My stories have gotten to the point that everyone now wants to hear about a Rib that was played on ME!! And me being a kid just 18-19 years old in the World of Wrestling, especially in the late 1970s, well all I can legally say is WOW! And with the way wrestling was in those days it was hard for a young man of that age to not let some of that popularity get to your head.
So this particular night in Jackson, MS Jerry Oats and Mike George saw an opportunity to get the young punk to the group. The rib started at the matches where this hunk of a woman (in my eyes) flirted with me all night! We talked about lots of things and eventually about where I was staying. Most of the boys stayed at a hotel off Hwy 55 were the building faced the huge parking lot. You see all the outside rooms facing the lot were cheaper so that’s where most of us stayed! I’m sure at some time during our flirtatious conversation I gave her the name and number of the place where I was staying, told her to call me and we would go out. In this area of Jackson near the reservoir, there were clubs open late. And let me just say during this flirting she was being way more aggressive than normal and not what this young buck was used too. That sounds really bad now being so naïve, and I guess I really didn’t know what normal was in those days. Anyway she said she would call so after the matches I went to the hotel with some Popeye’s Chicken and waited for her to call.
She finally called and we agreed to meet in the parking lot and go somewhere. Let’s say for story sake, that we were going to meet at 11:30pm so I went out to my truck and sat. At Midnight, I decided she wasn’t coming, so I went back to my room. At 12:30am I got a call, she says “Where were you?”; me “I’m in my room!”. The gal says at 12:05am she drove through the parking lot, saw my truck but I was not in it and she was not coming up to my room because “she was not That kind of girl!!” So now to someone with a Very High competition level (Me), that sounded like a challenge!! We agreed to try again; she said she would come back. Awesome! So about 1-1:15 am, back out to the truck I went. Remember its summer, June-July, in Jackson, MS. At 1:30am, no one has shown, so I go back up to my room. Just a few minutes after getting to the room, the phone rings; “I’m sorry. I ran out of gas. I’ll be right there, give me 20 minutes. I really want to come see you. I’ll be there!”
So at 2:00 am back out to my truck I go. By this time, I’m exhausted and I fall asleep in the truck. About 3:00 am, Mike and Jerry knock on my window, wake me up and want to know what I’m doing sleeping in my truck when I have a perfectly good room and bed just steps away. So I tell them the story. Then I ask them what they’re doing out so late. They tell me they are coming in from partying with a girl, then turn around and start to wave at a car leaving! The car pulling out of the hotel parking lot was the girl that had been flirting with me all night. WOW, they got me…. Those two had sat in their room across the lot and laughed at me all night; to the truck, back to my room, back to my truck, to room, to truck! You get the picture.
The moral of this story; the two Veterans were showing me, the young buck Rookie, that I wasn’t all that I thought I was!!
Enjoy, CJM
Johnny Mantell 