Before and After Deer Lake Part One

appraise, apprise. The former means to estimate value: the latter to inform. For example, Evelyn appraised the art work then apprised the owner of it's value.

I got blizzarded and sold out of the first Ali-Frazier fight.

Yes, a March 8 blizzard made driving nearly impossible and I lived a long way from the Auditorium. The Auditorium was the theater that screened the HBO production of Ali-Frazier. Back in those days, a pay per view event did not appear on teevee. We had travel if we expected to participate. By the time I glascaded to the Auditorium, the unthinkable had happened. The venue was completely sold out and occupied. Absolutely zero tickets were available.

I cross-countried home and listened to a heavily edited version of the fight  in my living room along with brother Deke and our best friend Johnny Crown. I'll tell the story of that evening some other time, for now it's merely prologue.

I vowed I would NOT miss the rematch.

As usual, I overcompensated.

When the inevitable rematch was scheduled for Madison Square Garden, I contacted my buddy in New York city and asked him to pick me up two ringside seats for the fight; one for me and one for Deke.

The ringside tickets cost an unheard of 100 bucks apiece.

The day of the fight arrived. We put on our rented tuxedos and flew to New York. All of our buddies were going to watch the fight on closed circuit again at the Auditorium. This time everybody bought their tickets in advance. My pals gave us a big send off at the airport as part of their pre-fight celebration.

We arrived in The Apple and made our way over to Crazy Joe's apartment. We had a few beers at Joe's and headed to the Garden. The gigantic poster in Times Square at the time was of Al Pacino as Sepico.

We made our way to the Garden.

We paused outside for gyros and souvlavki.

We went inside.

Our "ringside" seats proved to be pretty far from ringside because even though we wore tuxedos our name wasn't Sinatra or anything close to that although the actor who played the Son from Sanford and Son had the seat next to mine.

Big time, baby.

I had a nice new 35 millimeter Canon DSL. I was proud of that camera and thought I was Ice Sports Illustrated Photographer Pacino.

This was the first time that I was ever in the same room as Ali and Frazier. It would not be the last

stay tuned