Muhammad Ali
(aka Cassius Clay)
What a sad headline to see when I
woke up this morning.
Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74
As I’ve written
here before, my uncle, Barney Felix was the referee of the first Liston / Clay
(Ali) fight in 1965. When Ali became a
conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and refused to be drafted into the
Army, his heavyweight championship was stripped from him. To make some money, he started speaking at
college campuses. He came to Fairleigh
Dickinson University in Rutherford, NJ when I was the sports editor so, in
addition to attending his speech, to a packed gym, I got to attend a small
press conference immediately following that.
At one point, having my hand up, Ali recognized me. I asked him, “Champ, do you think Joe Frazier
could ever beat you?” “Son,” Ali said with that wonderful smile, “if Frazier
even dreamed of beating me, he would wake up apologizing.”
Ali was a poet of sorts and a
unique personality in the annals of professional boxing. Here are some quotes the New York Times published
today:
“Henry, this is no jive. The fight will end in
five.”
A young Cassius Clay, in a 1963 interview, claiming to have predicted
the round in which he would beat the British boxer Henry Cooper.
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”
Clay taunted the boxer Sonny Liston in the days before their world
heavyweight title bout in February 1964.
“Shoot them for what? They never called me nigger.
They never lynched me.”
Ali refused to be drafted into the armed forces during the Vietnam War.
He was denied a boxing license and did not fight for three years.
“My name is Muhammad Ali, and you will announce it
right there in center of that ring.”
Ali addressing Ernie Terrell, who kept calling him Cassius Clay, before
Ali slapped him in the face during a television interview.
“I have wrestled with a alligator. I done tussled
with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning, throwed thunder in jail.”
Before the heavyweight championship fight in 1974 against George Foreman
known as “The Rumble in the Jungle.”
“I told you all, I was the greatest of all time.”
Ali speaking after defeating George Foreman in the “The Rumble in the
Jungle.”
I’m sure many others share the belief that he was ‘The greatest of all
time.”
A sad good bye to one of the
truly legendary figures of my generation, of boxing and of the world.
**
Peggy Noonan
I’d bet that
many of you know who Peggy Noonan is.
For those who don’t she’s a highly regarded journalist. But as I re-read that that description
unintentionally minimizes her history:
I went to
college at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). Three campuses were in New Jersey –
Rutherford, Teaneck and Madison. As fate
would have it, I had planned to start at FDU for the spring semester at the
Madison campus – which was closer to where my parent’s house was in Livingston,
NJ. I had not thought, at least then, of
living anywhere else and commuting to school.
But Madison was not accepting ‘mid-year’ freshmen and so I went to the
Rutherford Campus.
Okay, back to Peggy. When I took
over as editor in chief of The Bulletin, our office was located in the basement
of a house that served as offices for something or other. Prior to me, the paper was pretty cliquey and
I believe very few students even knew where the newspaper office was. Thinking differently I ‘opened up’ the paper
to everyone who was interested. Physically,
I opened it up by keeping the cellar doors to the basement, which opened onto
one of the parking lots open. I also
posted a sign, “The Bulletin.” Philosophically,
everyone was invited to participate. I
remember walking through the cafeteria one day and saw a girl drawing a
cartoon. ‘Would you be interested in being the cartoonist for the school
newspaper?’ She agreed and became the
first ever full-time cartoonist for The Bulletin.
My Dad had donated a refrigerator and a couch to the office and many of
us hung out there a lot.
Our advisor was a fellow named Marty Gansberg, who was a well-known
reporter for the New York Times. He used
to come out to Rutherford from New York every Thursday and spent most of the
day working with the editors on getting the next edition ready for press. He also taught us the ‘way of the Times’
which has, sadly over the years, disappeared – some basic things like a news
article is news and not editorial. He
was a colorful character who made a difference and, we had a lot of fun with
him.
One evening, I’m down at the Bulletin office and an attractive young
woman walks in. “Hi, I’m Peggy
Noonan. I just transferred from night school
to full-time days and I’d like to be part of the school newspaper.” “Great to meet you, welcome”, I said. That
was the start of a friendship that lasted into the 1980’s. The last communication I got from her was a
note on White House stationery – “Hey Felix, when are you coming to Washington
to visit.”
Peggy had a vision for her career, at least for the start of it, and she
made it happen.
From Wikipedia:
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Noonan (born
September 7, 1950) is an American author of several books on politics,
religion, and culture, and a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal. She
was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Regan and
has maintained a conservative leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan
Administration.
There is a lot more to her
background but I’ll leave that interesting reading for you to research on your
own.
Why did I decide to write to you
about Peggy today?
I am not conservative in my
thinking. When we were in college, I
don’t believe Peggy was either – actually none of us who worked on The Bulletin
were – except for this one guy, whose name I can’t remember – who we believed
was a plant by some government agency watching potentially ‘subversive’ college
newspaper activity. He was an untalented
jerk that no one liked one bit.
I bought Peggy’s first book, “What
I Saw At The Revolution,” which was published in 1990. Even though we had been out of contact for
about 6 years at that time, I wanted to go see her, catch up on things and, in
writing a hand written note to her, suggested I’d like her to autograph my book
(somewhat tongue in cheek as I’ve never really been an autograph collector). I never heard back from her. She had moved
on.
But as I’m working on finishing my
book, “Driving With Your Knees”, I’ve been reading a lot as well. The other day I bought a book on memoir
writing which has changed my view on a couple of things I was considering
including in the book but have decided they can wait for another day and
another venue. Then, somehow I saw that
Peggy had published a book in 2015 called, “The Time of Our Lives.”
The book is a compendium of pieces
she’s written over the years. From the
inside jacket flap of the hardcover version (I love hardcover books). “The book
travels the path of her remarkable career showing how she became one of the
most influential voices in America.” I thought it might provide some lessons
that I could use in writing my book.
(Btw, the editor I’ve hired to work with was the editor of The Bulletin
the year before me!)
I’m about 85% through Peggy’s book
and, yes, it has given me some ideas.
But more than that, it has reminded me of what a brilliant writer she
is. While I’ve read some, I’ve skipped
over a number of the pieces that are really political in nature – after all,
she’s mostly known as a political columnist and commentator.
But she writes about much more
than politics. She writes about life, people, what’s been happening to America
and the world, the scary part of our loss of freedoms (e.g. how technology has
impacted our loss of privacy). She
doesn’t hold back and shares herself with us.
Peggy lives in New York City –
this is not an invasion of her privacy as she openly states that herself. I’m hoping one day to catch up with her again
and share our stories and, I believe, at that time, we will be talking as we
did back in the old days, now having lived very different lives but having, for
a time, worked together, at a weekly newspaper, at the intimate campus of a
large university in New Jersey. It was a
great ride!
