THE BOXER'S LAMENT
A THROWBACK THURSDAY READ
This is THE BOXER’S LAMENT. I wrote this story a long time ago. It was based on a picture I saw in TIME magazine, profiling a boxer named Sam Langdon. It was a fascinating picture. He’d gone blind from too many hits to the eyes, and he was dirt poor, living in a run down room above a pool hall. The story just seemed to come together on its own. It’s a sad, lamentable tale. The niece’s story is just as sad as his own. Anyway, I’m hoping twos of you who have come here late, will take a look at it. I put it out in January of 2023. It means a lot because it was something I wrote after ST. FREDA.
There was a well-known Canadian boxer in the 1910s named Sam Langford whose career resembles the story's trajectory (Incredibly, he was denied a chance to fight Jack Johnson for the world heavyweight championship because it was felt that no one wanted to watch a match between two Black men!).