大象传媒

At the age of 13 I was working as a delivery boy for a baker's company called Scott's Bakery in High Craighall Road in Glasgow (by the way, this was also the street where my first ever love lived).

Part of our delivery sometimes was to Abbotsinch Airport. The cookhouse there was manned entirely by black American Air Force personnel. This was the first time in my life I had ever met a black person.

After making my deliveries of bread I was standing there, looking around, when I was lifted bodily by a giant of a man, an American sergeant. I was so small, he simply lifted me and put me on a table like a doll. Then he shook my hand and gave me some chocolate with a big smile and off he went.

I was amazed at the size of him, so I asked some of the other airmen who he was. They looked at me as if I was mad. 'Sonny,' one of them said, 'don't you recognise him? He is the Heavyweight Champion of the World, that is the great Joe Louis himself, the Brown Bomber.'

I had seen him a few times on the newsreels, and all I knew was he was big and he was black. I got home and told all my pals, 'I have just shook the hand of Joe Louis himself,' and I didn't wash my hand for days.

Now I am not exactly sure to this day whether or not it really was the great man himself or if the rest of the airmen were fooling me. But I don't care. I have made myself believe it all these years and I still firmly believe I shook the hand of the greatest boxer in the world, Joe Louis in person.

-- Read all Tommy Mac's edited contributions to this website

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