Wrestling Matches

My father was a life-saver for me, and he was fun and sweet, and I was so proud of him and so happy he was my daddy.

You know how hard and long my parents worked just to make ends meet. Fortunately, I think they really did enjoy working. They enjoyed picking out the best fruits and vegetables, buying, selling, dealing with customers, making a living and all that.

The main recreation my parents had was to play poker. When my parents played cards, they played a penny and two with relatives. I don’t think there were babysitters in those days. Everyone brought their children.

How well I remember the story my mother would tell of how my cousin Eugene fell asleep under our dining room table, and Uncle Max and Aunt Etta and went home without him before they remembered and came back to get him.

At a young age, I knew how to play poker.

My mother, who loved stories, especially enjoyed movies, as you can imagine, and we’d also sometimes go to movies as a family.

My father had two additional pleasures -- smoking his pipe and going to wrestling matches. He would take me to the wrestling matches with him. My brother and sister didn’t come along, just me. I was always the one chosen!

Isn’t it bizarre that I grew up on poker and wrestling matches?

Once there were ladies wrestling in mud, and I remember a spot of mud spattered on my coat. And that’s all I remember except the joy of going somewhere with my father and holding his hand -- and one other time that I’m going to tell you about now.

I had just turned six that April. Children under six got in to the wrestling matches free. This one time my father told me that if the ticket-seller asked me my age, I should say I was five years old. Of course, I always happily did whatever my father asked me.

At the same time, I was a listener to stories where everyone always told the truth. I was also going to kindergarten where it was drilled into us that all good people tell the truth. Besides, I was proud and excited to be six years old.

As my father had predicted, the ticket-seller asked me how old I was.

Of course, I cannot compare this scene with the one in Sophie’s Choice where Meryl Streep had to choose which of her children would live and which would die. Nevertheless, when the time came, it was a huge dilemma I was facing. Do I choose my father over telling the truth, or choose the truth over my love for my father?

When the ticket-seller asked me my age, he looked at me knowingly, as my dear father was nodding to me. I know I turned red. It took me a long time before I whispered, “Six.”

The ticket-seller said nothing to me. He smirked and held out his open hand to my father.

My father carefully counted out the change from his pocket and paid for me, and we went in.

My father had grown smaller, and I felt his humiliation.

It is only now as I write this that I understand why I was the one my father always took to the wrestling matches with him. This reason does not take away from the fact that I was, nevertheless, my father's favorite child.