Attack of the 50 Foot Blog – Page 22

Elvis Stuff – Christmas Ornaments

Since I have been going to the Candlelight Vigil at Elvis Week every year since 2002, people have identified me more and more with Elvis. I get occasional-Elvis related gifts for birthday and holidays. Some people just see an inexpensive, unique Elvis related item and pick it up for me. I have received Elvis books, cards, Pez dispensers, Barbie dolls and other toys. While I appreciate the thought, I am really only a fair-weather Elvis fan. On my very first trip to Graceland, my friend Terry declared that we were just Elvis Week fans. That pretty much sums it up for me. So, I am limited on the amount of space I am willing to dedicate to store or display any Elvis related gifts. I would rather dedicate display space to other things that I am more obsessed with. The Elvis stuff that I hang onto must be special in one way or another.

Golden Gloves Boxing

In the late 1970’s, Golden Gloves Boxing was big in Jackson, Tennessee. Some of the local boxers, like Jackie Beard (pictured above), were good enough that they were winning national AAU titles. I lived near Jackson and some of my friends expressed an interest in going to watch matches. At the time, I didn’t watch much boxing but decided it was a good idea to go even if it was just because it would be something different to do.

Checking on Grandma

I was fortunate to grow up living close to relatives on both sides of my family. My aunt and uncle on my father’s side of the family lived in the houses next to ours and my paternal grandmother lived around the corner. Even at a relatively early age, I could walk to her house without getting in the street. My grandmother was a widow and my father’s family spent a lot of time visiting her. One Saturday morning, my father was stopping by to check in with her and he heard some noise that he had not expected.

2019 Birthday Gift List

This is the 4th year in a row that my wife has given me a birthday gift every day of March, my birthday month. For the record, last year is the only year I have returned the favor. Not because I don’t appreciate her effort but because I wasn’t creative enough to come up with something different for each day. Last year, I finally came up with the idea of giving her a bottle of wine every day for her birthday month, October. I would like to use this post as an opportunity to say thanks to her and document this year’s gifts.

1 – Best F(r)iends blu Ray
2 – Upper Deck grilling grate
3 – W. C. Fields statue
4 – Sioux City sarsaparilla
5 – pistachios
6 – Colonel Conks shaving soap
7 – iGrill meat probes
8 – Woodford Reserve Double Oaked Bourbon
9 – Fireman Save My Child DVD
10 – Taylor guitar strap
11 – Bourbon barrel wood chunks
12 – Thalia capo
13 – Elixir guitar strings
14 – Cream soda sampler
15 – Taylor guitar shirt
16 – Alibi Ike dvd
17 – Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo book
18 – Weber Gourmet Grilling System pizza stone
19 – Mixed nuts
20 – Weber pizza paddle
21 – Fender guitar strap
22 – Vibraslap
23 – Universal Classic Monsters Complete 30-Film Collection
24 – Root beer sampler
25 – Khaki shorts
26 – Taylor guitar picks
27 – Bourbon brand cologne, body wash and lotion
28 – Pineapple and pineapple/orange juice
29 – Coconut rum
30 – Bang Bang Bar t shirt
31 – Jivaro blu Ray

Wrestling – Real or Fake?

In the 1970’s, professional wrestling was supposed to be “real”. The people involved in the shows never let on that it was anything but a legitimate sport. The wrestlers would violently angry at the suggestion that it was fake. The was well before they coined the term “sports entertainment” to keep it from being regulated like boxing. Occasionally, there would be moments that were so ridiculously contrived that I considered it what I called an “insult to my stupidity”. For example, actor Adam West made an appearance on Memphis wrestling as Batman. He wasn’t supposed to be Adam West, he was supposed to be the real Batman. Jerry Lawler had been wrestling in a Superman outfit for a few weeks and “Batman” came on to tell us that he was upset that someone was impersonating his superhero friend. And we were supposed to believe this was real. This was seven years after the Batman series had gone off the air. And Adam West wasn’t even wearing his normal Batman outfit. Even more than the easily distracted referees, this incident confirmed to me that everything wasn’t on the up and up with wrestling.

Jerry Lawler Wrestling Anniversary

2015 was the 45th anniversary of Jerry Lawler wrestling professionally. In the Memphis area, there were several celebrations of this anniversary at various events. I had been on a business trip but was returning home in time to see the event in Jackson, Tennessee, where I currently live. It had been many years since I had been to a wrestling match. To my knowledge, there were no wrestling programs on TV that featured the local promotion. Attending events like this one was the only way to know anything about these wrestlers. During the event, I took notes about many of the things I saw. My notes started with observations about the people I saw. I share these excerpts here because they don’t fit in anywhere else in the story but give an idea of the environment I was in:

“People in 4x plus size t shirts
Neon colored hair shaved heads tattoos
Large breasted older women not covering up very well
peroxide blonde men
People in a variety of casts and back braces.
Athletic shorts and buzz cuts
Plumbers crack
Back cleavage
Mentally challenged.
I stand out in this crowd”

St. Patrick’s Day Party

In college, I was in a fraternity. Each year, my fraternity would have a St. Patrick’s Day party. One year this party was on a Saturday night. The guys arranged to have the party at the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge that year. Their building was on a road just outside of town. I had been to parties there before but not so often that I was clear on where the drive to the building was located. There were lots of trees on either side of the road in the area where they were located, and the road had lots of hills and curves right around the drive. My girlfriend, now my wife, was with me and it was raining that night.

Cheering for the Bad Guy

In the 1970’s, Jerry Lawler became the biggest name in Memphis professional wrestling. His impact was big enough on the weekly Monday night live events at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, that having him on the card could double the attendance and guarantee a sellout crowd. This was a time when professional wrestling was made up of small promotions that controlled wrestling territories/ These territories were respected by the other promotions. There were no national wrestling promotions like the WWE today. The company in Memphis got attention from the rest of the country because of the success with Jerry Lawler.

Wrestling with Dr. Frank

At some point in the 1970’s, the Memphis wrestling promotion introduced a character named Dr. Frank. Dr. Frank was a wrestler in Frankenstein monster makeup. When they introduced his character on the television program, Jerry Lawler brought him out in an upright wooden box with padlocks on it. They referred to this box as a coffin. The door to the box was in two parts and Lawler would just open the top part to show the audience Dr. Frank. It seems like it was about a month before they let Dr. Frank out of the box to wrestle. When they did let him out of the box, he just chased the other wrestlers around the studio. He would also make his way into the studio audience. While Dr. Frank didn’t do much wrestling, he did put on a good show.

Tojo in Jackson

I have talked about watching professional wrestling from Memphis in previous blog posts. The Memphis wrestling programs were always on at 11 AM on Saturday mornings. While I watched these shows practically every Saturday, I never went to a live taping or the Monday night shows they were promoting. I occasionally went to the Thursday night shows at the Jackson Coliseum in Jackson, TN. In the early 1970’s when they were doing these shows, they would tape a show that would run on WBBJ, the Jackson television station. That show would air on Saturday evenings at 11 PM.