THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602250050
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
After consuming a steady diet of CNN, C-Span and the networks over the past four weeks, I think I've come to know Iowa and New Hampshire as well as I know Sir Walter Raleigh Street.
And, in turn, I've come to know the candidates for President of the United States. Bill Clinton likes everybody at some time or another, depending on the political wind. One thing is certain: He is committed to Egg McMuffins following a morning run.
I'm not sure what Bob Dole's likes and dislikes are, but he figures he's been around so long, we all should like him.
Steve Forbes gets a warm-fuzzy spending money. Pat Buchanan is fond of big walls to keep the rest of the world away from us. And Lamar Alexander favors red flannel shirts. One fashion tip, Gov. Alexander: The flannel shirt loses its blue-collar appeal when worn over a Brooks Brothers button-down.
I have just one question of the candidates, an inquiry I think will speak volumes concerning their fitness for the most powerful office in the world.
When you were a kid, did you like professional wrestling?
No, Mr. Forbes, I don't mean wrestling as in Greco-Roman. I'm talking about Rasslin'. You know, Gorgeous George, Texas Barbed-Wire Matches, Saturday night battle royales played out in jam-packed armories and auditoriums in virtually every town that had a building of any size.
What brought all this up was a package that came this week from a friend. Stuffed among the goodies was a ``Where are they now?'' article about Len Rossi.
These days, 66-year-old Len Rossi runs a health food store in Nashville. But in the 1960s in Alabama, he was Birmingham's rasslin' hero. Every Saturday night, my buddies and I would crowd around the small black-and-white television at my grandmother's house, enthralled as Len and his tag-team partner Bearcat Brown wrestled masked marauders from ``Parts Unknown.''
In those days, it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad. The evil-doers wore masks. Parts Unknown, we would learn later, were places like Hope Hull, Ala., Scuba, Miss., and Bayonne, N.J., all exotic ports-of-call indeed.
We would cheer for Len and Bearcat, and for the following week, on school playgrounds and in our backyards, we would try a series of ``moves'' on each other - Boston Crabs, Airplane Spins, Hammer Locks.
Sometimes we would break out bathrobes, which, with a bit of imagination, would become the silken garments of our heroes. We would slam each other's heads into imaginary turnbuckles. And more than one of my friends got a serious whipping for trying to put his little brother or sister in Len Rossi's patented ``Sleeper Hold,'' which sent hapless opponents off to the Land of Nod faster than the federal tax code.
The big wrestling promoter in Birmingham was Nick Gulas, owner of a local restaurant, who looked as though he used Valvoline 40-weight on his hair. When he would interview the ``Masked Marauder Number 1,'' eventually it would become a shouting match, and Gulas would bounce the hooded henchman from the screen. But you always knew Len Rossi was a good guy. He always said ``Thank you'' and ``Yes, sir'' to Gulas.
On Saturday night, the line between right and wrong was there in black and white.
Now I know rasslin' is fake. But in our childhoods, it was as real as Sunday fried chicken. In the article, Len Rossi said he doesn't watch his sport anymore. People cheer for the bad guys now, he says, and the divider between good and evil is not so clear.
That's why I want to know about the candidates and rasslin'. If they watched it in the old days, they know a little bit about the difference between right and wrong. Good and evil. Heroes and villains.
Electing someone who really understands that difference will help us in a grown-up world where bad guys don't wear masks anymore. by CNB