Ronnie Dee--October Fights

October Fights

Ronnie Dee

Photo by cottonbro studio at Pexels.

Bud and I did some silly things now and then and I can't tell you why. Like the night we laid down in the middle of 34th Street. It was a busy street and, I don't know, maybe we had a dare to see who would get up first or something, but we did it.

We had been there for a few minutes with, luckily no traffic, when a guy named Bennie, whom we knew from the neighborhood, ran out and grabbed both of us. He was a pretty big guy and he had one of us in each hand. He yanked us to the curb and cursed us out, good. I still don't have a clue why we did such a thing, but I guess it was something to do.

Bud and I were involved in an incident not entirely our fault when we attended the Shawnee vs. Valley High football game. Shawnee was from deep in the West End and Valley Station was on the outer fringe of both Louisville and respectability in those days.

I have no idea why we decided to go to the game because Valley was a long trip all the way across town and Bud wasn't much of a sports fan ro begin with. We were several years out of high school, but there we were, heading all the way out to Valley on a friday night. It was a very pleasant evening in the early autumn and there were not many Shawnee fans at the game. We were beaten pretty easily, as Shawnee was never very good in football, except for one season, I believe it was 1965.

Shawnee was perpetually 2-8 and 2-9. In '65 they lost their first game and then won nine games in a row. They were led by Lee Bouggess, a running back who went on to star at the University of Louisville and play three years for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Things didn't go so well in Valley Station that night. Somehow we got into a post game shouting match with a bunch of Valley fans and as we headed out to the parking lot, we found ourselves surrounded by about a dozen guys from Valley and they weren't being very nice. There were several guys in Bud's face and one of them must have been the local badass because there was an "Alright" and "Now here we go" as this husky guy stepped up. There were a couple of twerpy guys in my face as well.

I looked around and a huge crowd had gathered. I thought, "What in the world is going on. Where did all of these people come from all of a sudden? Man, we are in big trouble right now." There was a little pushing and shoving and then a couple of non lethal punches were thrown. I took a quick glance over at Bud and the big guy that was on him was walking away. When my attackers noticed that, they immediately scurried away and the crowd dispersed more quickly than it had appeared.

We were suddenly alone and I asked Bud, "What in the Hell happened here?"

He said, "Well, we were squaring up and the guy says, 'What are we fighting about?' I told him I didn't know and he shrugged and said, 'Neither do I, the hell with this,' then he shook my hand and walked away."

So we started to leave when a gang of junior high kids began throwing rocks at us. We were well outnumbered, so we hot-footed it for the car and got out of there. We got to Dixie Highway and started for home when a couple of cars passed us and yelled all kinds of things at us. We yelled back, and I asked, "What is the matter with these people? They won the game." I couldn't figure who they were or why they were yelling at us. How did they know they were supposed to yell at us? The next thing we knew, lights started flashing behind us and Bud was pulled over.

I was placed in the police car, in the back seat of a two-door police cruiser. I had never seen that before, I thought they were all four-doors. But the cop told Bud to follow him to the station, and took off. He zoomed down Dixie Highway a ways, leaving Bud in the dust, and pulled into the police station parking lot and stopped. I looked out the back window and Bud was nowhere in sight. I thought, "Good God, what now?"

The cop starts, "Son, I'm the Valley Station Chief of Police."

He then lectured me on the foul language we used and how he hoped his daughter, a Valley student, didn't hear any of it. It was rather salty language, but the Valley kids were as bad as we were and I told him so. I was thinking, "Geez, get me out of here," when I looked through the window again and saw Bud going slowly down the street. I pushed the front seat up and jumped out of the car. I started hollering at Bud and waving my arms. He spotted me but he was on the opposite side of the street and had to go down the block to turn around. He finally got squared away, came down the right side and pulled into the lot. I ran toward the car and the Chief was coming right behind me. I told Bud, "This guy is the Valley Station Chief of Police."

So he walks up to Bud and says ,"Son, I am the Valley Station Chief of Police." and proceeded to give him the lecture.

Then he says, "Now you guys can go on home, and be nicer if you come back for another visit. We'd like to see you come back again."

Yeah, of course you would.

Were we ever glad to get out of there and get back to the West End. I thought, "It was a good thing I wasn't armed. You just never know what you might get into when you go out."

I didn't go back to Valley for a long time. Bud bought a house there about six or seven years later.

And that reminds me of another brawl involving the cursed Outlaws motorcycle gang. Everywhere they go, they start trouble. This time it was during the annual Octoberfest, where there were several outdoor concerts. I was there with T and Beaver. "Beaver" was Beverly, my future sister in law, although we didn't know it at the time. T was her fiance'. We had really good seats near the stage. Everything was going smoothly when an Outlaw got into it with someone about something, so of course, all of the other Outlaws had to join in and the next thing you know, a full fledged brawl started right in front of us.

T, who knew some of the Outlaws said, "I'm going to see if I can talk some sense to these guys." Yeah, good luck with that, T.

Beaver jumped up and grabbed at him, yelling, "T, stay out of it. You'll get hurt!"

T then said, "Take care of her, Ronnie," and shoved her at me.

I grabbed her and carried her over to the stage, where she continued to kick and fight, and I laid down on the stage floor and rolled her over.

The fight was in full swing, as it were, and there was some guy standing right in front of us, fending off a couple of guys by swinging a folding chair back and forth. Every time he swung the chair, it whooshed over our heads by a few inches. Beav had calmed down by now and curled up on the stage floor. But I still held her down, because I knew how she was.

She probably only weighed 125 pounds, but she was feisty. In the Outlook Inn one night, T got into it with some guy and Beaver jumped up onto a chair to try and pull the guy off T, when he turned around and punched her in the face. She fell off the chair and ended up with two big, black eyes. Fortunately there was no other damage and she completely recovered.

Back at the Octoberfest, the lights came on and the police arrived and the fighting wound down. Everybody then began to gather their stuff and drift away. The concert was over.

T showed up unscathed, and thanked me for taking care of Beav. She thanked me too, and we laughed as we told T about the guy with the chair, as we departed the premises.

Just another night at the Octoberfest.