Readers’ Ali Memories & Postscript

October 8, 2021 by Woody

My recent reminiscences of Muhammad Ali, who passed way five years ago and boxed his final bout 40 years past, resulted in a flurry of responses from readers whose own memories of “The Greatest” have not faded over time. Here are a few…

“Fifty-one years ago on October 1st, 1975, I was at ‘The Thriller in Manila’! Ali v. Frazier. I was in the Navy and still have my ticket stub framed and hanging on my wall at home,” John Tunigold wrote with an attached photo of the cherished memorabilia – a very simple, nearly square, black-printed manila-colored ticket “No. 25340” elegantly preserved behind glass.

“I was straight out of high school, Class of ’73 at Hueneme High, joined the Navy and caught the end of the Vietnam War. In April 1975, we took approximately 3,000 Vietnamese refugees to the Philippines when Saigon fell.

“At the time I didn’t realize the historical significance of everything going on, including the Ali fight. President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife were there and got introduced to the crowd in the auditorium. We got tickets through special services and as you can imagine they were way up high, ‘nose bleed’ seats.”

“I saw Ali at the Del Amo Mall in Torrance, trying to do magic tricks at a time when it was obvious Parkinson’s was ravaging him,” Bill Cizek wrote, adding with melancholy: “Kids were pointing at the rubber sleeve over his thumb from which he pulled out the long ‘magic scarf.’ It made me feel sad, but I also had to admire him for making appearances in his condition, trying to stay connected to his fans.”

Robert Raven Kraft shared some memories from Miami where “The Champ” often trained: “I saw Ali in my neighborhood by the 5th Street gym. My boxer friends all knew him.

“My mom was the cashier at the drugstore he ate at and she talked to him all the time and also got to meet his mom. My mom’s famous line was that Ali told his mother, ‘This is the lady that takes all my money’ and my mom replied, ‘I wouldn’t take all your money if you weren’t treating all your friends.’

“I even ran three blocks with him in 1975. I wish I still had the autographed picture he signed to me as Cassius Clay in 1962.”

Lastly, to borrow the signature phrase of the late, great radio broadcaster Paul Harvey, “And now the rest of the story . . .”

In 1996, seven months after my six-year-old son playfully pulled away his outstretched palm and teasingly sing-sang “Too slow!” when Ali whiffed – and then laughed – trying to give him five, I attended assemblies at two inner-city high schools where the living legend gave 3,000 students copies of his then-new book “HeALIng: A Journal of Tolerance and Understanding.”

Afterwards, in a private reception, Ali caught my eye across a crowded room and motioned me over. When I arrived, he held out his hand, hip high and palm down, and said almost inaudibly: “You got a boy?”

I nodded, stunned. Ali replied with a smile, clearly remembering the boyish prank pulled on him. Without another whispered word, he took a pen in his Parkinson’s-trembling hand and with difficulty opened a copy of “HeALIing.”

“His name is Greg,” I said.

The “Too Greg” is in seismographic script, and the drawn heart Ali sometimes added when he was not in a hurry is hard to make out, but the signature is smooth and true and as beautiful as the memory it summons.

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

Personalized Signed copies of WOODEN & ME: Life Lessons from My Two-Decade Friendship with the Legendary Coach and Humanitarian to Help “Make Each Day Your Masterpiece” and “Strawberries in Wintertime: Essays on Life, Love, and Laughter” are available at WoodyWoodburn.com

Part 2: Little Man and ‘The Greatest’

October 1, 2021 by Woody

As shared here last week, Ken Burns’ newest documentary film “Muhammad Ali” rekindled some of my own memories with “The Greatest” during my many years as a sports columnist.

Before concluding my tale, let me recap briefly. Exactly 25 years ago, I attended the National Sports Collectors Convention and brought along my six-year-old son. On our two-hour drive to the Anaheim Convention Center I told Greg that Ali was nicknamed “The Greatest” and shared a few stories.

My press pass gained me easy access behind the velvet ropes, but a security guard with the disposition of a junkyard dog insisted Greg could not accompany me without a ticket. Admission was pricey so I told my son to patiently wait just outside the ropes where I could see him – and he in turn could see Ali from afar – and I would be back as soon as possible.

Muhammad Ali lighting the torch at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games.

Barely had I settled into a folding chair right beside The Champ when my son silently sidled up to me. When the junkyard dog had turned to growl at someone else, Greg sneaked in and for the next half hour we hung out with Muhammad Ali as he signed autographs and posed for pictures.

Finally, I told my son it was time to leave.

“Not yet,” he whispered, and loudly. “I’ve gotta say ‘Hi.’ ”

Ali heard the little boy’s protests and swiveled toward Greg, who instinctively stepped forward and extended his right hand. Ali gently shook the tiny offering in his big paw and for the very first time all afternoon the man who used to “float like a butterfly” broke out of his cocoon of total silence.

“Hi, Little Man,” Ali whispered, hoarsely, spreading his arms wide open.

A second later, The Little Man was wrapped in a bear hug. Goodness it was cool. But an even more magical moment was yet to come.

After a standing eight-count, or maybe even the full ten seconds for a knockout, Ali eventually released the Little Man and then held out his giant hand, shaking slightly from Parkinson’s Syndrome, palm up in the universal “give me five” position.

The boy, who at that age would enthusiastically smack palms hard enough to “sting like a bee,” this time slapped ever so gently before in turn holding out his own tiny palm for The Champ to return the gesture.

Ali took a swipe . . .

. . . and missed!

Because at the very last instant, the Little Man, as he loved to do, pulled his hand away like a matador’s red cape teasing a bull.

“Too slow,” the Little Man said, his two missing front teeth causing the words to lisp slightly. Like, “Tooooth looowww.” Like Ali’s own soft voice that by then, at age 54 going on 94, lisped slightly.

And like two six-year-olds they laughed together at the prank.

While still roaring with delight, Ali once again opened his wingspan fully and my son once again stepped into his open arms, except this time the shy boy squeezed back, and tightly. Ali’s eyes caught mine and I swear to this day they twinkled.

It was an end-of-a-movie fadeout and roll-the-credits hug. A full thirty-second hug. A worth-the-two-hour-drive-in-Southern-California-gridlocked-freeway-traffic hug.

A hug from “The Greatest” that the Little Man, now a six-foot-three-tall man, still remembers warmly and surely will until he is an old man.

As we walked away hand-in-hand after saying goodbye to Ali, my son stopped short and looked up at me with a Christmas-morning smile, sans two missing front teeth, and said: “You were right, Dad—he really is The Bestest.”

* * *

Recalling A ‘Greatest’ Memory

September 24, 2021 by Woody

Filmmaker Ken Burns’ newest documentary “Muhammad Ali” debuted on PBS this past week and the four remarkable episodes rekindled my own memories with “The Greatest” during my many years as a sports columnist.

The most golden encounter occurred shortly before Ali lit the flame at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and has not faded in the ensuing quarter century.

At an autograph show in the cavernous Anaheim Convention Center the living legend shuffled to his assigned table, his feet sliding forward slowly and carefully in the unsteady gait of an elderly man missing his cane. Ali was only 54 years old that day. Fifty-four going on 94 it seemed for Parkinson’s Syndrome had transformed the “Ali Shuffle.”

When the doors for the National Sports Collectors Convention opened, the longest line by far, 300 fans at least, formed to meet The Champ. Even when he took an occasional break from signing endless autographs, Ali’s right hand never took a rest, never stopped moving. Tragically, both of his hands shook so uncontrollably it looked like he was constantly shuffling an invisible deck of cards.

And yet once he began signing the cursive “M” until he had dotted the lower-case “i”, the earthquake-like tremors magically calmed. Indeed, his signature was smooth and true. Perhaps after signing his name a million times, his neurons and synapses were programmed with a computer-like save-get keystroke.

But Ali was no robotic signing machine. He smiled each and every time an autograph seeker – tickets cost $90 to have a flat item signed and a whopping $120 on a boxing glove – called him “Champ” or said “It’s an honor to meet you.” A steep price for a squiggle of ink? Not at all when you consider one man in line had called it “a religious experience.”

And every time a camera was raised, Ali, his face still “pretty” and his body still muscular and almost in fighting trim beneath a tan golf shirt, would rise out of his chair, slowly but with grace and without assistance, to pose with a playful snarl and a clenched fist held beneath the fan’s chin.

When I had learned Ali would be in town, I made plans to take my then-six-year-old son to meet him, just as my grandfather once took my dad to see the larger-than-life Babe Ruth in a hotel lobby. On the drive there, I schooled Greg all about “The Greatest.”

My column angle was to chronicle the interactions between Ali and his fans. Thus, my son and I sat right beside The Champ as he signed glossy pictures and signed magazine covers and signed boxing gloves. Finally, I told Greg it was time to leave.

“Not yet,” he whispered, a tad loudly. “I’ve gotta say ‘Hi.’ ”

Ali heard the little boy’s protests and slowly swiveled our way. Instinctively, the little boy stepped forward and extended his right hand. Ali, who had been shaking adult hands almost femininely with just his manicured fingertips, took the small hand gently into his big paw and this time it did not look awkward or frail.

And, for the very first time in an hour, the poetic boxer who used to “float like a butterfly” broke out of his cocoon of total silence.

“Hi, Little Man,” Ali whispered, hoarsely, spreading his arms wide.

The six-year-old Little Man, who back then was quite shy, sprang forward without hesitation and was engulfed in a bear-hug clinch. My goodness it was magical.

But the greatest moment was yet to come, which I will share next week.

* * *

Father’s Day Story Packs a Punch

June 16, 2018 by Woody

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* * *

Story for Father’s Day Packs a Punch

The photograph is from the early 1940s, black-and-white and slightly overexposed in the outdoor sunlight.

It is of a man, in his early 20s, with a thin mustache and a thick nose. His jaw is square as a brick’s edge. His hair is dark and short and flattened by sweat. His eyes are hidden in shadows.

The man is a boxer. He is in his prime, stomach flat and muscled, shoulders broad and powerful. He is working the speed bag, which is a blur after having just been struck by his left fist.

Jimmy Harvey, an Oak View resident with a gray-and-ginger goatee and bear’s build, cherishes this picture of his father taken between 1942 and 1946 while Roy L. Harvey was in the Navy during World War II.

Jimmy saw the photo for the first time when he was 14 and promptly asked his dad to teach him to fight.

Jimmy Harvey, who I would not like to box or fight!

“He said, ‘No, you don’t want to learn from Ol’ Canvas Back,” Jimmy recalls clearly a half-century later. “I asked, ‘What does that mean?’ ”

Answered his dad: “In boxing terms it means you spend more time on your back on the canvas than fighting.”

Looking through the prism of time, Jimmy, now a grandfather five times over, understands: “I think the reason Dad never taught me to fight is I used the term ‘fight’ and he used ‘box.’ He boxed for the art of it – I wanted to hurt somebody.”

In truth, Jimmy was the one generally getting hurt.

“I had my nose broken a few times,” he allows. “I wouldn’t back down. I was just stupid. I was getting expelled from high school all the time for fighting.”

The most memorable time Jimmy refused to back down happened not at school, but at home.

“I was 16 and Dad thought I was feeling my oats a little too much,” Jimmy shares. “We squared off, looking each other in the eye, and Dad said: ‘I know what you THINK you can do.’

“I was so mad. I really wanted to pop him and he knew it. He told me, ‘Let ‘er rip.’

“I decided I was going to sucker punch him quick,” Jimmy continues, pantomiming what followed by pounding his right fist into his left palm: “He caught it.”

Awed by the feat still, Jimmy adds: “Dad looked me in the eye and said, ‘You’re not ready.’ That cooled me off a bit.”

Sparring partners, in a manner of speaking, described their relationship. “We were never close,” the son allows. “I was a product of the ’60s and Dad was of the ’30s and ’40s.”

Time has a way of shrinking generation gaps. So does terminal illness. In 1988, at age 68, Roy was in the hospital. As Christmas – and death – approached, Jimmy visited daily.

“It was a race between liver failure and lung cancer,” Jimmy shares, his piercing blue eyes suddenly awash with emotion. “I was with him when he died. That was tough. Uncle Del was there, too.”

Flipping through a photo album at the wake, Del came to the picture of his brother working the speed bag.

“I said, ‘There’s old Canvas Back,’ ” Jimmy retells. “Uncle Del asked me what I’d said?

“I said, ‘Daddy told me he was on his back all the time so they called him Canvas Back.’ ”

Uncle Del replied, and sharply: “Son, I don’t know where you got your information, but your dad was All-Navy two years running.”

Tracing a finger over the grainy boxing photo, Jimmy rejoins: “He must have really been something in the ring.”

* * *

Woody Woodburn writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com.

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Tag Archives: boxing

Readers’ Ali Memories & Postscript

Part 2: Little Man and ‘The Greatest’

Recalling A ‘Greatest’ Memory

Father’s Day Story Packs a Punch