Bright Red T-Shirts

Rachelle asked me about dealing with glasses and boxing while I was at Loyola Park last night.  "I just take them off and put them to the side.  I can see well enough without them to see a punch coming in," I said.  Some will fight with contacts in, but I've seen too many people lose those during sparring to take a chance on doing that.

Vachel came back to the gym.  I broke the sad news to her that Colonel passed on.  She didn't remember who he was at first.  "Remember the guy you used to joke with about playing 'fishing music' every time he played his old music in the gym?" I asked.  "Oh, no!  Not him!  Wow, cancer just keeps taking people out," she said.

I sparred with Kathy, and no, I still didn't do a good job of getting around her long arms.  I was able to get in some straight rights to her middle and right hooks to her sides, but that's all.  Most of the time, I missed trying to get those shots in. Kira did better when she sparred with Kathy, because she kept up better with hunting her around the ring than I could.

Alan showed me some old newspaper clippings and photos that an old college girlfriend of his sent to him.  The materials were all about his time boxing while he was in school forty years ago.  "Look at me with that mustache," he laughed.  "Yeah, the 70's porn mustache," I laughed.  I finally got a look at what his coach back then looked like.  The coach was a middle-aged African-American man.  "That guy was like a second father to me," Alan said.

Alan gave me the box of LaFollette Park boxing T-shirts that I couldn't easily take home the day of the boxing coaches' meeting.  They are nice shirts.  Coach James at LaFollette will probably say again, "Hey, those shirts are the wrong color.  They should be blue like the football team's color."  I have no say-so about how the shirts will look, but I'm liking the bright red color and the boxing logo on the front.  I'll have to take a few of them at a time to work, but all of them will be in the storage room by the time the Golden Gloves start in March.