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Boy
Scouts vs. Wrestlers
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One thing my grandmother and some of her church friends tried to do to me was get me in the Boy Scouts. Now, I have nothing personally against the Boy Scouts. I am sure it is a wonderful organization for boys. It just so happens that I was not one of those boys.
I knew at this point in time there were some rumblings about my behavior and what to do with me. I know that she did not want me incarcerated, but she was reaching the end of her rope. So some misguided soul from church suggested to her that I might like the boy scouts.
It was all arranged: the scoutmaster would pick me up and bring me home. It would be wonderful and I would have a great time. I argued and fought to no avail. One Friday night, a car pulled up in front of the house with about a dozen kids hanging out the windows. I wedged my way into the car and off we went.
The meeting was in the church basement and as luck would have it, they were preparing for a camping outing. As a matter of fact, they were leaving the next morning, so the night I was there was filled with nothing but scouts packing their gear and receiving a myriad of instructions and tips. I just stood there and then wandered around a bit, not bothering the guys who were busy getting their stuff ready. None of them were rude or mean, they were just preoccupied.
I didn't have to go the following week because the trip would be ending about then. But I was determined that I wasn't going to go to the next meeting.
Mom was furious, but I had to tell her that I simply had no interest in the scouts. I told her that I would hide out forever, if I had to, to keep the scouts away and they would need all of their scouting skills to find me. She finally said okay and informed the proper people the next week at church.
Mr. Scoutmaster took it well and told her, "If Ron has any interest in scouting in the future, just give me a call."
I hope he wasn't waiting by the telephone.
Speaking of wrestling, it really was the biggest thing on early TV, along with a comedian named Milton Berle and some fat guy named Arthur Godfrey, who had a variety show.
My uncle George bought us a TV, an Admiral 14." It was about 16" high and wide and around 2 1/2' deep. It was a wondrous thing. This was probably 1953 or 54.
The first TV we ever saw in someone's house was in my cousins Betty and Barb's place about 1952. It was a console TV with a seven inch screen. We would sit there in the living room in complete darkness, with every light in the house turned off and watch Arthur Godfrey or Milton Berle. Someone would grope their way to the kitchen to get a Coke and the refrigerator light would come on, but before they could close the door, someone from the living room would yell, "Close that door, we're trying to watch TV in here!"
After the station signed off at 11:00, we would get up and go home and there would be a seven inch white blur in front of our eyes for the rest of the night. Sometimes there were traces of it still there in the morning.
But wrestling from California on friday night was the big event of the week. Mom would say, "Wrestling, my goodness, who would watch that?"
Well, within two weeks of watching TV, she was the biggest wrestling fan on the block. Jack and I enjoyed sitting on the front porch, looking through the window, watching her watch wrestling. She would ball her fists, bite her lip, and make numerous faces at the TV. We would go in and say, "How's it going mom?" And she would scowl, "Oh, I just hate that Mister Moto. He's so smug and he cheats!"
I later found out that Donna's grandmother did the same thing.
It is now early 2026 and of the top 100 most watched shows on TV for the year 2025, 98 were sports events and wrestling wasn't even mentioned.