Jeff Bumpus

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Answering the Question

There is a tavern situated between two of Michigan's glacial gifts to the local residents of Union, Michigan. Zimmy's is a pretty quiet, easygoing place. I can't recall the last time there was a dustup there. Free of guilt about weight or calories now that I am twenty years into my retirement, I am more than happy to stop there and take home some really great pizza. And if I am asked the question, it is usually one of the patrons: "Do you ever miss it?"

What I try to do when someone asks a question about my fight career is to assess the question's intent. Do you want to hear what you have predisposed to be the answer, or do you really want to know? And this is usually the response to the latter: What I miss cannot be seen. What I miss can only be felt. What I miss is waking up every morning and knowing that I have a goal. Today has a purpose that goes deeper than paying the electric bill or my car insurance. Today, back then, was a day that I was going to prepare to defeat the greatest fighters in the world in my weight class.
 

My entire life at that point could be encapsulated in one memory: It is 8 pm on a Wednesday night in Elkhart, Indiana. On the north side of Sears and Roebucks store at Benham and Prairie, there is a thin strip of parking area that surrounds the door to the catalogue department. In late January it's about 12 degrees outside and the people are waiting in chairs lined along the picture windows for their turn to place their orders. Glancing out the windows they see a young man jogging. The vapor billows away from his face and drifts out under the street lamps. The figure is bundled in several layers of sweatpants and sweatshirts, knitted hats and gloves. His running shoes have holes in them.

And I'm sure that more than one asked what that crazy white boy thinks he's doing, and that maybe a padded wagon should be called. But they need not have worried. The crazy white boy was fine. It was a moment of absolute serendipity for him. He was dreaming of the moment where one right hook, one left cross, could bring him the win. What he sought was validation. What he received instead was clarity.
 

My fellow bar patron might just have actually wanted to know what the television cameras felt like. He might think that having my picture in the paper or reading the flattering words of a reporter is the experience that he craves, no matter how vicariously he receives it. He might just be trying to be nice to me and say, "hey you did okay for a small town fellow." I appreciated all those experiences. But they had their price.

I missed a beautiful blue-eyed woman to open the door for me, to keep me warm in late January when the patrons of Sears and Roebuck were ordering from the catalogue department. I missed the gleeful cry of children just happy to see that dad is home from work.

Fellow bar patron hears the stories of four fractures that I caused in my shins by happily spending hours running up and down steps with a forty pound bag of rock salt on my back. Or pulling off the hand wraps that were soaked in blood from the skin that I had torn away beneath my gloves from spending my weekends hitting a heavy bag. Or the time that I won an amateur fight with a broken jaw. Or that after ten rounds with Vinny Pazienza (now Vinny Paz), eight of them with a broken collarbone, I got dry heaves and never once considered quitting. I tell them these things, the ones that have been interested in listening this long.

I tell them that the gifts that I received from being a professional fighter vastly outweigh the arthritic aches or the permanent double vision that my body now experiences. They vastly outweigh the sacrifices and the time spent alone. Life is short as a professional athlete. And that's the way it ought to be.
 

It seems that from the moment we arrive cold, wet, and screaming into a world that feels like its late January, no matter what the time of year, we search for validation and acceptance. It's wired into our very survival instincts. Seek out those who validate us and gather with them. Those that want to be loved by everybody seek celebrity and status. They want to sing and dance or beat up other dreamers on HBO and Showtime. Those that are content with a few people to love them, take home pizza from a local tavern and try to make mental snapshots. Putting on the blinders has a price. Enjoying each moment in your life is priceless.

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