I am always amazed at the small coincidences that occur over the course of a lifetime. Despite the fact that I know that among the myriad events that occur in the universe some events, for a particular person or penguin, will have a tenuous connection with at least one other event; in an infinite universe, it would surely be impossible for it not be so. Still I am still surprised, intrigued when it happens.
Now, back in the days when TV was in black and white only and there were still 240 pennies to the pound, there was a long forgotten phenomenon called British 'professional wrestling'. I say long forgotten because it was little akin to the kind of glitzy razzamatazz so beloved at the WWE. This was fully in keeping with the television of those far off days. Staged in little 'local' arenas, seating perhaps a few hundreds, an evening's cheap 'entertainment' could be had watching two, sometimes four, men act as though they were engaged in some kind of competitive sport. Boxing without the gloves, gladiators without the gladius*.
Then, as now, there would be good guys and bad guys and you could pretty much guess who was going to win; it was always set up before the fight. Well MG tells a story of his Gran who used to live downstairs in the two up, two down 'Victorian artisan dwelling' that was home for the first 18 years of his life, complete with no running hot water, no central heating and a 'privy' in the garden. His Gran used to religously watch the 'wrestling' every Satuday afternoon at 4:00pm and would just as religiously shout mild obscenities at the TV (Gran didn't swear or cuss) about the digusting behaviour of some of the performers, the bad guys. The same guys, week in, week out, Jackie Pallo, Steve McManus, Steve Logan (who all came from the 'rough' areas of London), cheating, 'punching', hitting the man when he was down, you know the kind of stuff, and every week his mother, on hearing voices, would go downstairs to check that one of her sisters or brothers had not come to call on their mother. This itself just goes to show what kind of dysfunctional family MG actually was bred into. After months of this, still it fails to register. It's 4:15pm, it's Saturday, of course Gran is railing at the TV again! Of course no-one would visit without calling up the stairs first.
Anyways, as a child MG too would watch the wrestling, upstairs on his parents' TV. They weren't affluent but, God, you'd better have your own TV set. Now MG, like every little boy who thinks there might be some justice in the world, would always be rooting for the 'good guys'; Mike Marino, Tibor Szakacs, Les Kellet, Catweazel and, most of all, Billy Two Rivers. Billy was perhaps the most flamboyant of wrestlers in an age when flamboyance just didn't sit very well with the Brits. Pallo had his gold lame cape but Rivers came on in full cheiftain's headdress, like Geronimo in the movies, and a full on raiding, Mohawk haircut; just a track of hair down the middle, front to back, spiked up, just like some proto punk!
Now as gimmicks go, this wasn't bad for austerity Britain and the general concensus was that he proably came from Bolton or Manchester. After all Kendo Nagasaki came from Stoke!
Now, recently I came across something called the 'Oka Crisis'. The town of Oka, in Canada, sits alongside a Mohawk 'reservation' called Kahnawake. In 1990 a dispute arose over some sacred, to the Mohawks, ground outside of Oka. It was believed by the Mohawks to be held 'in trust' by some Christian 'brotherhood' who had built a 'mission' on it but when the mission was abandoned, the Canadian government did not agree that the Mohawks had any right to the land, despite the fact it was a major burial ground for the Kahnawake people.
The crisis came when the Mayor of Oka decided to extend the 9 hole golf course that ran adjacent to the 'sacred' ground. Needless to say, the golf course was going to go right over the disputed land. Where else? After all, these were only indigenous people we were talking about, it's not like they mattered.
Anyways, the Mohawks armed themselves, set up road blocks and basically staged an occupation. It all got a little nasty when a policeman was shot when the police tried to break up the occupation and the state government called in the Federal army. Eventually, after a couple of weeks, with the army only five yards away from the barricades, it all ended 'amicably', ie bloodlessly. The Mohawks retired back to their reservation and the Mayor never got around to extending the golf course.
And one of the leaders of the Mohawk occupation? Billy Two Rivers!
Not from Bolton, after all. I wonder if the soldiers ever got to feel the 'tomahawk chop'.
* gladius - a short, Roman sword, whence is derived 'gladiator'; he (or she) who fights with a gladius.
Hey. You still here?
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