02-04-2018, 11:04 AM
My friend Skip died a couple of days ago from pneumonia. That he lived this long was a surprise to anyone who knew him, and certainly to himself. He was +/- 88.
Skip grew up in James Elroy's LA, a street kid, with a very poor Stage Mom. He worked at the stables at the Santa Ana racetrack, got into a lot of trouble, discovered fencing and his one and only true Maestro and erzatz father, Ralph Faulkner. Fencing gave him an outlet for his love of fighting, and Skip loved to fight.
He joined the Navy, continued fencing, went to war in Korea. Skip was a real good fencer, winning National Championships in both foil and epee (a rare thing) and made the Olympic Team in 1956. He did well internationally, when he wasn't causing international incidents, like punching a Russian in the face during a team match. Skip loved to fight.
The politics of fencing pissed him off so much that he quit the sport not long after the Olympics, went to school on the GI bill, became an engineer. No half measures for Skip; either he was all in or all out.
I met him back in the early 90's when I was fencing at an Invitational out in Phoenix (G-Man remembers that tournament: The Bob Simonds Invitational). Skip had come back to the sport that he loved on the coaching side. At that time he looked like an R. Lee Ermey who lifted weights. I remember seeing him and thinking "who's the prison-cut old guy?". We later met again at a coaching clinic hosted by my old club on the German system and became good friends. I mentored him in coaching, transitioning his old game into the new game, and we talked a lot about our profession and life in general. 10 years ago he had an aortic rupture. Given the position of the rupture, it was usually 90 percent fatal. He died a few times on the operating table, but wouldn't stay down.
Skip had that wacky sense of absurd and off-color humor that totally belied his brawling past. He had an engineers directness, an appalling fake-German accent, and could play verbal tennis with the best of them. He was making himself a better person, living with his regrets, and trying to stay in the salle despite his physical limitations. It was the one place he felt completely at home.
In later years he would ask why he was still alive, and I told him that Satan wanted to take a few more lessons before he came up to get him. I'm sure it was a helluva bout, that last one, and that Satan only won by one touch in the last second of overtime.
Skip grew up in James Elroy's LA, a street kid, with a very poor Stage Mom. He worked at the stables at the Santa Ana racetrack, got into a lot of trouble, discovered fencing and his one and only true Maestro and erzatz father, Ralph Faulkner. Fencing gave him an outlet for his love of fighting, and Skip loved to fight.
He joined the Navy, continued fencing, went to war in Korea. Skip was a real good fencer, winning National Championships in both foil and epee (a rare thing) and made the Olympic Team in 1956. He did well internationally, when he wasn't causing international incidents, like punching a Russian in the face during a team match. Skip loved to fight.
The politics of fencing pissed him off so much that he quit the sport not long after the Olympics, went to school on the GI bill, became an engineer. No half measures for Skip; either he was all in or all out.
I met him back in the early 90's when I was fencing at an Invitational out in Phoenix (G-Man remembers that tournament: The Bob Simonds Invitational). Skip had come back to the sport that he loved on the coaching side. At that time he looked like an R. Lee Ermey who lifted weights. I remember seeing him and thinking "who's the prison-cut old guy?". We later met again at a coaching clinic hosted by my old club on the German system and became good friends. I mentored him in coaching, transitioning his old game into the new game, and we talked a lot about our profession and life in general. 10 years ago he had an aortic rupture. Given the position of the rupture, it was usually 90 percent fatal. He died a few times on the operating table, but wouldn't stay down.
Skip had that wacky sense of absurd and off-color humor that totally belied his brawling past. He had an engineers directness, an appalling fake-German accent, and could play verbal tennis with the best of them. He was making himself a better person, living with his regrets, and trying to stay in the salle despite his physical limitations. It was the one place he felt completely at home.
In later years he would ask why he was still alive, and I told him that Satan wanted to take a few more lessons before he came up to get him. I'm sure it was a helluva bout, that last one, and that Satan only won by one touch in the last second of overtime.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
