Something about grace

Verne Gagne (right)

I wonder now, all these many years later, whether watching WWE with Dad wasn't good for me. What it did, undoubtedly, is shake the sweet Christian soul developing in me. A thousand "Jesus Loves Mes" could be deleted by an single hour of pro wrestling. To me, its naked flamboyant aggression felt like sin, even if wasn't, even if my dad was, well, in his own way, addicted.

When I remember watching Gorgeous George or Dick the Bruiser go at it in the ring, some great wrestling star against some poor, no-name stooge soon to get his bell rung, I think of what I felt right then as sin. Yet, there I sat, beside my sweet and righteous dad, the preacher's kid, who was deliberately hiding his fascination from mom, who hated what it was her husband--and her son!!!--were watching. She greatly preferred hymns from the TV room than grunting excesses of pro wrestling. As a Christian and a woman, she found the whole enterprise, not to mention Gorgeous George, repulsive, vulgar. 

So did Dad--well, sort of.  

There were heroes too, like Verne Gagne, who, come Sunday, could have sat beside us in the pew--or in front of u s. Verne Gagne was quintessential goodness, a man who would win by putting his victims to sleep rather than the hospital. I was just a boy, but I remember thinking Dad could rationalize his sneaky peaks simply by watching Verne Gagne step quietly into the ring. Among the bad boys, Verne Gagne was a saint.

I don't remember much about our neighbor, Flick. He lived right across the street, but when his face appears in my memory I'm intimidated. I'm not sure why really, but the only conversations I remember between the two of them concerned wrestling. Out on the street, a goodly distance between us and the kitchen, the two of them would rehearse the great moments from the last show. 

Flick ran a business, the phone company, I think, and because he did he came off as the boss whenever my dad dropped over to chat. Flick made more money than Dad did, which meant something; and he and his wife, on Sunday, walked in the opposite direction we did on their way to the Presbyterians, who, you know, had only one service on the Sabbath. By their fruits ye shall know them, after.

Flick the Presbyterian loved wrestling and had himself the kind of personality that would have made him a thing in the wring. Everything came out, volume-wise, at a ten. A little stubby maybe, Flick was thick as a fireplug and he talked so loud you'd spend half the time looking to see who else might be listening in. For good Christians like my folks, his language took on a little salty once in a while too. What can you expect from Presbyterians?

So, Dad and Flick would go at it, a comedy routine. They both loved it. Dad maintained, quite elegantly, I'm sure, that pro wrestling was humbug, the whole business just plain fake. No one ever got hurt on the mat. They were all wonderful athletes who knew how to fall and how to make money. Who would win and who would lose was drawn up off stage long before anybody slipped into a satin robe. 

Flick, full volume, claimed the opposite. Wrestling was not managed, baseball was. The Boston Braves had pulled up the franchise and moved to Milwaukee. Dad loved to listen to ball games. He used to  score 'em. After the ninth, rows and lines pencilled in across the page recorded who got the round-trippers, and the hits that drove in runs. Once the final pitch smacked the mitt, he could hand you the box score. 

Flick claimed baseball was the real hoax, the whole mess set up ahead of time. Now, pro wrestling--that's nothing but muscle on muscle. Dad would shake his head. He never won, but were the two of them in a ring, by the second round my dad's Verne Gagne would have taken some hits from Flick's Dick the Bruiser.

All I knew, as a six or seven-year-old was that Dad was somehow transfixed by what he claimed to despise. It was clear too that he was much more comfortable watching pro wrestling if Mom was having coffee with her neighbors. 

Today, all these years later, I can't help thinking it was good for me--this sparring Dad did out on the street in front of our house, a comic ritual argument that left both of them giggling. It was good for me to see my dad argue righteousness that he couldn't quite manage himself. 

Verne Gange, Dick the Bruiser, Haystack Calhoun, and, of course, Gorgeous George--he loved 'em, even though he knew darn well he shouldn't. 

Somewhere in the mix it seems to me there's a story about grace.

Dick the Bruiser