I can't recall if I did any wrestling between the summer of 2005 and that of 2006. Sometime in August 2006, however, I made a trip into the west to visit some family in South Dakota. My first stop was Indianapolis, where I had three matches over the course of an evening and a morning.
My first match was late in the afternoon with Larry again, which was fun as always. We took it easy, as he was just, I think, recovering from some surgery. But we worked each other with a few good holds. This is one of them. Larry is lots of fun to work over with a head scissors. As I recall, he got a couple of head scissors holds on me as well, which was great. He has these tree-trunk legs that pack a lot of power. A couple of times he wanted to treat me to a maneuver that required of him a lot of upper body strength, but then he would catch himself, realizing that in his current state of recovery, he wasn't ready to do that kind of move no matter how much he wanted to or how much the scenario called for it. We wrestled for an hour or so, I guess, and it took a good bit out of him.Sometime in the course of my match with Larry, I received a call from my next opponent, whom I'll just call Red. I had been wanting to wrestle this guy for a long time. He'd lived in a couple of different places since we first made contact (wish I could remember how that first contact was made), but now he was in Indianapolis, where I had access to him. Red had a sick dog at home, but he was going to come wrestle for a little while anyway. He arrived while Larry was still there. The two of them knew each other, so Larry stayed around for a few minutes. I think Red took a couple of pictures for us, including the one posted above.
Red was older. I was in my late 40s, and I suppose he was in his late 50s or early 60s. But oh my, was he powerful! He'd done--and maybe was still doing--a good bit of weightlifting and bodybuilding, so he was terrifically strong. Best of all, however, he's one of only a couple of wrestlers I've met whose passion for the head scissors matched my own. So this was going to be fun.
Red and I exchanged a few head scissors while Larry was still there, and the big man took a couple of pictures of us. Later in our time together, I set up the camera for a brief video, in which Red worked me into a figure-four head scissors--actually I lay down right into it. I still watch that from time to time.On a sad note, some few years after this trip to Indianapolis, I was planning another. I got in touch to set up a match with Larry--at least I think this is how it went--and learned from him that Red had passed a winter or two before. Larry had called Red, I think, to talk about some wrestling and learned from whoever answered the telephone that Red had died while out shoveling snow.
The next morning a guy I'll call Cigar showed up. I don't think that I've ever wrestled a man who looked more the heel than Cigar. He had the shaved head and beard, the black trunks and boots, a black wristband. We did some good wrestling--good holds, good contact. Near the end of our session, he was on top of me, belly to belly, and he had my arms pinned down with his weight pressed down into his hands and holding me immobile. Then, to my surprise, he turned gentle, bowing his head and kissing my chest and working his way up toward my neck.
"Stop," I said. "I can't go there."
And he did. He seemed a little put off, I'm sorry to say, but he remained nice about it. The wrestling was then over, so we dressed and he left.
I checked out, found my way to I-70 and headed west.
