Wrestling fans....

[Felonius_Monk]

[GodlikeRoy]

Yeah, I know.

[/bad attempt at a joke]

[MTPaid]

[Johnny Hughes]

My Uncle was a wrestler. Pat wrestled all over. He ended up the promoter for Big Spring, and later Odessa. When he was young, he was a bad drunk and later spent forty years in AA, very active going out at night to help drunks in jail.

They traveled a certain circuit and rode together. They all looked scary, funny but they were very entertaining. M uncles gimmic was that he would spit something, tobbaco juice in their eyes. The good guys would nearly always win the last round. Terry Allen's father was the wrestling promoter in Lubbock. He and I recall from our childhood, the wrestling bear, and alligators. Uncle Pat was hurt bad once when a woman hit him with a chair. The wrestlers hit each other with these chairs that would break easily.

Pat made a lot of money. He would slip me a fiver when no one else had. I met Jack Dempsey, the ex heavy weight champ, at Big Spring. He came to referee and he cooked at this big dinner where the Mayor came in a Tux. Uncle Pat was wondering around with his shirt off. Kids and old wrestlers that were a little buggy ate in the backyard at a card table.

Once I saw Pat and this guy actually get mad at each other in the ring. They stood there slugging it out.

A family legend I'm not sure of is that Pat was headed for the Olypmics as a wrestler. They caught him with his whole suitcase full of half pints of whiskey.

Pat told me a story I don't believe about him and Gorgeous being put in an expensive dryout center. Gorgeous had a new car with the radiator filled with booze. They'd go lay under the car and get a drink. Never believed that one.