Muhammad Ali vs. Brian London

Last week I heard about the Maryweather- Pacquiao fight after it was over, just like I discovered who Nirvana the band was after Kurt Curbain died. I'm not always up on major cultural events. I did, as a youth, follow heavyweight fights, and as a listener of Howard Cosel's radio minute, "Speaking of Sports" I was even a bit knowledgeable about the fighting world.

I first heard about Cassius Clay when he recited poetry on the Jack Paar Friday night show. Then I listened to the first Clay Liston fight on the radio with my father and brother. By that time most sports events were on tv but this was a throw-back to an earlier time because it was only on the radio unless you wanted to spend money at a theatre.

The 1967 Ali Brian London fight brought me a moment of glory in gym class. Probably the only moment of glory I ever had in that institution, as I sucked at all the activities (except maybe Jumping Jacks) that one partook of in such a place.

It was my knowledge of radio and dxing that brought me that moment of glory. It was the locker room after the showers and the young men were complaining about not being able to watch the fight the night before. I piped up, "I heard the fight on the radio!"

"It wasn't on the radio!" interjected Brave-heart.
"Yes it was, I picked it up from a station in Canada."
"Really?" Suddenly Willie Bassett, Buba Davis, and  Leroy Williams all looked at me and were impressed. My one moment of glory in gym class.

the Von Steuben House

New Jersey has plenty of places where George Washington slept and when I was in the Cub Scouts I had the priviledge of going to the Von Steuben House and seeing one of his haunts. Cub Scouts was a good introduction to the world of clubs that would occupy us baby boomers as we descended through life. I was part of Pack 19, affiliated with the Church on the Heights in Hackensack. My pack was led by Mrs. Fontanella. My mother had been a Pack mother earlier and she was tired of kids tearing up her house. It was better anyway, for me, to have a non relative as my leader.

Cub Scouts was okay. I can remember making lanyards. I was also cajoled into doing my Kennedy impersonation at one of the monthly pack meetings. I remember my one joke. "I lost my marbles. But I lost them with vim and vigor".

At any rate a group of maybe six of us made it to the Von Steuben House north of town. I remember there was an older woman who promised us that if we were good boys she would take us to the dungeon. I guess we were good because I remember we saw the jail and rack where they tortured prisoners. A colonial version of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Radio Shack

It's official. Radio Shack is now gone. All those swell Radio Shacks we grew up with are now history. If you want to be nostalgic, here is a 1961 catalog you can browse through. I remember as a kid buying a transistor radio there. They were also a good place to find cables and I remember buying RCA to transistor plug converter cables there, which I still have.

Mostly I remember going to the Radio Shack in Paramus with my big brother to help him test tubes. My brother was the electrician of the family and I remember going with him with all the tubes from the radios and the television set in the house in a brown paper bag. At Radio Shack we would test the  tubes, occasionally finding a bad one that needed replacing. I never remember them being out of any tube we needed.

Radio Shacks were inviting to a male teenager in a way most other stores weren't. The fluorescent lights were bright and the mostly young male crowd seemed intent and knowledgeable about radio, tape decks, ham decks and that sort of thing.  Hobbyists now buy most of their gear online, but it will never be quite the same.

Editor's note: I also remember going to Leonard Radio on Route 4.