As I left you last, David Ring and I had ventured to Newton, Iowa, some 520 miles from my home near Toledo, Ohio. We had left at nearly 1 p.m. and arrived very tired at close to 12 midnight.

Long days and hundreds of miles were a commonplace thing for me when I was in the wrestling business. Once, in 10 days, I ran a new '72 Ford out of warranty. I was happy to get out from behind the wheel, as it had been a long, grinding day for me since waking at 5 a.m.

After a great breakfast with our many friends, we went to the museum that houses many facets of the amateur and collegiate champions and the teams behind them. The building also houses a great deal of memorabilia from the careers of those men that are enshrined on the walls in gold-colored plaques from their respective class years of induction into the Hall of Fame.

I am very happy to have known at least one of the men that the museum is named after … the late Lou Thesz. He was a man among men and a multi-time holder of our NWA World Championship Belt. He made the belt mean something with his honesty, his knowledge of wrestling holds and counter holds, but mostly his attitude towards the business and the people that he knew. You were only a stranger with Lou once. After that, you were greeted with a firm handshake and often a quick move to get you off balance, just to let you know that he still had it.

After the inductions at the museum, I went with Maurice and Mike Vachon to the Holiday Inn lounge area, where we played Cribbage for the next two hours. We were joined by Maurice's wife, Kathy, and played four-handed Cribbage. It was my first time doing so, and Dog and I won both games. He had a great smile on his face when I left him to return to my suite across the road.

David and I went downtown and did a little shopping and sightseeing in the town square before returning to the hotel we were at. After a short nap, I showered and readied myself for the evening banquet at the Newton Country Club.

David and I joined Bob Geigel, Tom Andrews, Chief Paul Farber and Dr. Ken and Mrs. Ramey for a wonderful dinner featuring a main entree of chicken breast wrapped in bacon, and then we topped off the meal having strawberries with whipped cream for desert.

Mike Chapman began the evening by once again remembering a few of the greats that had passed away in the past few years, and we all paused for a moment of silence. He then had all the previous honorees in the room to stand and gave a brief comment about each.

Scott McLin had the honor of being the number two man in remembering the greats of our business as he gave the histories of each inductee as they were honored. Very articulate and precise and to the point, he kept the updates very short and allowed the honorees all the time they needed to give their acceptance talks.

Verne Gagne was the first to accept for George Hackenschmidt, the Russian Lion. Joe Scarpello's honor was accepted by his wife, and Bob Geigel came forward in a teary remembrance and spoke about his friend Joe that he missed very much.

Billy Robinson was next to claim the honors by stepping to the podium. In almost a whisper, due to recent surgery on his throat, Billy accepted the plaque with a deep gratitude of the men that he went up and down the road with and also those he wrestled in the ring.

Maurice Vachon, who wrestled for nearly four decades, took the center stage, and, for the next little while, he spoke about his life growing up in Montreal and how hard work paid off for him. Unknown to me, he was in the Olympic games in 1948 and won three national titles in Canada before turning professional. He was the AWA Heavyweight Champion on four occasions. He was one half of the tag team champs with his brother Paul "Butcher" Vachon. His sister Vivian was a world-class athlete herself.

Mike Chapman returned to the podium to give the final award, "The Frank Gotch Award," to Governor Jesse Ventura. Jesse was given a standing ovation when he came forward and had the biggest smile of anyone in the building. "To be honored with the greatest award of tonight's banquet, leaves me almost speechless" Jesse said.

Jesse spoke of his first match with Billy Robinson and how he caught him with an elbow and drove Billy over the top rope and to the arena floor in Winnipeg. He thanked Billy for the many good memories he has left in the business. Next, Jesse told a story about riding in a company airplane owned by the AWA wrestling office.

They had left Denver and were headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Seated at the rear of the twin-engine aircraft were Mad Dog and Adrian Adonis. Mad Dog was telling Adrian how this would be a great day to die. Adrian was petrified to fly anyway, and this only escalated the fear more.

Jesse was in the front with a few other wrestlers playing Cribbage when he heard this huge WHOOSH, and a huge gust of air was sucking almost everything that wasn't nailed down out the door of the plane. Mad Dog was trying in vain to pull the doors back shut but could not. Jesse went to the rear and pulled the lower half of the door closed but could not get the upper half to close. They had to make an emergency landing in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

The door was not damaged, just sprung out a little from the air volume at 6000 feet. The pilot wanted to know if the door came open by itself or if someone had opened it by accident. Mad Dog came forward and stated that he opened the door and was sorry, and they continued the flight to South Dakota.

Returning to Minneapolis, a meeting was held in the offices of the AWA headquarters. For nearly 45 minutes, they gave Mad Dog the third degree about the incident. Mad Dog looked at the promoters and stated that he was very sorry but that he just needed some fresh air.

Everybody laughed about the story in the room, including Maurice, who had that ever-present smile in his face.

Jesse thanked everyone that came to Newton to honor him and the other guys that were at the head table and all the others that were in the room. He promised that he would return to Newton in the future.

There was about an hour afterwards that we went around the room giving our bests to everybody, and then we were gone back to our rooms to ready ourselves for the return trips back to our homes.

My return trip was not quite as long as going. I clocked the miles away by telling David some of my best-guarded stories of my uncles Bob, Don and Basil and some of the things we did to each other to pass the time away with our idle minds. I nearly ran off the road once when telling a "Basil Story" and thought that David was going to get a hernia from laughing so hard.

Going to a great reunion and honoring the best in our business is something I want to do more. I am planning on going next year to the New York Hall of Fame along with The CAC and Newton again.

Thank you to my many friends that made this a very enjoyable weekend for me.

David Ring, Dan Roeglin, George Schire, Joyce Paustian, Juan Hernandez, Chief Paul Farber, Dr. Ken Ramey, Danny Hodge, Dick Hutton, Baron Raschke, Dick and Wilma Beyer, Bob Geigel, Tom Andrews, Tom Drake, and my older friend Karl Lauer.

My tam is off to you all...