Thoughts Around XMas Time

A couple of items in the Times today caught me eye. First there was a fire at the Morris Park Gym up there on Morris Park Avenue in the North Bronx. I lived two blocks away from that Gym at 586 Morris Park Avenue. (The things we remember.) On occasion I would stop in and watch, mostly Golden Glove hopefuls, working out. Periodically a trainer would ask if I wanted to try a little workout in the ring. I did once, got one good smack in the nose that started to bleed and that ended of my boxing career.

There were many old time boxers who hung out at the gym and dreamed of comebacks. There was old Italian guy who they called “smash” mostly because thats what his face looked like. He would run up and down the street shadow boxing with some unseen opponent. Kids would go find a bell somewheres and when they saw Smash they would hit the bell and he’d come tearing out as though he was in the ring yelling, “where is he where is he?” Kids would point, “he’s over there. Pointing in another direction “No he’s over there.” and this poor old guy would go punching and yelling “where’s the bastard. Wheres that yella sonamabitch.”

One long Spring evening as the game with “Smash was going on my Papa came by and happened to see what was happening. He called me over sat me down on the stoop and asked, “why are you torturing that poor man?” I said I thought he liked the idea of boxing and that’s what he was doing.” Papa disagreed. He said,” the mans brain has been punched so much that he now is punch drunk and can’t do anything else. He is sick and should not be tormented by a bunch of kids taking advantage of his sickness to get a few laughs, that's just cruel.” “But” Papa I said “he seems to enjoy it.” “No” he said, “he just can’t help himself and that's how we know he is sick. So I don’t want you to be part of that anymore. It’s cruel and we don’t believe in being cruel to others or animals like our dog or cat.”

When my Papa left all the kids gathered round the stoop wanting to know what he said? I told them as best I could. They talked about it for a while and then they agreed we wouldn’t do that anymore.Yet periodically I would see Smash running up and down Morris park Avenue shadow boxing with a shadow. I never saw the kids do the bell thing again.

Second piece that caught my eye was an Obituary to Lester Rodney who I had occasion to meet back in the 30ies. He was a sports writer for the Daily Worker a communist newspaper. As the Obit said he was a very early champion of Black athletes in the major leagues. “In 1936, more than a decade before Jackie Robinson broke the major league color barrier, Mr.Rodney pressured the baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the major league club owners to end baseball’s racial barrier.”

“In recounting the mounting pressures baseball faced to end its color barrier Arnold Rampersad wrote in his 1997 biography of Jackie Robinson that the most vigorous effort came from the “Communist press.” He added, “that if Robinson was perceived by civil rights workers ---and especially Martin luther King as a historical turning point, anybody who facilitated the emergence of Jackie Robinson should be seen as one of the heroes of race integration.” He was referring to Lester Rodney.

It is sad that that the role of the left in the history of the 20th Century is often denigrated to mostly the horrors of Stalin in the Soviet Union. It is the obituaries that periodically we learn of the the Lester Rodneys of the thirties of which I consider myself to be a part. The left in this country was in the forefront of most of the movements for change that had direct bearing on the dramatic improvement of the plight of the working class that nowadays is called the middle class. (With the loss of manufacturing it is rapidly disappearing. (More about that in my next blog.)

I found it interesting that this obituary appeared on XMas eve period of time when the christian world is celebrating the man I believe was the first socialist thinker Jesus Christ. He and my father had an awful lot in common. For that I am so very thankful.

Wishing you all a very Happy Holiday and a Better New year.

Thank you kate N.H.W.Y.