MY VERY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUHAMMAD ALI
I first met Muhammad Ali in August 1974, after my first wedding, as he was exiting the office of Howard University PresidentJames Edward Cheek, which I was about to enter.
On my arm was my beautiful bride.
The encounter was so sudden and the personage so startling , that I just gasped, "Muhammad Ali!" He smiled. Looked at me, briefly, he then, shifted his gaze to my wife, who was laughing from ear to ear.
As I introduced him to my wife, he smoothly floated like a butterfly, then kissed her cheek like a bee! She beamed in gratitude, broadly.
Utterly outdone by such brazenly presumptuous behavior by Ali, I proceeded to throw up my dukes! He threw up his, and advanced at me. I then did the Ali Shuffle away!
Great memory!
My next encounter with the great Muhammad Ali occurred several years later in Chicago at a hotel, during my Mama's Family reunion .
Once again, I was shocked to see him at the Lakeshore Hotel. I asked Mama (now deceased) what Ali was doing at our family reunion ?
She then said that he was some to us kin. 'Kin?' Muhammad Ali? How was he kin to us, I asked? She then went through some rather prolix explanation that totally lost me, after the first cousin, whoever from wherever! Anyway, there he was, live and in the flesh in this photo with Mama, Margie Dean Coleman!
Saturday, June 4, 2016
MY VERY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUHAMMAD ALI
MY VERY CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUHAMMAD ALI
I first met Muhammad Ali in August 1974, after my first wedding, as he was exiting the office of Howard University PresidentJames Edward Cheek, which I was about to enter.
On my arm was my beautiful bride.
The encounter was so sudden and the personage so startling , that I just gasped, "Muhammad Ali!" He smiled. Looked at me, briefly, he then, shifted his gaze to my wife, who was laughing from ear to ear.
As I introduced him to my wife, he smoothly floated like a butterfly, then kissed her cheek like a bee! She beamed in gratitude, broadly.
Utterly outdone by such brazenly presumptuous behavior by Ali, I proceeded to throw up my dukes! He threw up his, and advanced at me. I then did the Ali Shuffle away!
Great memory!
My next encounter with the great Muhammad Ali occurred several years later in Chicago at a hotel, during my Mama's Family reunion .
Once again, I was shocked to see him at the Lakeshore Hotel. I asked Mama (now deceased) what Ali was doing at our family reunion ?
She then said that he was some to us kin. 'Kin?' Muhammad Ali? How was he kin to us, I asked? She then went through some rather prolix explanation that totally lost me, after the first cousin, whoever from wherever! Anyway, there he was, live and in the flesh in this photo with Mama, Margie Dean Coleman!
