In 1946, my uncle Daryl Fore came home from the service and brought me a set of U.S. Navy Official Boxing Gloves, four 16-ounce pugilistic weapons made of an absolutely beautiful light tan leather, the finest such things I had ever seen.
Word went out across the neighborhood, and the very next day, R.J. Bloodwork headed downhill from his rental house 150 yards away. I distinctly remember that he weighed 120 pounds at the time, and I tipped the scales at 82. In my imagination, he sounded like a bull pounding the asphalt all the way to my backyard. When he got to me, he said, “I hear you got boxing gloves,” and without waiting for my answer, said, “Let’s box.”
He had one punch that came off the West Coast and the other from somewhere up around Boston. Every time he swung, he hit me in the head, and I immediately went down on my butt. This went on for about five minutes, till he ran out of breath. In my mind, I still see my backyard pockmarked from my tail hitting the ground.
After we “boxed,” he said, “Let’s go to the store,” our neighborhood facility about a quarter-mile away. He neglected to tell me that when we got there, we were going to buy both bars of candy with my two nickels. I learned then that the powerful take what they want and the powerless get accustomed to it.
My parents had apparently become concerned about me. They said later I was “too sensitive,” which basically meant I was scared of interchanges with those like R.J. So my folks decided to send me to a four-week summer camp at the Gulf Coast Military Academy “to toughen me up.”
The first day I was there, they assembled the entire group of some hundred boys, roughly my age, onto a large athletic field. As we stood in a straight line, a staff coach stood in front of us and said, “We are going to teach you to box.” With that, he captured my attention.
Basically, the lesson that day went like this: “If you are right-handed, put your left foot in front of your right; if you’re left-handed, put your right foot in front of your left. He then instructed us to dance, keeping our feet in that position. He then informed us, “This is footwork. We will do it every day until this stance and the movement of it become automatic.”
He continued, “Now, if you are right-handed, put your left hand in front of your face; if you are left-handed, put your right hand in front of your face. Now, with that forward hand, make a fist. Once you have your fist, I want you to put your elbow where your fist is.” When we did that, he announced, “Gentlemen, you have just executed a jab. Now I want you to do that over and over again until I tell you to stop.”
After that, he did an instruction with the other hand, in which we were to throw that punch across our bodies, which he told us right-handers was a right cross.
With this “foundation,” we learned to dance back and forth with our feet appropriately placed and to throw jabs and crosses. For that month, we practiced footwork and punches, and each of us engaged in one bout before going home.
I arrived home that evening after dark, but shortly after breakfast the next morning, R.J. was in my backyard offering his typical observational powers. “I hear you’ve been to camp,” and without listening for my answer, he said, “Let’s box.”
We put on the gloves, and when he reached back to let me have it with that punch off the West Coast, I put my elbow where my left hand was, and my clenched fist caught him right on the nose, backing him up. I realized then that I could hit him two or three times while he was drawing back to swing at me. It was an apocalyptic occasion. I then began to back him across the yard with a left jab every time he drew back.
When he began to block my left jab, I could hear the coach at the summer camp shouting at me, “Throw the right cross! Throw the right cross!” When I did, I caught R.J. directly on the jaw, and he went backward onto the ground. When he got up, he threw the gloves off and ran for home.
You may think that from that time on, whenever we went to the store, he bought my candy with his nickel, but that day never came. You see, I could outbox him, but if he ever got me down on the ground and got on top of me, I was a dead duck.
I have thought about this event for many years. R.J. never came back to see me again. He later dropped out of school in the tenth grade and, as soon as he could, went to work at the same large sawmill where his dad did, making just a little more than the minimum wage.
It occurred to me later that one of the few things he did successfully was to beat me up. He was not an athlete, he did not participate in team sports, and he did not have many friends. Except for his initial pugilistic win over me, I’m not aware of any power or influence he had anywhere with anyone.
My life changed after our last boxing match. I had four guys my age who had been bullying me, and one at a time, I invited them to my house “to play.” Each time, I casually took them in to see my cardboard toy box, where the boxing gloves were prominently displayed. In each case, they wanted to box, and I won easily—coaching pays off. It effectively ended the bullying from kids in my age group at that time. Again, while we were not well-to-do, my parents could send me to summer camp. I learned to box, and it changed my life, resulting in a lifelong love of learning and training—though my interests had not yet taken an academic turn.
More than that, growing up, I “sensed” class; there was always talk about people who were “sorry,” meaning “no good,” who were almost always poor and/or alcoholics, and, in contrast, there were people who were “cultured,” “refined,” “educated,” and “smart.”
This excerpt is from Tex Sample's upcoming book, Challenging the Power Order For the Common Good. His book is now available for pre-order click here to pre-order from Market Square Books. It will be available from most booksellers on October 15.
See Tex Sample and Bishop Ken Carder discuss "Economic Justice and the Common Good" on a recent podcast at ClergyEducation.com Podcast.