Greetings absolutely awesome Enterprise-Tocsin readers. I come to you as darkness falls with a heavy heart full of masterful memories of the long-past 1980s.
This past July we lost an awesome array of ‘80s awesomeness, including the immortal wrestling legend, Hulk Hogan, Grammy award-winning television, movie and musical star, Malcom Jamar Warner, and the mega master of musical madness, the godfather of metal, the all-powerful and almighty wizard of Oz, and the Prince of Darkness, John “Ozzy” Osbourne. But probably the most impactful of all especially for me was Ozzy.
As a cute, clever, curly-haired kid with cowlicks, raised in the Southgate community in Indianola, Mississippi, listening to heavy metal seemed pretty weird. Ozzy was the former front man for Black Sabbath and their music was the forbidden dark magic music for the soul. I remember stumbling across heavy metal while picking up WLS radio station’s broadcasts of the King Biscuit Flower Hour at 12 a.m. in the morning. The music was so powerful that I remember turning it up, jumping in the bed, air guitar jamming, and waking my mother up. Loaded with an extraordinary lethal dose of guitar riff-wielding guitar gods backing him up made Ozzy’s music contagious.
I remember while attending Indianola Jr. High School in Indianola in the ‘80s – trying to find myself as well as my place in life – I overheard my older brother Keith talking to his friend Danny about how when a new inmate at Parchman wants to make a big statement, he finds the biggest and toughest prisoner on the yard, walks up to him and hits him in the mouth. This hit my very small brain and spiked an idea of what I needed to do to ignite my seemingly non-existence reputation. As a young Golden Gloves boxer and skilled in martial artists, I devised a plan that I would do a masterful array of air kicks and punches around the biggest popular guy at school, entertaining the masses with my mastery of the martial arts.
My choice for this unsuspecting, intimidating, humiliating feat was none other than Rogers Simpson. Yes, I was smart, brave and stupid at the same time. I knew that if I accidently hit Rogers my life would end instantly, because back then Rogers Simpson was already a teenaged football legend powerhouse full of muscles. I remember the particular morning while getting ready to catch bus 23 to school, I did my pushups while Ozzy’s song “Shot in the Dark” was playing on the radio. However, instead of putting on my regular school clothes, I wore a t-shirt and my Korean taekwondo doboks (uniform) and my brown belt. Wearing a new pair of Stan Smiths from Abraham’s Department Store, I felt invincible.
During this time Rogers Simpson was the leader of the Indianola Jr. High School football group – a group of football players that hung out together. On this particular day Rogers was accompanied by two fellow footballers, Clearance and Robert.
I made my move and walked up to Rogers, who looked to be 7 feet tall and about 300 pounds to my adolescent eyes. I knew that if I pulled it off, I would be praised as a hero; but if I failed, Rogers would break me in half.
So, without any further thought or hesitation, I did an almost lightning-fast roundhouse-spinning kick. However, while in motion, I noticed that Rogers was moving closer without noticing me, causing me to lower my foot to avoid kicking him in the face, causing my foot to gently brush his chest.
I landed braced for battle while hoping that Rogers didn’t really see what had just happened. He didn’t, but Clarence and Robert did, and they immediately alerted Rogers that I had kicked him in the chest. Rogers said, “no he didn’t, he slapped my chest.” That’s when Clarence and Robert made Rogers aware of the dusty foot print on his brand-new polo shirt.
Calmly thinking that Rogers would break my neck, he just brushed the dust off his shirt and continued walking and gazing at the girls, making me the only man to have ever kicked Rogers Simpson in the chest and lived to talk about it.
Don’t you just love true history? Just think about it – somewhere beyond the oasis, beyond the stars, Ozzy is jamming and raising hell in heaven……
