Lesson Learned

When someone punches you in the head you don’t expect to hear “You can’t screw an old head on young shoulders.”  Yet the first two or three times he hit me that is exactly what I heard my father say. Dad wasn’t there for the fight, but I had heard him say it so many times it wasn’t hard to imagine him saying it again. It sort of surprised me to hear that. I don’t know what I expected but it was different than that.

I don’t know, maybe I thought that it would be similar to the Batman show from the 1960s. You know the one with Adam West where every blow was accompanied by an animated “pow” or “oomph.” It is kind of silly to read those words because that wasn’t the first time that I had been hit. Well, that is not entirely true. It was the first time that I had been hit with boxing gloves every other time had been with a fist or foot.

This time was different. I was twenty years-old and standing in the center of a boxing ring. Young, dumb and stupid Jack had agreed to spar with a guy who was my height but no where close to my weight. At the time it had seemed like a good idea. I had been spending hours in the gym each day and my body showed it. I had taken the swimmers body I had in high school and carved it up in ways that would have made Michelangelo jealous.

So when the guy at school asked me if I was interested in checking out his boxing regimen I said sure. I had heard that boxers had a decent training routine and figured that it might be fun to try it out.

Just before I stepped in the ring one of the guys there asked me if I was certain of what I was doing. I nodded my head and smiled. He looked at me and suggested that I wipe the smile off of my face before the other guy saw it. I told him that maybe he should tell the skinny guy to watch out because I really was much bigger.

In between rounds I leaned against the ropes and tried to figure out how to catch him in a corner. I knew that if I landed one solid shot I would be good. Moments later he danced around and sent a glancing blow off of my body and I thought, “Lesson Learned.”

This post was based upon a prompt from The Red Dress Club.

• Wind and Waves
• Donuts
• A Detour
• 1974
• The Day Joy Left My Life
• Preserve Your Memories
• August
• The Flying Clown
• The Kitchen
• One Slightly Used Pump For Sale
• The Song of My Heart Has Gone Silent
• Grandpa
• Five Minutes
• Endless Blue Skies
• And then the world shifted
• I Hear Music
• A Fire In The Sky
• The Telephone Call
• She Wore A Red Dress
• Song Sung Blue…And Other Colors
• When Simply Awful became Simply Wonderful
• A Mugger
• A Jealous Man
• She Was Wrong
• It Was Just Coffee
• The Mistress of Tongue
• Dancing Didn’t Make Him Charming
• An Unfulfilled Promise
• A Whiter Shade of Pale
• Soft and Smooth
• Harder Kimio