RIP Smokin' Joe Frazier, former heavyweight champion of the world. He had the heart of a lion and tons more class than his more famous contemporary, Muhammad Ali, who said outrageous things about his rival to promote their bouts, which would have been construed as racism had they been said by a white man. I regret that I rooted for the young, brash Ali, who my dad called "Bigga mouth." Frazier was the better person. Their three matches, the last two won by Ali, are legendary. Viewing them on a classic sports channel, it's amazing those men lived as long as they have, given the punishment they doled out to each other.
How sad that the legendary Joe Paterno, who recently became the winniest college coach in history, may leave the Penn St. under such a dark cloud. It's hard to believe he would have looked away while an assistant was molesting boys, no matter how vital that man's astuteness may have been to the program. The school's administrators now have an excuse to replace him, which would have been inevitable. Even he couldn't go on forever. To coin that memorable phrase from baseball mythology: "Say it ain't so, Joe."
We had an indian summer day in NYC. Thank you to the elderly woman of color who purchased a Bible, part of Svetlana/Vivian's donation. Since S/V had written in it and highlighted many passages, I asked the woman to name her own price, and she was very generous. I also sold more books in Russian and one on needlepoint. And, as I was about to leave, legendary neighborhood mailman Mr. Chow hailed me from behind. I opened my trunk and showed him some books on financial advice, two of which he bought.
Read Vic's stories, free:
http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
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