Maybe it’s just the warm fuzzies I get on recalling my youth but I have a soft spot for Mohammed Ali. 1967, the year Ali refused army induction, I was only 16 and politically naïve and yet I was protesting Vietnam.
A charismatic art teacher at my high school used to invite a select few students to Sunday brunches at his house in upscale Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, where he held “rap sessions.†I was one of the kids. There were talks about art, theater, “the man,†“free thought,†“sexual liberation,†“US police action in Vietnam.†(Only after did I recognize what he was doing as political indoctrination)
Soon I found myself joining rallies and “spontaneous†anti-war protests on college campuses around NYC. In the mean time, Mohammed Ali was all over the news refusing to go to war. I guess I became simpatico with him.
But, despite all that (and all the cream cheese, bagels and lox Mr. Gershowitz served at his off campus “art†discussions) I soon joined the Air Force and did a tour in VN – something I wouldn’t trade for anything.
You could say I looked at life from both sides then.
