"Great One" and "Greatest"

A Shared Talent

When I learned from my parents that they were sending me to private school for the seventh grade I was not too happy!  I ran away from home for the first time though not far.  I stayed over at my friend Phil's house in the Morningside Park neighborhood. I did not make it there long sneaking back into our carport and the back seat of mom's car before midnight.

The school Miami Country Day was a bit of a trek being in Miami Shores. We lived in an upscale gated -actually walled- community called Bay Point right on Biscayne Boulevard. Our privileged community included well known and famous denizens of the business and celebrity world. 

I would often take the bus to school and sometimes Stevey Philbin and his father would pull over and offer me a ride. I  would learn later that Stevey's father's name was Jack and he was producer of the TV show "The Honeymooners".  That popular TV show was one of my dad Harold's favorite shows. I have fond memories of Harold, in his favorite chair, rolling in laughter in front of the TV set watching the antics of Ralph and Norton.

Amongst the kids in my neighborhood there was a girl named Nuni Pacheco.  I did not know her but of her. In Miami even in the early 60's there was strong Latin American influence. Word was that her father, Dr. Pacheco, was involved in the sport of boxing. Ground zero in professional boxing during this time was a small Gym we could see to the left on our way to surfing at South Beach. And then there was a young black man who used to take advantage of the secure privacy of our walled neighborhood to do some roadwork. His name was Cassius Clay. This young man would become known to the world as Muhammad Ali.

My father would pass on in the early days of my private school experience.  Advisers would suggest to my mom that I would be better as a boarding student than as a day school commuter. The idea that I was boarding at a school located in my home town did not sit well with me. However one of my most cherished memories of that period took place in my dorm room on a cold night in February, 1964. In the "lights out" darkness, my roommate Forrest and I listened to the crackling transistor radio broadcast of the Clay-Liston fight just across Biscayne Bay at Miami Beach Convention Center. Clay's lightning quick knockout punch was electrifying even through the small radio I held in my hand!

Years later paths would cross again. Our family would move from Miami to Hialeah, Florida. Our condominium would sit on the eighteenth fairway of the east course at the Country Club of Miami. Guess who owned a home there? The club built a rehearsal studio for Jackie Gleason and so he built a home there. The TV show was then called "The Jackie Gleason Show" and it was taped at the same Miami Beach Convention Center that young Cassius Clay had won the Heavyweight title years earlier. And I would see Gleason in his custom golf cart coming up the fairway. And yes, it had a full bar built in! Our family would get Christmas cards from his.

And then in Atlanta, 1996 as United Distributors  Account Manager for Olympic Venues I would watch, a stones throw away, as the trembling Muhammad Ali would light the Torch during opening ceremonies. In turbulent times these awesome childhood and adult experiences provided glimpses of the Kingdom we hear about from the risen Christ in the New Testament. May we find the common thread between "The Great One" and "The Greatest"!

Amen Brothers

Bradford Bosworth

June, 2016