Skip to main content

Oh Yeah



Oh Yeah!

About five years ago my friend and former fight-training partner Peter and I were standing on Jerome Blvd in the Bronx. If you are unaware of the area, it can be a little bit of a rough neighborhood. It was a sunny day. Yet, it was quite cold out. We were waiting for a fight gym to open up.

As Peter and I stood there, a strange man with a wool cap started to walk towards us. I didn’t recognize him. He appeared to be up to ‘no good’. I felt we were his target. I wondered as I saw Peter looking around for others, as we apparently thought we were going to be attacked. So, one would have thought. That is if you were Peter or I in the place we were at. The area was fairly desolate.

The closer the man got to us. Peter began to back up. I got pissed. I stood my ground. I glanced at Peter, I could see the look of uncertainty in his face. And when you’ve wrestled and thrown leather with a guy like Peter who fought MMA in Japan. If he’s backing up, maybe you should too.

However, I’m a little indignant. I’ve been through enough ‘rodeos’ to know anything can happen. And like in the 1976 movie “Network”. Peter Finch plays Howard Beale, a news anchorman being put out to pasture, he rants: “…And I’m not going to take it anymore!” Is what was screaming through my head. As well, that would be me. So, as uncertain as I was at the outcome on Jerome Blvd that day. I decided I would take my fear and get righteous. The rage built up so quickly in me, there would be no stopping what I would do to a criminal at that moment. I was that pissed.

The man saw me. He went to say something a criminal about to do something would say.

I said, “Oh yeah.” I looked him straight in the eye. Peter backed up.
The man then said, “Jody, it’s me.” I replied, “Huh?”  Still thinking we were in danger.  It was Ed. He knew me. I hadn’t seen Ed in a year and never with a hat or wool cap covering his head. As well, I don’t think Peter ever met Ed. 
I scolded Ed, “Don’t do that. I was going to attack you if you got any closer.”

A minute later he walked Peter and I back to a car that had a friend and co-worker in it. Peter knew who Bob was.

Ed relayed to Bob, “Jody, didn’t know who I was. She was going to fight me.”
Bob replied, “You don’t mess with Jody.”

Going back two years prior to this, Bob had taken me out for a cup of coffee to talk business.

He remarked, “You are so different when you’re around your kids and your husband.”
I replied, “Well, you know that’s who I am there. I can’t let them know who I am within twenty-fours of a fight. I don’t want anybody I love touching me. ” 
Bob shakes his head, jaw dropped. As he had seen me in so many facets of my life for years. He responded, “You’re like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

---Jody-Lynn Reicher

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

2023 Holiday Letter from the Reicher's

Well, I didn't think I'd be doing a Holiday Letter this year, but here goes... The Spirit of Norm is in the air. As the wind whips with minus a true snowstorm.  In hopes the Farmers Almanac was correct, I pray to the snow gods. Rain ensued the month of December thus far. We have nearly tripled the amount of rainfall usual for December in New Jersey. And I've witnessed its treachery. Storms such as these hit us hardest in July. Then remained fairly intense through til about early October.  Our daughters are doing well, Thank God.  Their Dad would be proud of them. Our oldest Sarah, now a Junior at UCLA pursuing her degree in Chemical Engineering. She's digging the whole California scene. Which I thought it was for her. She's had some good traveling on her off times from school. For her March 2023 week off, she drove her and a few friends out to Lake Tahoe and went downhill skiing for a first in nearly 5 years. She had to rent the ski equipment.  Funny enough when

Sledging the Hammer

  "You could have a steam trainIf you'd just lay down your tracks..."---Peter Gabriel's 'Sledgehammer' lyrics. This is not the tune that lay in my mind this morning as I reminisced about yesterday's volunteers to help on trail crew.    However, as I looked up the proper definition of sledging that song popped up. I say sledging, which is my own take on swinging a hammer that we call a "Double Jack". The Single Jack is six pounds. I know that because our regular crew of five including me and one staff supervisor are handling Harriman State Park Trails, and have to carry about four of those, two shaping hammers, along with a hoist, belay bag with heavy equipment, first aid kit, double Jack, three 18lb rock bars, a lopper, three buckets, three eye to eyes, two burlap straps, two green wrapping straps, two pick Mattox, a roe hoe or two, a bar for either the two ton or one ton hoist, the feathers with pegs for splitting rocks that we drill... s

It Follows Me...

One may wonder what would inspire someone to work hard labor voluntarily. For me it’s the love of many things. It’s the passion that won’t be broken. Because there are so many aspects to such service for me, that it may seem beyond comprehension. I’d compare it to my youthful desire to enter the military as a young child. Then for a multitude of reasons only to follow through thirteen years later at age eighteen entering the Marines. There were things that followed me throughout my life. Sometimes they were questions of how I ever gave up my over decade’s life dream to become a New Jersey State Trooper. My childhood desire to never wed—to never have any serious relationships with another human being. I desired only service in military and law enforcement nearly my whole childhood. Too the extent that even one of my Marine Corps superiors expressed to me last July, “I never thought you’d ever get married. It just wasn’t who you were. You were always a loner.” I replied, “Yeah. I know.