Wrestling with.........Whatever?

Good evening. It's nine fifteen p.m. in the Heart of Dixie, sweet home Alabama. I have, it seems, survived another birthday. I suppose that's to be expected since I'm going to live till I'm one hundred and one years old. That would make my death occurring at some point after the middle of July in the year of our Lord two thousand and fifty. ( :-D ) Let me interject here that I'm looking forward to every day till that time. Ok, enough of that. Let me now relate an event that happened somewhere around the beginning of the decade of the seventies. My friend, Mike Swartz, with whom I was serving in the Navy with at the time was working in a shop in Attack Squadron eighty six. The shop He was working in was called QA. Nope, that doesn't stand for question answer. It stood for Quality Assurance. Mike's job, along with the other guys in the shop was to do periodic inspections of work performed on the aircraft to insure that the work done met the standards set by the Department of the Navy. Enough of that that though. There was in that shop with Mike a guy (I can't recall his name) that was into professional wrestling. Maybe it would be better to say that he was obsessed with it. He not only didn't believe it wasn't fake, he'd pretty much fight anyone to prove that it was absolutely real. He of course had his favorite(s) and followed each "fight" with great interested. It was also his favorite thing to talk about. Maybe that's the reason he ate lunch alone so often. ( :-D ) Anyway, I digress. This sailor one day began asking Mike to attend a wrestling match at the civic center in Jacksonville, FL. On a particular night. Maybe 'asking' isn't the right word. The better word would be badgering. After a week or so of this Mike finally told him that ok, he'd go with him but only this once. As it turned out once was all that was available. From this point on I'll relate the facts as closely as I can recall Mike's telling of them. After arriving at the civic center they entered the area in which the aforementioned match would take place. Having arrived early they obtained seats on the floor and on the aisle and about 10 rows from the ring in which the 'fights' would be held. After a wait of almost an hour the announcer finally took the microphone and announced the order of fights and the participants of said fights. Ok, to make a long post a bit shorter I'll go straight to the good part. It was about the third or fourth match that Mike's friends favorite wrestler was scheduled. This particular wrestler happened to be the "good guy" persona wrestler and badly lost the match, the "bad guy" persona winning by an landslide. Oh yeah, He won by "cheating". Mike's friend, having seeing all of this, was by the end of the match in a total rage. At that point in time the favorite was laying in the ring groaning. (chuckle chuckle) Here came the bad guy winner strutting down the aisle toward his dressing room. As he approached Mike's seat, the friend, not being able to contain himself any longer, jumped to his feet, grabbed the folding chair in which he'd been sitting, folded it and hit the unsuspecting 'wrestler' on the head. I know, I know. Wrestlers get hit with those chairs all the time, but this time this particular guy was hit across the forehead with the edge, not the flat part. Now, I don't want to sound bloodthirsty but blood did go everywhere. The friend was "wrestled" to the floor by security and eventually taken to jail. The wrestler, it turned out, had a severe concussion and a fractured skull. He was out of the ring for several months. Our skipper (commanding officer) had to go the next day and get his sailor out of jail. He was able to "wrestle" jurisdiction from the civil authorities and exercised discipline himself, part of which was being forbid ever going to another wrestling match as long as he was in that command. Oh the woes we bring on ourselves. Needless to say, we never let Mike or the friend live down the event. .........And so it went..........