He was “pretty,” as he often said, but his last years were not pretty. On Saturday night Muhammed Ali died, ending his thirty year battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Early on, Ali’s life was about his superiority in the ring and the arrogant, provocative, rhyming couplets he conjured to celebrate it. After he stopped fighting, his life was about character, integrity, and a different kind of courage. In the prime of life he suffered for his principles but stood by them. He was stripped of his title and barred from boxing. He lost three professional years for his opposition to the Vietnam war. He later dedicated himself to making the world a better place for all people.
Bob Gandt is a remarkable guy. We first met 40 years ago as Pan Am pilots in Berlin. Bob had been based there for a couple of years when I arrived, and we soon discovered a number of shared interests. We had both flown A4’s in the military, were marathon runners who shared an admiration for Ernest Hemingway’s prose, and harbored our own aspirations to be writers. When Bob found out I was from Ketchum, Idaho, Hemingway’s last home, and knew Ernest’s son, Jack, it was clear we were going to have a lot to talk about.
