Confession #14 - Secret files of me

The other day I was thinking about a time of my life I don’t often talk about. It isn’t that it is particularly hard or anything, or even embarrassing, I think it’s more that people would have such a hard time believing me when I told them. How exactly do you tell friends and family who have known you for years something that you have never even hinted at or let on at all. Sure all the wounds have healed and the scars have gone away, but how do I tell people that for a short time in the late 1800’s I was known as Biff O’Bannon: The Bare Knuckle Brawler? I mean, for starters most people think I am 30ish, obviously this throws the dates off a little bit. On top of all that I am now a Lutheran Pastor, how can I be both a Pastor and a former street fighting champion from Herefordamptonshiretown?


That's me on the right with the fine fine stasche...


To be honest the only reason I am really able to say anything now is because Mad Jack McMad from Maddrunkandangryton just passed away at the ripe old age of 140 (the McMads are renouned for their longevity) and we had a standing rule in our “Fight Club” if you will that no one would talk about “Fight Club”. In fact, we stressed it so much it was the first two rules (I know, starting to sound familiar, isn’t it? You see what happens when you have to much to drink around a guy with a notebook, although I must say proudly that I am the model for Tyler Durden in the book and they couldn’t have cast more of a dead ringer for me than Brad Pitt). Sure, some of the details were changed to protect identities and stuff and it was set in a modern time to further distort the truth (plus the author, Chuck Pahlaniuk, thought people would get bored with 1880’s England to which I say a loud and hardy “piffle”)
My career was long and storied, I daresay legend would not be too far to go, I could easily be lumped in their with other real life legends like Alfred E. Neuman, Santa, and that guy who used to be fat from Subway. I took on all the greats and always walked away unscathed. No one was ever able to even get near me because of my lightning fast reflexes and a kiss or two from “pomp” and “circumstance” as I liked to call my right and left fists (you have maybe heard a piece of music with this title played at graduations and the like, and not many know that music is actually a musical representation of the beatdowns I would lay on my opponents as they “graduated” into unconsciousness).


A rare photo of myself and the last photo of the other guy alive...


Yessir, I was one bad dude. I still miss it from time to time. As I gaze out my office window I think of all the people I knew and loved who have all now passed on, sometimes with “pomp” and “circumstance” if you know what I mean… I remember “Stinkyhands” Jimmy Goferbrok, he was a manure shoveller from the county over. The smell of his hands alone could nearly knock you out. I only fought him once and he was a formidable foe but I beat him through my sheer ingenuity. I challenged him to a “Stone Fist” match (these were by far the most popular matches in my day) in which each contestant must show up hours before the fight and sink each hand into a bucket of wet cement, by the time the fight rolled around your fists were covered in stone and already lethal weapons got upgraded to a leth… more… really leth… let’s just say it was not good news. Sure our hands weighed 15 stone each but man when we clashed it was like thunder. Anyway, long story short, “Stinkyhands” quickly realized his error when he saw that people weren’t falling over from the stench and then “circumstances” if you know what I mean (you don’t? * sigh * it means I hit him with my left fist, called “circumstance”, as you recall, over and over again… try to keep up…) got the better of him, in fact it was so easy I gave “pomp” (my other hand for the slow ones out there) the night off. Good times, and that was just one of my fights.


Two of my other opponents, the baldness a result of seeing me in the flesh...

Legal regulations were a lot different back then. Two fellows could duke it out with any number of modifications and it would still be legal. There were barbed wire matches, flamefist matches, wet noodle matches (not one of my favorites, do you have any idea how long it takes to “flail” someone unconscious with a piece of linguini?!? Booooring) and my personal favorite, Masonry matches (although I should clarify as most people misconstrue this as a match in which we used bricks and such when in fact each boxer would tie and actual mason, preferably higher than the rank of Knight of the Brazen Serpent [25th degree, anything less and they just break apart on impact]) but sadly these matches became outlawed after reports that Masons were returning home “damaged” or some nonsense.
It’s around that time that I gave up the sport, it was getting to namby-pampy for me and it just got boring to be frank. Eventually I changed my name and moved to Canada, and was born in Vancouver 31 years ago to the Craig family (so you can see where the confusion comes from, but when you are trying to hide from your past you make certain changes). Still, I miss it at times, so if you are ever up for it and you have some Mason friends who would like to participate give me a call, and I’ll bring all the pomp and circumstance you will ever need.