Pugilistic Pat and the throw down with Dangerous Dan

I am a deconstructing sort. That's right... give me something and I will deconstruct it using weapons of opportunity. I'm a downer... a buzz-kill, last out of the gates ... party pooper. Yet, sometimes I'm the life of the party.

So, maybe you don't want to tempt me? Some of you cherished readers do tempt me, all the while knowing my tangential personality. So here goes another miserable anecdote --

Everything I Needed to Learn, I Learned in my first dirty Boxing Match

by Pat Darnell, Moopig da' FURST

I have children, six of them. Some are step-children, but I got tired of that nomenclature long ago. They are all my charges; and I ask them equally questions that they could never answer. What questions? Oh, like "... now that Bird Flu and Swine Flu has hit the scene, what is the cure for the common cold -- not Chicken Soup anymore ... eh?"

So if my children are looking in today -- I just want you all to remember this inoculation:

Boxing tells me everything that I need to know to pass on the wisdom of deconstruction. Like this:

What is the first rule of boxing -- the referee gets the fighters to center ring and says "I want a fair fight." Thus, the first rule of boxing and life ... no?

Secondly the referee says -- "Protect yourself at all times."

Stern warning ... no? Third in the order of rules -- "No hitting below the belts."

Fourth -- "Pay attention to me, and do what I say at all time."

Fifth -- "Now, lets touch gloves and come out fighting."

Okay, that is what is supposed to happen. So when I put on the gloves for a round in Dan Alexander's garage for a bout with Dan -- all pro ex-guard for the 77 to 89 NY Jets. I thought there would be the usual center ring discussion, build up or something. Nope. Big Dan just walked over to me and knocked me out. BOOM, I hit the floor [they tell me] ... the next thing I hear is Dan: "Darnell, are you okay?"

I swaggered to my feet and said woozily: "Wow, I really do have a glass jaw." Took off my gloves and sauntered to a chair ... I was the evening's informational entertainment for my buddies, "Hey everybody," yells George Sands, "This is what a knock out looks like."

It really only hurts one's pride, you know; some pain later with headaches, oh and yes when one remembers the episode almost forty years later.

No one after put the gloves on with Dan the rest of the night. Funny peculiar, but I now think old Dan had been practicing that chin trick for knock outs and waited for some knucklehead to try it on. Dan was kind of sweet on my girlfriend, Julie, and ...well chalk it up.

Getting knocked unconscious is a trip. I do not recommend it. If you have never experienced it, that is okay. It is similar to being anesthetized as when pulling teeth or such. You go out, and you come back like your moments of unconsciousness never happened.

"Get your Bell rung, Darnell?"

"Hey, Dan, no one sang the Star Spangled Banner yet."