"To look sharp...."

"To feel sharp..." ....and, I can't remember how the rest of that catchy little ditty goes.

Does anyone remember the Friday night fights sponsored by Gillette? I can remember my mom hurrying my dad, brothers, and me out the door of our house on Fridays so we could get to my grandmom's in time for the Friday night fights. My uncle would always come with his three daughters, and another uncle could be counted on to amble in somtime after the first round -- usually three sheets to the wind (or so I remember hearing).

As the men sat in the living room in front of the tv alternately cheering and booing, my mom, grandmom, and whatever aunts were there, would traipse from the kitchen to the middle room that was MomP's bedroom -- but also contained the sewing machine and several comfy chairs. I remember many glasses of sweet tea (in warm weather), and cups of hot tea (in cooler weather) being involved -- as well as tea cakes (for the ladies) and some kind of yummy cake for everyone. No beer. No alcohol. Uh uh! Not at 212. I don't even remember Cokes in the fridge -- even though there was plenty of syrupy sweet Kool Aid.

Many a Friday night was spent that way. Which seems odd to me now. Odd because 212 was a tightly run organization with MomP as its CEO and Gindaddy as -- er -- as.... well, he was important even though I can't think of his job description. We cousins were never allowed to run, fight -- no roughhousing of any kind. And you could bet your bottom dollar you'd never hear cuss words like "lie", "darn", "shut up" inside the house on Avenue Z . On every other day of the week everyone was expected to be quite mannerly, yet -- on Friday nights -- it was fine to sit around and watch men beat the hell out of each other.

I never realized the contradiction in this until I was telling A how warm and fuzzy I felt whenever I heard the theme song for the Friday night fights, "To look sharp...." She laughed and said, "Mom, how could you feel warm and fuzzy about a boxing match?" ....Good question.