I was twenty years old when on the snow-fluttered streets of Knoxville, Tennessee I met that one-eyed wonder, the greatest prize fighter East of the Mississippi, that Southern rambler and downright gentleman, the man who called himself Little Joey. I had landed in Knoxville that night for the national conference of one of my clubs, and we were sleeping at a church in the city; someone had suggested when we arrived that we throw a party and get drunk, and, when a few hours later that failed to materialize, forlorn I wandered the streets of Knoxville. I walked down one of the main avenues, a picture of small-town America: strip malls that all seemed to have a chiropractor’s office tucked in there somewhere, next to a waffle house and a Walgreens; a new brand of fast food on every street corner, the high beams of their signs overpowering all the homespun offerings that surrounded them; and, through a combination of the muffling snow on the ground and the dearth of cars and people, a serene quiet filled the air, one which you could only encounter in little cities that actually slept. It was one of the few days of the year, they said, when it would snow in Knoxville, and part of me feels like the rarity of that moment lent a hand in bringing out the rarest of men.
The Ballad of Little Joey
I was twenty years old when on the snow-fluttered streets of Knoxville, Tennessee I met that one-eyed wonder, the greatest prize fighter East of the Mississippi, that Southern rambler and downright gentleman, the man who called himself Little Joey. I had landed in Knoxville that night for the national conference of one of my clubs, and we were sleeping at a church in the city; someone had suggested when we arrived that we throw a party and get drunk, and, when a few hours later that failed to materialize, forlorn I wandered the streets of Knoxville. I walked down one of the main avenues, a picture of small-town America: strip malls that all seemed to have a chiropractor’s office tucked in there somewhere, next to a waffle house and a Walgreens; a new brand of fast food on every street corner, the high beams of their signs overpowering all the homespun offerings that surrounded them; and, through a combination of the muffling snow on the ground and the dearth of cars and people, a serene quiet filled the air, one which you could only encounter in little cities that actually slept. It was one of the few days of the year, they said, when it would snow in Knoxville, and part of me feels like the rarity of that moment lent a hand in bringing out the rarest of men.