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

https://www.amazon.com/Jody-Lynn-Reicher/e/B00R3VUZ18/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_10?qid=1418802234&sr=1-10

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Completion of Humanness

Completion of Humanness As we arrive to the completion of the first year without Norman, I had decided long before he'd passed that I would continue to do things certain things he liked yet could no longer do. I decided I would not take a day off of fitness.  I would run at least for 500 days in a row. I began that in early 2020.  I'd not be concerned with the distance I'd run. It was the very thing I convinced Norman and the thing that mattered to him, from the very first discussion we had August 11th, 1981, was fitness. I loved that he was a College Boy. He loved that I was a Marine. We tickled each other's soul with such admirations. Later fitness continued as an old discussion from 1994 ...getting outside and to run no matter what. I would say to him, "Run 200 meters, then 400 meters. If it doesn't feel good, stop. Turn around and walk back home and know you did your best. That is all you can ask of yourself." I said this,  knowing he would get dow
2 comments
Read more

In My World

As I finish putting away the week's groceries, I contemplate other's lives. Aside from my two daughters,  I consider what may be other's lives.  How they have conducted their lives over the past two years.  This is a thought not unusual for me to have. Yet, it occurs more often than not. Especially  now, as the population is probably feeling ever more irked. Regarding perhaps. their illusion of any lack of their freedom. But isn't that what life is about? The illusion of who we are. What we are about. Where we stand on the planet. Who we love. And who loves us. Our significance. Couldn't we imagine if this were all just an illusion? Sounds like a "Twighlight Zone" episode, perhaps. My aim here, are the thoughts of reckoning. I'll explain why I'm claiming such a thing. For about twenty-eight years of a career in dealing with injured athletes,  pain patients, chronically ill and the terminally ill. I found that there were many people who lied to
Post a Comment
Read more

It's About the Soul And...

  ...perhaps the soles of our shoes. My father-in-law used to say the feet are what soldiers depend on, as we do food. He said that to me in 1985 as I stood in his home office.  My husband, Norman was a shoe guy. And it was all about the soles on the shoes.  For me, the way I have stayed on my feet was soul deep. Sometimes praying every step of the way, to not fall over out of exhaustion. The approximately 170,000 miles of running, many of which Norman had witnessed or known of. He wondered how I stayed standing working on my feet all day. Only to come home, and go for a second run at midnight at times.  Often Norman would give me a lecture on good shoe care. It was about the soles of the shoes. He'd point out stitching on a shoe that was done wrong. Therefore commenting, "...giving a shoe less time of wear on this earth."  He'd remark quite often. "You have to buy good quality shoes." I have to say, there was absolutely something comedic about his shoe obse
Post a Comment
Read more