle dabbled in antiques and coins, just like Joe did. Joe loved looking at his vast collection of silver, gold, and paper money. Many sacrifices were made in collecting those coins and bills. Joe would say to me that he gave up a cigar to get this or didn't get a new ball cap or shirt so that he could put away a nest egg for his retirement years that would see him through. His safe was an old refrigerator that he held together with a log chain and a big lock. He had welded a couple of brackets on each side of the box so that the chain could not be removed.

On one trip, my uncle had just bought a new Lincoln, and he wanted to show it off to Joe. We went to Joe's home; it was during the off-season when Joe was not working at the mill. My uncle had a habit of hauling a rattlesnake with him in a cardboard box in the trunk of his car. His explanation of that was, "If I get into a jam, I can always go and get my box and turn that snake loose on whoever is threatening my life." His thoughts were, "How you going to handcuff a rattlesnake for something he did and take him to jail?"

As we pulled into Joe's yard, I wondered if Basil had brought that awful bit of vengeance with him on this trip.