Why I Owe Muhammad Ali $5
by
Erik Oosterwal
Way back in the olden days when the hottest band on the radio were the Bay
City Rollers and Muhammad Ali was in his prime, he bought a farm that was
on the end of one of the roads in my neighborhood. On the day he was scheduled
to arrive, one of my friends and I rode our bikes down the hill to the end
of the road where the entrance to his farm was and we waited... ...and waited...
...and waited. It felt like we must have been there for days, but it was
probably closer to 3 or 4 hours. Finally his bus showed up with a long line
of cars filled with fans behind it. Some guy got out of the bus and fiddled
with something on one of the granite stone pillars and the gate opened up.
The bus pulled in and all the people in the long line of cars was told they
had to leave. My friend and I figured we would be told we had to leave too,
but the guy from the bus let us in. Woo hoo!
We followed the bus on our bikes back to where the houses were and got to
meet the legend himself. We followed him and his entourage around the farm
as he inspected it for another hour or so and asked one of the people in
his group if we could get an autograph. She said "Sure, he loves signing
autographs" and went and got him some paper and a pen. We got our autographs
and rode back home thrilled to the bone. If I rememebr correctly I got in
trouble for coming home late for supper, but I didn't care.
We spent most of our spare time that summer hanging out at or near the farm
hoping to get to see him some more, and we did. He used to do a lot of preaching
while he was down there. There'd be a whole bunch of guys hanging around
him and he'd preach like it was nearing the end of time. Late in the summer,
while he was hanging out by his pool, we asked him if there were any odd
jobs we could do for him, and to our surprise he said "Yes." He had us clean
the tiles on the edge of his pool and he ended up paying us each $5 for about
a half hour of work, which to a 10 year old back in the mid '70s was like
winning the lottery.
[skip ahead about 9 - 10 months...]
The next summer we were down at his farm again and he was hanging out by
his pool and we asked him if we cool clean his pool again. He said it had
just been done but to come back in a week. We stuck around for a little while
longer talking to him and then we asked him if we could have an autograph
(I don't remember what we did with the first one we got). Well, he had a
pen but no paper, so he pulled out his wallet, grabbed a few $5 bills, signed
his name on them and gave us each a $5 with his signature on them. We felt
funny about taking his money but he told us we could come back later and
clean the pool and we'd be all clear.
The story ends up with him going back out on training or boxing matches or
something and us never cleaning his pool, so the result is I either owe him
$5 or need to clean his pool.
Copyright Erik Oosterwal - 2004
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