Grandpa Prater's Wrestling Moves

My Grandpa Prater, my mother's father, was a big man, towering over my father and uncles, and rugged even in his mid-60s, with thick arms and shoulders and huge hands.  He wore overalls, sometimes with a white t-shirt underneath, sometimes without, so you could see his hard round pecs dusted with white hair.

He was a man's man, always doing something with his sons and sons-in law and various friends: hunting, fishing, playing horseshoes, working on cars.

He had a thick Kentucky accent that was virtually incomprehensible, but he didn't say much anyway.  When the family gathered in the living room to play cards and exchange gossip, he kept silent unless someone asked him a question.  The indoors was uncomfortably stuffy; he'd rather be out with his friends and some dogs on a midnight hunt.

The only time he perked up was when someone asked him to play his banjo.  Then he'd play "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" or "Cotton Eyed Joe," as good, and as fast, as the Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs at the Grand Ole Opry.

There was a sadness about him that I didn't pick up on when I was a kid.  Something deep and dark, that the little joys of everyday life couldn't penetrate.  It wasn't just that he had lost his wife, three older brothers, and four of his eleven children.  It was a dream deferred, a hope from his childhood that he abandoned.

More about that later.

I have two good stories with Grandpa Prater.  The first is about judo.

The summer after fifth grade.  We're all at the farmhouse, but my brother and Cousin Buster are off somewhere, so I'm the only kid.  Dad and my uncles are up by the Old House, playing horseshoes.  I'm not allowed because I'm too little.  I don't necessarily like horseshoes, but I like hanging out with the men, especially when my only other option is sitting in the farmhouse with my Mom and aunts, gossipping about who did what with whom thirty years ago.

I'm wandering aimlessly through the side yard and the rhubarb patch when Grandpa Prater appears, wraps his huge paw around my shoulder, and says "I hear you're taking wrestling."

(I'm not going to try to transliterate his incomprehensible Kentucky accent.  Use your imagination.)

"Wrestling?  No, I'm studying judo.  It's a Japanese sport.  We wear white robes and throw each other."

"Judo?"  He repeats the unfamiliar word.  "Did you know I was a wrestler in high school?"

He takes my hand and leads me up the hill toward the Old House.  It's difficult to understand him, but by interrupting with many questions, I get the gist of his story:

In the Kentucky hills in the 1920s, it was unusual to go past the eighth grade, but the adolescent Tony (who I assume looked like this) was smart as a whip, so his parents allowed him to go on through twelfth grade at Salyersville High School. His best subject was music -- he sang and played the banjo, like on the Grand Ole Opry. That got the bullies riled, so to prove that he was a he-man, he went out for wrestling and basketball, too.

I have that problem!  At Denkmann, raising your hand too often or getting high grades on too many tests draws the ire of Mean Boys.

By now we are on top of the hill, in the men-only zone behind the Old House.  Dad asks, "Wanna join us, Tony?"

He doesn't ask me.

"Well, sure, but right now Boomer's going to show you all his wrestling moves.  Judo, I mean."

I'm what?   Try to throw someone who is twice as tall as me, and a solid mass of muscle?  And my grandpa?  I don't think so!

But Dad and my uncles are gathered around to watch the show.

"C'mon, you can't hurt me.  I'm strong as an ox.  I was wrestling guys before your Daddy was born."

Sighing, I grab Grandpa by the shoulder and hip and try the easiest throw, basically tripping your opponent.  To my surprise, he goes down easily and pulls me on top of him.

"Dagnabit, you did it!" he exclaims.  "That there judo is powerful stuff.  Now pin me.  Come on, pin me to the ground!"

I scamper on top of him, feeling his hard firm chest, smelling his Aqua Velva cologne and hint of whiskey, and press his arms over his head.

He pushes his arms down and slides me down his trunk, as easily as one might push off a pair of pants.  I feel his hard belly and the mass of his crotch.

"Well, your pinning needs some work, but other than that, you're a natural.  Hear that, Frank?  You sign this boy up for wrestling!"

Dad grins at me as if I've achieved a major goal.  And maybe I have.  "C'mon, Boomer," he says, "Play horseshoes with us.  You're old enough now."

I did go out for wrestling a year later, when I started junior high.

The next story about my grandpa involves sneaking into his bedroom to "borrow" his banjo.

See also: Grandpa Prater and his Banjo

Is My Judo Master Gay?

Rock Island, January 1971

Denkmann Elementary School didn't have any sports teams, so I was spared the "play a sport...play a sport...play a sport" litany.  Until the beginning of fifth grade, the fall of 1970, when Dad suddenly came home with a pamphlet advertising "Rock Island Parks & Recreation Kids’ Sports.”

"It’s not just ball games, Skeezix,” Dad said. “They have boxing, judo, and karate. Those will be better at teaching you to fight anyway.”

“Couldn’t I join the orchestra instead?”

“Orchestra won’t teach you how to use your fists,” Mom pointed out. “You’re going to have to learn to fight sooner or later. All boys do.”

I sighed.  I get punched by a Mean Boy one time, and they start a "learn to fight" kick, insisting that people will be challenging me to fistfights regularly for the rest of my life.

Or maybe they were responding to the incident at the A&W, when Bill and I became "a Mama and a Papa."  Or asking for an Easy Bake Oven for my birthday.

“How about we make a deal?” Dad said. “You can join the orchestra if you take one of these classes, too. Boxing, judo, karate, whichever you want.”

Judo seemed the least horrible – no actual hitting, and you got snacks – so when the new kids’ classes began in January, I walked four blocks west to 38th Street, to the Rock Island Martial Arts Center. I changed into my stiff white judogi with the novice white belt, and learned about bowing, falling, and randori, or exercises on the mat.

I considered sneaking through the glass doors, looking at the comic books at Schneider’s for an hour or so, then going home and lying to Mom and Dad about how much fun I had. But it was too cold to go outside without a coat, and besides, most of the other students were cute junior high boys, and if I stuck around I might be able to see them take their judogis off in the locker room.



The sensei, or teacher, a Japanese guy named Sammy, was tall and broad-shouldered, with a smooth, golden chest slightly dampened with sweat (I don't have any pictures, but he looked like Japanese bodybuilder Hidetada Yamagishi). During the break, when we got to drink tea and eat almond cookies, he took me aside and wrapped a huge hard arm around my shoulders and said “Don’t worry that you are little. Some of our greatest champions are little guys. I bet in a month or two, you will be able to throw me.”

And, in a month or two, I did manage to throw Sammy (but he helped, practically leaping over my hip). I started to look forward to my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at the dojo, with the tinkling Japanese samisen music, the faint smell of bleach and incense, the cute junior high boys, and Sammy’s fascinating stories.

One night during break, as we were eating almond cookies, Sammy said, “I better stock up. At home all we got is peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Why don’t you tell your wife to make pot roast?” I asked. “That’s what Uncle Charlie always makes on My Three Sons.”

“We never have that,” Sammy said with a weird half-smile. “Too complicated to make, too many ingredients.”

Why was pot roast too hard for his wife? I wondered. Weren’t all grown-up women expert cooks? But. . .boys couldn’t cook, or if we tried, it had to be something easy. When Mom was in the hospital having my baby sister, Dad made macaroni and cheese three nights in a row.

The answer was obvious: Sammy was married to a man, not a woman!

I didn't know the word "gay" yet, but I assumed that Sammy was in a same-sex relationship for almost a year.  Until the summer after fifth grade, when he invited some of his best students to his house for a cookout.

When Dad dropped me off and I walked onto the screened-in porch and knocked, the door was answered by a petite Caucasian woman in a flowered blouse and Capri shorts. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. Sammy was married to a woman after all.

Where were all the men married to men?  Or were they all forced to marry women?  Maybe the litany "what girl do you like" shifted gradually, as you grew older, to "you must choose a wife!"  And if you refused, you would be forced.