You'll find an awesome figure-4 head scissors at 7:22!

And the hold continues to dominate throughout parts 2 and 3!

I'm wrestling with some different things this morning. Over the weekend, a younger man (39) that I know drowned in a local river. At first, this is all that I knew. But the next morning in the newspaper, a brief front-page story provided more details. Apparently "Gerald" was on the side of the river opposite a campground. No mention was made of anybody's being with him on his side of the river. Several campers saw him wade into the water and start swimming their way. A couple of them reported that he seemed inebriated, which detail, because this was little more than conjecture based, I assume, on his behavior, I thought it rather tacky of the newspaper to print. But print it the paper did. Anyway, in the middle of the river, Gerald seemed to be struggling and began trying to make his way to a rock raised out of the water. He didn't make it. He called out for help and went down. No going once, going twice and gone the third time, as on TV. He went down, and that was it. A couple of the campers apparently jumped into the water, but when they got to the area where he disappeared, they couldn't find him.

The authorities drug the river for a time, but they were unsuccessful. Finally divers went in and found the body some 20-30 feet away from where Gerald was last seen. The current in that section of the river is gentle, and while it probably had little to do with his drowning, it was strong enough to float the dead body beneath an underwater rock ledge.

I know this drowned man's mother. She is completely devastated, which is understandable. She screams and cries and wants to die, apparently completely thoughtless of the husband and son and grandchildren she would leave behind. But this is the way of many people around whom I've grown up and lived. I don't call it ignorance or selfishness, although these must be in the mix somewhere. Maybe it's some long learned tradition in the vein of sack cloth and ashes and the wailing wall. Whatever its component parts and influences, at its most genuine it seems a witless abandonment of life and reason inspired by a simple and overwhelming grief. Sometimes it seems like a performance for the benefit—whatever that might be—of the pitcher of the fit, but not this time, I think. Hers is raw emotion devoid of reason and driven by grief in its most beast-like form. I shudder at it. Until the beast releases her and reason begins to make its way back into her soul, she is a thing that I can't deal with except to watch in horror.

I have children of my own, and if I should lose one of them I suspect that my grief would attack me in similar ways, although the outward signs of its grip might not be so freely and wildly expressed. What I might dread most of all is facing for years the realization that my child apparently died for nothing—a prey to drunkenness, perhaps, or some moment of "watch-this" machismo. If he should die in such a place and in such a way, I would, of course, prefer him to be in the act of trying to rescue somebody else or to be suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelmed by careless nature.

In late June 1998, I wrestled in the strangest setting ever. Although I can now recall another that rivals it, no other comes close. I was passing through one southern town on my way to another, and I had arranged an afternoon match with J, a fellow I'd been corresponding with online for awhile prior to this. J was married, as I am, and our professions, while not the same, were similar. We're artsy guys.

I rolled into his town in the middle of a hot afternoon and pulled into the parking lot of the church to which he had directed me. Yes, that's right—a church. That was okay with me. I like churches and he worked at the church—not as a pastor or priest, mind you—as a musician. I knew this beforehand, of course.

I sat in my car in an out-of-the-way area of the parking lot, and in just a few minutes I saw him come out the door and head over my way. I don't remember specifically now, but I think I was expecting him to get in my car. We'd do the usual, I guessed, which was to drive to some little motel and get a room for a couple of hours.

But he surprised me. We would be wrestling in the church! More specifically, in the choir room!

My throat felt a little tight as we walked through the darkened hallways to the second-floor room where the choir rehearsed. J must have seen the tension on my face.

"Nobody's around in the afternoons during the summer," he said. "This'll be okay."

The choir room was about what you'd expect in a medium-sized suburban church. It was large, with flat floor space leading from the door to the raised seating where the choir members arranged themselves to sing. To the right was a room used for smaller rehearsals and for musical ensembles. Part of the open space near the entry was taken up by a grand piano. The other part was our space for wrestling.

Nervous and jumpy, I took off my clothes and lay them neatly on top of the piano. I don't remember where J put his clothes, but we were soon both decked out in our colored no-fly briefs and getting down on the floor to wrestle. Unfortunately, we then discovered a problem. The carpet, in order to be durable under the constant movement of many feet, was that chew-your-butt-up variety that we quickly learned would give us carpet burns way too easily.

We couldn't wrestle. Not really. So we settled for the next best thing (in my book). We took turns putting our favorite holds on each other. We did lots of scissors holds and headlocks and bear hugs. J had thing for holds like the camel clutch and the Boston crab, so I let him put those on me to his heart's content. He also badly wanted to wrestle naked, which I agreed to, even though it made me nervous again.

The image that still hangs with me after these 11 years in a head scissors he wanted to put me in. As you might expect from reading this blog, I was more than willing. I lay on my right side. He sat in front of me and wrapped his thighs around my head and leaned back on his hands to apply pressure. J is 5'10" and was at that time around 225 pounds. So, as I lay there being worked over by his head scissors, my ears stoppered by the pressure of his thick thighs, I faced directly into his basket, above which was a solid and heaving belly, good pecs and a grin of enjoyment. I also enjoyed the hold for several minutes, my left hand now on his right thigh, now on his full belly, no on his strong chest. Delicious!

The other moment I remember best is a sudden sound at which we sprung up from whatever hold we were in—naked by this time—grabbed our clothes and stepped quickly into the side room. A minute or so passed and nothing more happened. J stepped out in just his jeans and cautiously went to the door. There he discovered that the noise we'd heard was just some pigeons nesting in the eaves.

After we'd wrestled our fill—such as the wrestling was—we dressed and went back outside. At my car, we shook hands, and I drove out of town and made a few more hours down the road before I stopped for the night.

On 16 March 2007, I blogged about a wrestler who had died. His name was Bill Hughes, and I don't remember how I became aware of him, when the first email passed between us or who sent it. We had your typical email friendship. We never met in person, but I felt sad when I learned of his death.

I felt something different this past weekend when I learned of the death of another wrestler. My friend Ed. As with Bill, I don't remember when I first found myself in touch with Ed. I think he was living in Memphis but was at the point of moving somewhere else. Oklahoma maybe. I never met him in either place, and we didn't really keep in touch very well. But then he moved again, this time to Indianapolis, a city where another of my good wrestling friends lives. With two of them there, I had a goal to work towards, and eventually I made it there to wrestle them. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Readers of this blog will know that my favorite hold is the head scissors. They probably get tired of being reminded of that. But that was what brought Ed and me together. That was his favorite hold as well. Once my Indianapolis trip began to come together, we emailed each other often to suggest variations of the hold that we might try when I arrived. We were quite excited.

When I arrived in Indianapolis, my schedule demanded a doubleheader. I wrestled my friend Larry first--our fourth meeting, I think. We had a great time as usual, although he was somewhat handicapped by an injury and was also in recovery from a serious health issue. We'd been wrestling for an hour or more when Ed called. He told me that his dog was terminally ill, so he didn't have a long time to wrestle. That was disappointing for both of us, but I understood. Larry and I were still wrestling when Ed knocked on the door. The two of them knew each other, so we had a nice little visit. Before Larry departed to leave Ed and me to it, he took this picture of me working Ed over with a head scissors.

I remember that Ed and I created a little video of our wrestling. When the clip was finished, he hovered over my shoulder to watch it. He was sweating a great deal--both of us were--and he kept wiping the drops from where they fell on my shoulder or thigh. We had a great time that evening and both looked forward to wrestling again--a longer meeting this time.

But then I got Larry's call this weekend. He had tried to call Ed for the first time in a year or so. The man who answered told him that Ed died back in the winter. We don't know how. He was a strong sixty-something, as you can see in these pictures. I'd been afraid that something had happened to him. We hadn't emailed in some time--almost exactly a year--but I'd emailed him just recently to check in. When I didn't receive anything back from him, I was uneasy, but I hoped he was just busy.

Here's the brief text of my last two emails from him:

"Sure wish I had ur head in a good fig 4 scissors..... damn" (7/8/2008)

"Louisville might be doable, M.... I look at the pic of you in my head scissors from time to time and have good memories.. I love that action and I know you are about as hooked as I am.... Nothing like two big men going at it and having a good bonding session based on this masculine, primal and visceral action.....!!!!" (7/9/2008)