Here's a riddle. What's black and white, 13" across, has three channels and a knob that keeps falling off? The answer is... my bedroom television while growing up in the 60's. Can you imagine the inconvenience of actually having to GET UP to change the station or to raise the volume without a remote? And the three choices were limited to the major networks on VHF, with rare occasional features on public television (for some reason I couldn't get into The French Chef with Julia Child back then), and some scattershot programing on UHF if you could actually see through the snowy reception. Thank God for rabbit ears and aluminum foil.
There wasn't much to do in Northern Illinois on an isolated farm about 65 miles northwest of Chicago where I grew up. My brother Mike and I created games like "home run derby" played with a wiffle ball bat and crumpled tin cans off the wall of the barn. You got 27 outs and had to hit the very top to score. Coupled with an old basketball hoop in the barn that didn't help my severe hay fever back then, we were really struggling for extra curricular activities. Skipping stone contests off the pond on the back of the property and driving my Dad's beat up Volkswagon beetle around the place took up a lot of the idle time. But when the dastardly Chicago winters came around; forget it. It was indoor activities only, which meant the television.
Wrestling was a great option for Sunday morning viewing since I wasn't into church programming like "Mass for Shut ins or Lamp unto my Feet". It was bawdy, loud, unsophisticated, and thoroughly entertaining. Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkle, Hercules Cortez, Dick the Bruiser with his brother The Crusher, and Red Bastien were my TV companions back then, and my brother and I would huddle around the screen to watch the crude drama unfold each week. (I actually met Red Bastien and wrestling legend Lou Thesz at a wrestling promotion once, similar to a scene from Mickey Rourk's movie "The Wrestler", which is quite the accurate pictorial of this genre by the way. They both were quite personable, but Thesz had an ear that looked like a cauliflower.) If you got REAL lucky, you might see a title match, or the best scenerio was some actual blood might shed from the forehead of an unsuspecting victim. Morbid, I know; but remember we are talking extreme boredom here.
After leaving home for college, I had other options for entertainment and my interest in professional wrestling wained. Also, I found out it was "less than authentic" and my feeling of violation was exceeded only by my finding out that Santa Claus wasn't for real. I was mad at my parents for that and I was almost as mad at the wrestling profession for their lack of honesty, so I stopped watching for the most part. Like I said in previous posts, I did catch Hulk Hogan in Memphis or Ric Flair on TNT from time to time, but it was no where near my level of devotion growing up.
My teammate and quarterback for the Stars of the USFL in the 80's was Chuck Fusina, an All American from Penn State who was actually the runner up to Billy Sims in the 1979 Heisman Trophy voting. (He actually won an award called the "Weisman" instead which got him free food and beverages at all Victoria Station restaurants back then, and believe me we took full advantage of it.) It turns out he was still a big fan of pro wrestling, and he asked me to go to the match with him after practice one night. I wasn't really all that interested, but he said he knew the wrestler Dusty Rhoads from his time spent being Doug Williams back up QB with the Tampa Bay Bucs and he had free passes to the event courtesy of Rhoads himself. I had nothing to do that night so I tagged along across Broad Street to the Spectrum to watch this fraudulent opera in tights take place.
We get to the arena and go to will call for the tickets. There is a message waiting for us to go to the far north end of the building and ask directions to the "Participant Lounge" where Virgil Runnels Jr. aka Dirty Dusty Rhoads will meet us and take us backstage before the bouts begin. As we've discussed in previous stories, backstage of ANYTHING is an interesting journey, so we headed there with a sense of anticipation. Upon entering the lounge I see human beings of immense proportions stretching large limbs and whispering secret instructions to each other. This was either a big man's gay nightclub or pro wrestlers getting their act together for the coming performance. "WHAT'S UP CHUCKY?", Rhoads bellowed as we caught sight of him approaching us, showing no sign of the legendary lisp he would speak with on televised interviews. "Great to see you again, Dusty", Fusina replied. "Thanks for the tickets". Rhoads and I were introduced and the three of us began to chat.
I stared at Rhoad's forehead and saw a line of 20-30 little scars right under his hairline. He noticed me looking at them and referenced his cut line, which turns out to be where these guys nick themselves with a shred of a razor blade to make themselves bleed. The line of scars was bleached much whiter than his normal skin tone, and he explained they have to keep peroxide on the cuts to avoid infection. I guess every job has its unique set of dues to pay.
"Can you do me a big favor?', Dusty asked us. "A fellow wrestler named Magnum TA (Terry Allen) and I need a ride to the hotel by the airport after the match, can you hook us up?' It was in the opposite direction of our respective homes in South Jersey but we agreed to do our host and his co-worker the favor. Dusty then directed us to our ringside seats for the matches with details on where to meet him afterwards. I must admit being that close to the action was more interesting than i anticipated. These guys are real athletic, and how they don't really hurt themselves more often while doing some of these incredibly difficult stunts is amazing. We enjoyed the matches and waited afterwards for our riders to meet us for the trip back to the airport hotel.
Leaving the arena we were besieged by fans. Chuck and I were used to dealing with a few autograph seekers from time to time, but these guys had a following like the Rolling Stones! We eventually made it to our car with a little help from security, and drove off to get our combatants home for the night. "Come have a drink", Rhoads insisted as we arrived. So we parked the car and headed inside. Sitting down in the bar I noticed every wrestler from the show was in here. Good guys and bad guys who were "fighting to the death" mere moments ago now had their arms around each other drinking and laughing out loud. I felt the anger rise up in me again, but fought off the memories of Santa and the feelings of betrayal as I saw the waitress coming over to take our order. "Sorry guys, last call", she said.
"Last call?" we questioned, not realizing how late it had become. She said it was twenty minutes to closing and it was definitely last call. "Fine", Rhodes counters," bring me 30 beerths". The lisp that I thought he had mastered and previously mentioned had shown up. The three of us looked at each other in astonishment. "Thirty beers?", Chuck exclaims. "We don't have time to drink thirty beers? But Rhoads insisted on his order and the waitress filled our table with 30 bottles of Miller Lite. Magnum TA had three of them, Chuck had two, I had three, and no lie; Dusty drank 22 beers himself by the time the bar closed about 30 minutes later. I had never seen such a drinking exhibition in my life! He insisted on paying the tab with no help from us, and seemed totally fine as we ended our night and he headed for the hotel elevator. What was even more astonishing was that he never went to the restroom while we were there! I kept thinking to myself that he must have a hollow leg. "Where in the world is the beer going?", I kept repeating to Chuck.
Let's see...thirty beers times 4 performances a week times 52 weeks in a year. What's the NYSE symbol for the Miller Brewing Company? It's got to be a good investment as long as pro wrestling is around. And I think I know what Dusty asks Santa for every year. Razor blades, antiseptic, and salty pretzels have got to be on his list.
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