I dreamed of my father last night (regarding Muhammad Ali)

[Hoyt]

7. In the first Frazier vs. Ali fight, my dad was a Frazier fan -- being that Ali was "a loud mouth and

stood up to the government as he did." I understood, I suppose, because my dad was a WWII vet and grew up in that time when people weren't loud. Anyway, my dad took me to the closed circuit telecast. We had two choices -- The Dinkler Plaza hotel or the bigger Memorial Auditorium. Dad choose the Dinkler Plaza because it was "less likely to be an unruly crowd," or something Archie Bunker might say like that.

Well we sat down among a bunch or unruly white yahoos, one of whom threw a chair that I just managed to duck. Several other punches were throw, and some pretty ugly things were yelled.

After that fight, I went by myself to the Memorial Auditorium to see other Ali fights on closed circuit. Had the best time because everyone there was a big Ali fan.

At the Ali/Foreman fight, I sat next to a guy who looked just like Floyd Patterson. We talked about how we were afraid Ali might be hurt and stuff like that. After the fight we danced and hugged, along with everyone. We never expected Ali to win, but we sure wanted him to.

Ali changed the way I looked at a lot of things. To this day, I like to workout on the heavy bag and dance as best I can. I think Ali changed my dad a bit too.

Great OP.