"We are born astride a grave - WaynesWorldStage.com

the German neighborhood. On the way to school,he would fight the Irish kids in the Irishneighborhood, the Italian kids in the Italianneighborhood, etc. I wanted him to teach me howto box, but he only wanted to teach me how toprotect myself.“The first thing you need,” he told me, “isspeed.” “You must be able to run fast. The onlyway to win a fight is to not have a fight. There’sno pride in a broken nose. If you sense a fight isbrewing, get out of there. Being a coward issmart; getting in a fight is dumb. If there is noway to get out of it, then hit first, hit hard, andthen run like hell!”That was it. That was my lesson. I can’tdeny that I was disappointed.Our house in Charlotte was in the centerof the city, but we had chickens, pigeons (forroasted squab), ducks, geese and even a goat witha cart. No one complained because my father wasthe Bar-B-Que king. We had parties every monthfor the whole neighborhood. Many people inCharlotte still insist that my father invented Bar-B-Que. He never made that claim, but he neverdenied it either. No one can seem to agree as towhat Bar-B-Que is let alone who invented it orhow to even spell it.28