SLY MONGOOSE

By Roger Esty

Boxing,jazz,food,and women were ol' Arch's priorities of thought as I could tell. Not necessarily in that order. I'm sure he switched them around when the mood told him. However as his beard grew more gray,his involvement with kids I think edged into that category. It was something he could give back.His life experiences. What he had seen. That was important to him.

I used to watch him fight on TV when I was a kid. The first Durelle fight might have gotten more people hooked on boxing than any other fight of that decade. When I finally stumbled upon knowing him a little many years later,I don't think boxing was as much a preference as teaching what he had learned from his life as a boxer.

Archie Moore believed that a man's word was the the most valued commodity a person could acquire. I'll pass this along again because the person who told me this story recently passed away. Bobby Rodriguez was a kid in San Diego when Moore was about to fight Marciano for the title. Bobby grew up in the fields in the San Jouquin Valley picking lettuce with his parents to help make things meet. While Bobby was working in the fields he came down with TB.

Bobby was sent to the TB ward at County Hospital down in San Diego. Archie Moore(for whatever reason)came to visit the patients. Bobby told me everyone was excited. Just seeing Archie smile made all the sick kids happy.

Well Archie promised those kids he'd win the heavy weight title. And when he won that title, he'd come back and show the belt to the kids. Well we know what happened.

But Archie came back anyway. He'd promised the kids he'd return,but he wasn't wearing the crown. Bobby told me that Archie felt he had let those kids down. Hell,those boys were just happy to see their favorite fighter.

Bobby used to own the Elbo Rest Bar in National City. i bet he had told that story more than a thousand times. And I bet he loved to tell it. When I last saw Bobby he was in the death grasp of diabetes. You knew it was going to get him. Then a few months ago I saw the "For Sale" sign on the door. The panaderia guy next door said that Bobby had died. The family was selling the place.

Too bad the panaderia guy didn't have the key. I wanted to sit at the bar with a cold one and have Bobby run that story one more time by me.