Don't you dare call me grandpa--but I am 60 yrs old. IF you did, I would likely grab you and drop you to the floor and pin your shoulders to the ground for a count of 3.

I was just reading about Ezine article's new categories and my old history came to life for me. I think you will get a kick out of it--the part that relates to wresting, that is!

Though I attended several grammar schools, high schools and colleges, my frosh year in high school helped me discover a skill-ability that I made good use of in my youth. When I was only 9, I got 2 neighborhood kids in a head lock EACH at the same time cause they were hasseling me. They did not do that again!

I was never fast at anything; not at making excuses, running, swimming [I did become a speed walker as an adult] but in wresting, I was fast!!!

I even held the school record for pin times; 7 seconds! I was super good. Had I wanted to and better dealt with my dad, I would possibly have gone into intramurals but for now, it was just me and my school chums.

One of the guys in school had a uniqueness to him that made him look like he was 45 when he was only 14. We would wrestle every weekend for a few weeks and one day, he elbowed me one too many times after being warned. I got him in a hammer lock and shoved it and made him fly! He learned!

During the second half of my high school junior year, my dad moved me to a school in Larkspur, California, Redwood High and there I met, among other kids, Jeff Doherty.

Jeff had a uniqueness all of his own;he both wore braces on his teeth and he was slow in movement. I never did find out why-and I did not care too much why.

After we declared each other "Buds", I taught him how to wrestle and how to pin me and how to do what TV wrestlers do but how to do it in slow motion so as not to harm anyone.

Moving the clock ahead 38 years-I was a substitute teacher for the Liberty School System in Liberty, Arizona [a subset of Buckeye, 35 miles S. West of Phoenix].

One day, about 7 years ago, when I was asked to sub, the class that needed "covering" was sports. On this day, it was raining so I needed to be creative with 7 classes of girls indoors. As we all tossed ideas around, I came up with wresting. Instead of being laughed at by a class of farm girls, they were excited and intrigued.

Naturally, instead of the normal class where a teacher asks for a volunteer and demonstrates positions and hold, I was "Forced" to demonstrate by having one girl take the position I would have taken and the other girl, the subordinate position-where both start on their hands and knees.

While they plodded and twisted and experienced for the first time, Greek wresting positions and challenges, I had the unique task of teaching without touching. It was sort of odd and funny for me to switch "Tactics" every minute or so, in order for each girl [superior or inferior position] to learn the strengths of each position and how to advance and how to counter.

I had the pleasure of doing this for six of seven periods. During the last period of the day, the Vice-principal came in and realized that one mini misstep on my part of instruction or on the girls' part and lawsuits could be flying-so he asked me to change my curriculum to a different sport.

It was fantastic while it lasted and girls who had never "Either held her friends or enemies" or used wresting as a method to gain a new skill, learned something that would be able to stay with them a lifetime. I even thought of opening a PT wresting office just like a karate master would do, but never got around to doing so or having the funds to finance it.