Muhammad Ali died this week. 74 years of age, but an icon that impacted so many lives during his span on Earth. I had the honour of meeting the man in a boxing ring at Gypsies Green stadium in South Shields back in 1977. He was in town for the opening of the new mosque in Laygate, which he was combining with having his marriage blessed by the imam.
Don't get me wrong - I wasn't boxing or sparring with the man! That was far above my pay grade at the time! ;) I was there to greet him as Chairman of the South Tyneside Council of Youth, representing all of the youth organisations in the area. He was playing darts with Tony Green, while Peter Gillanders and I looked on. I remember his hand totally engulfing mine as we shook them, then he punched me on the shoulder - quite gently for him, I suppose - before moving on.
I am also almost finished reading Born Brilliant, the biography of Kenneth Williams, the very popular and incorrigible comedy actor most famous for his very camp characters in the Carry On series of films. Like most British people of my generation and older, the Carry On movies and their stars where significant pieces of our national psyche, and a major factor in our attitudes towards comedic and sexual innuendo and situational comedy.
While Williams died quite a while ago - 1988 - and Muhammad just a few days ago, the whole aspect of their passing was summed up by a comment from a teacher and friend of mine back in England, Anthony Shedden, who expressed concern at the recent passing of so many childhood icons. There have been a number of these lately - Bowie, Prince, Ali, Lemmy - to name just a few. These sudden losses always make us think to our own mortality, even when they are much older than us, and lead us to look to our current situations in regard to life and health. I don't believe that anyone wants die, especially before they feel they have completed what they may have set out to achieve, which is why we have all of these wonderous tales of life after death, heaven (or hell) and reincarnation to assuage our fears. However, as indicators of our own personal aging, the loss of these markers of youth tells us that it's time to get on with what we have to do before we, too, succumb to the inevitable. Time to stop dreaming those dreams and start making them happen, because, let's face it, if you don't try, you'll never succeed. Feeling our mortality is an ideal way to inspire us to get going, because the clock is ticking, and it's not going backwards, my friends!
