A New York life, the beginning

Later in the evening, during the autumn of 1971, some former high school friends and I were making our way up Broadway to the Americana, where they were staying. They had just watched me secure a convincing decision over a New Jersey heavyweight in my second fight at the legendary Madison Square Garden, in the equally legendary city of New York.

Too excited to simply call it a night, we—having recently turned twenty-one and now legal to drink in New York—decided to stop by a bar. We chose a typical, gaudy Times Square joint. The bar ran the length of the room, bordered by cages, each holding a bikini-clad girl dancing. At the front, half a dozen square black Formica-topped tables stood, each seating four—or eight if pushed together.

The place was packed, seemingly with tourists judging by their looks, and we were quickly approached by a weary-looking, middle-aged waiter in suspenders. Eyeing us up, he mumbled, “Table for six?”

Before anyone could answer, he pulled two of the four-top tables together and growled, “Okay, what can I get you boys… uh… guys?”

As the waiter began scribbling on his order pad, my friend John nudged me and motioned toward the bar. Half the patrons were looking in our direction, their animated conversations rippling down the length of the counter like a tide. Even the bartender at the service end glanced over. Things grew more puzzling when our suspender-clad waiter, after handing off our drink order and exchanging words with the bartender, kept throwing glances our way as the drinks were being prepared.

Nervous—since we were just a group of Canadian boys in Times Square—we agreed to drink up quickly and move on. The tension rose when we noticed a group of bar patrons trailing behind the now grinning waiter, who was balancing a tray loaded with drinks.

As he reached our table and placed the drinks down, the waiter shrugged and, gesturing to the patrons behind him, said, “These drinks are on these guys.” Seeing my puzzled reaction, he laughed and added, “Seems like you made quite an impression at the Garden tonight.”

Just as he turned to leave, he paused, looked back, and continued, “Oh, I forgot to mention—the next round is on the house.”

For the next hour or so, I had the floor for the first time in New York. I gave a detailed account of the evening’s fight and, at their urging, shared a bit of my background and biography.

This was the start of my life in the greatest city in the world. By nature, a New Yorker, I kept adding chapters to the story.