TRY ME? EVERY FATHER’S HOPE

“I’ve got three boys,” a former football star said. “I’ve got to stay in shape because they’re going to try me.”

Try me?

Do we all know what that means?

Probably not if you didn’t try your Dad.

But you did. Right? You did? How did that work out for you?

How does it ever work out?

I tried my old man in the front yard with another brother on the sidelines.

It wasn’t an organized smoker on a Saturday afternoon, but he brought out a set of boxing gloves.

I was nineteen and full of it, having boxed before wrestling practice and knew I could take a punch.

Back then we put on the gloves and sparred with anyone who wanted to go.

The football coach came in to square off on me.

He was Mike Tyson before Mike Tyson, doing the peak-a-boo stuff before bending forward to get me leaning in followed by a ripping uppercut, which was a big surprise.

The rest of us weren’t trying to knock each out, but the coach loaded up.

I caught the first one as it was intended, a tooth rattling snapper that got through my guard.

The next one missed or I might have gone down. Not today, Coach Johnson.

For the third time he leaned over at the waist. I straightened him up with a left jab before stepping in with a right cross.

He stepped back like I’d done when he tagged me and boxing was over for the day.

I like to think we nodded to each other in manly approval, but probably not.

 

Dad Boxing

I’d boxed some, grew up watching Muhammad Ali from his first Liston fight on, and could take a punch.

Was my Dad planning on knocking me out in the front yard to prove a point?

Since I’m not elevating violence, just having a little fun, I wasn’t planning on knocking him out either.

I figured we’d pat around, dance a little, and call it good.

Once the gloves were on the whole scene took a turn.

He tucked his chin like I’d never seen him do, raised his hands like I’d never seen, and warmed up like a seasoned fighter.

When did my old man turn into Ken Norton with his foot in the grave style?

He came at me with his left jab testing my reflexes.

When I circled, he cut me off. When I stepped in, he sidestepped.

Which is to say I couldn’t get close enough to land anything with his fighting footwork.

The old man was dancer?

He turned it into a boxing lesson instead of a beating.

Without drilling his favorite son to make a point, he talked through it.

“Set up the right with the left,” he said.

He didn’t throw it, but I knew he could have.

For the next five minutes he put on a display worthy of a viral Tik-Tok today.

He showed the whole bag of tricks with an Ali shuffle to top it off.

We could have gone longer but he needed to stop for a cigarette.

 

Baby Boomers Say Try Me?

I’m a baby boomer and I didn’t tell my sons shit about trying anything on me.

Maybe they wouldn’t and we’d all move along, getting past the urge to punch their old man in the head.

But boys being boys, why would they let that happen?

Since the boys were feisty, I bought boxing gloves.

I showed the youngest the basics of hands up, chin down.

We sparred. I talked him through like my dad did me.

I’m not interested in beating my kids up.

I should have known better?

The kid listened to me, but instead of us talking it out, he saw an opening and let one fly, a right hook to my head, followed by him locking himself in the bathroom until I put the gloves away.

Fair enough.

A few months later the oldest decided to try me. Or maybe I was trying him?

 

Who’s Trying Who?

He had his back to me, sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen.

I asked him to get off the computer, then told him to get off the computer.

I figured he was downloading viruses that would kill the whole system, and probably every computer on the service.

(Follow me for more tech talk.)

He explained what he was doing in that special child to parent tone of ‘why are you so dumb.’

Now he’s shit-talking me and not getting off the diseased computer, so I walked into the room looking for his off-button.

I tapped the side of his head, then the other side, the back.

He stood up and tapped back. Not a slap fight, a tap fight.

We tapped out way out of the dining room, through the kitchen, and into the living room where his mother and younger brother were.

Tap. Tap. Tap. While staring each other in the eyes.

I gave him a stiff-arm in the chest, and we were off.

I’ll remind you both kids were high school wrestlers. If you grew up with high school wrestlers you know where this is going.

The kid stepped in with double open hands to my chest with impact, the sort of thing he learned playing offensive line in football.

Now we were getting someplace.

I stepped in to give one back, but instead he chopped my arms down, caught me in double under-hooks and took me over the top in a belly to belly Greco-Roman suplex. (Pronounced ‘suplay.’)

Into a wall.

It’s a house with big rooms, big enough to roll around.

After I caved the wall in with my head I rolled into the TV table, broke it while the TV crashed, and sprung to my feet in springy style.

My kid was already there waiting.

We glared at each other for a second while mother threatened to call the police if we didn’t stop right now.

We might have continued? But, police?

Instead we both turned to momma at the same time and said those magic words together: “We’re only wrestling.”

If I’d had any doubts, I knew then that my boys were on the right path.

The younger one didn’t jump in and the older one was certain he could handle whatever was coming next.

Me? I had to find a way to make things right, which was hard because none of it felt too wrong.

An hour or two later I said, “Boy, if we’re going to get into it, let’s take it outside. The furniture can’t handle it.”

Which is what every wresting family learns, eventually.

Then I said, “But instead of taking it outside, let’s talk it out. I don’t think I can take it, either.”

Later in the year a bunch of their friends came over and the red boxing gloves came out after I went to bed.

The next morning the front yard was chewed up, some branches broken, after an unexpected new guy showed the others what it was like going against a real fighter.

He whupped them all.

You never know who is going to bring out their A game.

 

 

But there are signs.

 

 

PS: Things not to do with strangers: boxing, shooting guns, throwing knives.

PSS: Even people you know have certain skills you don’t know about. Think about it before you decide to try them.