The Summer of Boxing

I don’t remember how Dennis cut his hand, but to make the story interesting I’ll say he cut it on a broken pop bottle at the bottom of the creek bed. We were always messing around in the creek and that’s as good as explanation as any, but in any event it was a nasty cut. Now-a-days, he would have been taken to the nearest clinic or hospital to have the wound stitch closed, but my mother grew up believing the doctors and hospitals were only for the nearly dead. Even so, dripping blood all over the house usually got her attention. Mom was pretty good at patching us up and for deep, gaping wounds, she constructed a “butterfly bandage.” She used medical tape to fashion a two-part bandage. It looked sort of like a key and a keyhole. By threading one part of the bandage into the other, after affixing each piece to opposite sides of the wound, she could draw the cut closed. And with any luck, it would hold together long enough to heal. It was after Dennis received just such a mending that the famous “Witmer – Long” fight occurred.

I don’t know where the boxing gloves came from, but if any of the parents, in the neighborhood, had given five seconds of consideration; they might have realized that giving boxing gloves to a bunch of fifth and sixth-graders was a bad idea. Of course there was no corresponding protective gear. No mouth guards, no head gear, no groin cups, just two pair of gloves; two pair of gloves, begging us to put them on and hit somebody. And, of course we did. Who knows how much brain damage we sustained during the “summer of boxing.”

The Dyer twins designated a patch of grass, in their backyard, as “the ring.” The twins’ mom worked during the day so their yard was the best place to commit mayhem without some adult asking why we were beating each other into bloody comas. The grass was on the dry side and the smell of the abandon outhouse wafted over the ring from time to time, but to us, it was as a grand arena; our own version of the Coliseum.

Street fighting was part of our culture. Like animals in the wild, there was usually more posturing than fighting. But when circumstances dictated, we were not averse to mauling each other. The concept of a “fair fight” was not one I encountered until I moved to Wisconsin. In Indiana, a fight was a fight. Punching, pinching, kicking, wresting, biting, separately or in various combination, were all allowed and expected. That’s why boxing seemed so interesting to us. It was a fight with rules, a concept that, until then, was foreign to us.

Charlie Long was an opportunist. Even though he was taller and bigger than Dennis, he wasn’t sure he could beat him in an all out street fight. He had probably seen how vicious Dennis was when fighting with his brothers. Then there was the matter of the scar across Dennis’ navel which was rumored to be the result of a knife fight and was much too jagged to be the result of a hernia repair. But when Charlie saw Dennis’ right hand wrapped in gauze, he couldn’t resist taking advantage of the situation. Charlie started to taunt Dennis. I can’t remember the exact dialog, but typically, the taunting portion of a fight went something like this:

“You think you’re pretty tough”
“Tougher’n you.”
“You think so?”
“I know so!”
“You better shut your mouth before I shut it for ya!”
“Make me!”
“I don’t make trash…I burn it!
“You wanna fight me!?
“I’ll fight ya!”
“Come-on, Right now!”

The neighborhood kids were appalled that Charlie Long was taking advantage of Dennis’ wounded hand, but that didn’t stop them from rounding up everyone in the neighborhood to watch.

“FIGHT, FIGHT! WITMER’S FIGHTIN LONG!”

The gloves went on and the boys went at it. At some point, the butterfly bandage gave out and Dennis’, hand started to bleed and he could no long deliver punches with it. I’ll never forget my brother pummeling Charlie Long with one hand and shouting, “I’ll beat with one hand!” And he did, he beat Charlie Long, he beat Charlie long with one hand. The rumor was that Charlie went home crying. All the Witmer boy’s stock went up that day. If one Witmer could fight like a Tasmanian devil, the rest might be capable of the same thing, and therefore, we were not to be messed with.