YOUR PURPOSE? WHO’S ASKING

You’re supposed to know your purpose in life?

That’s the question I got while watching the second part of the two part Muhammad Ali documentary.

With my wife.

She was asking a serious question and deserved a serious answer.

I tried.

We have a purpose, right?

Ali said his purpose was living a clean life and helping others.

I like that, but of course there was his other purpose in the boxing ring:

Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

The last two fights shown on HBO’s What’s My Name showed a different Ali.

Older, heavier, and willing to take the punches, Ali made eight million dollars for getting pummeled by Larry Holmes.

It looked awful, so awful that Holmes cried afterwards for what he’d done.

The last fight was even worse.

Ali was 39 years old at this time, and Berbick was 27 years old.

. . . the venue for the fight—Nassau in the Bahamas—was chosen because no American state would grant Ali a boxing license after his performance in the match with Larry Holmes.

Ali’s weight just before and during the fight was 236 pounds (107 kilograms). One reporter described him as Michelin Man.

Berbick is the kind of lumbering, slow-armed swinger [Ali] would have first embarrassed and then demolished in his dazzling prime…To see [Ali] lose to such a moderate fighter in such a grubby context was like watching a king riding into permanent exile on the back of a garbage truck.

The one blessing was that he was steadily exhausted rather than violently hurt by the experience.

 

BoomerPdx on Ali From 2016

No one questions if Ali stayed in the game too long, but that’s what the greats so.

Shaquille O’Neal stayed so long in the NBA he ended up dragging the court with the hated Boston Celtics.

Football players and baseball players stay too long and end up like Willie Mays, a shadow of their previous selves, but none of them take the sort of beating boxers do when they slow down.

What Larry Holmes fought Ali in 1980 it was more than a boxing match. Holmes chopped the legend down and made it impossible for fans to cheer him.

Ali stayed too long, maybe one fight too long, and soon after was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.

 

From a personal point of view, I know Parkinson’s close up. My father in law got Parkinson’s and I trained him for five years before he died.

I could say I was his caregiver, and I was, but I like to think we trained more than we cared.

I’d sit in front of Grandpa Ken’s lift chair and ask him who he was fighting for today. It was therapeutic training. We’d each pick a fighter and hold our hands up to shadow box.

Parkinson’s wrecks so much in it’s victims that just holding hands up is tough, but Ken did it.

He often chose Joe Louis. I always chose Muhammad Ali.

I called the punches for Joe and announced the punches for Muhammad.

“Gimme your left, your left, now the right. Keep your guard up. Here’s comes the jab. Sticking the jab. Keep that guard up. Gimme the hammer, the fly swatter.”

Then I’d say, “The hands can’t hit what the eye can’t see,” and we’d stop to laugh. He knew what was coming next.

I’d get up and fly around the room waving my arms singing, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

I’d do it twice, once for Ken, once for me. Now he’s gone and it’ll take three, one for Joe Louis, one for Ken, and one for Muhammad Ali.

He was a once in a lifetime figure, and he still is.

Muhammad Ali Bomaye.

 

What About Your Purpose

This is Eddie Merchant, the best sports fan I’ve ever known.

We drove up to the King Dome to watch the Dodgers play the Mariners.

Eddie used to watch Jackie Robinson play in Brooklyn.

We saw Michael Jordan play in Portland for the last time.

He grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and remembers seeing Cassius Clay running around town.

The funny part with Eddie is he knew North Bend.

He’d been a Merchant Marine and sailed all over the world with stops in North Bend.

That was enough to welcome him into my fan club.

Throughout the Eighties we had a standing bet every weekend of football season: the loser paid with a pack of little bottles of Wild Turkey.

If you remember the Eighties it didn’t go well for me. Eddie was a 49er fan and I had the Cowboys.

The best part? We split the winnings each week.

 

Back to your purpose.

Living a clean life and helping others is a good goal.

Just do it without accumulating four wives and getting beat to a pulp along the way.

Make time for your loved ones, give them some hope for being in the same world as you.

Be as brash and sassy as you feel. Look for a happy endings.

In the end, Ali was a sad story of a man who went too far in an unforgiving sport.

Larry Holmes said he loved Ali, but once they got into the ring he didn’t know his name.

What do you do if you feel surrounded by people who may see you the same way? Who might forget your name in certain circumstances?

Don’t get into the ring with them, but if you do just make sure you know what it’s all about.

Ali knew, and he still got in there.