Joe Ditzel Has Some Problems
My father was, how do you say, frugal. When it came to our family cars, he was at his “frugalest”. When I was in high school we had a 1965 Mercury Comet. We pleaded for a newer car. It was embarrassing to pick up girls in this car. The doors were as heavy as a door to a safe. If the door didn’t close on your date and kill them, they cut their knee on the 8-track tape machine hanging down from the dash.
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I’ve moved a lot. I was born in Dayton, then moved to Columbus, Austin, Edmonton, Des Moines, Akron, Columbus (II), Cleveland, Columbus (III), Los Angeles, San Francisco, and then back to Los Angeles (II). My brother John, who remembers everything, claims we also lived in Iceland in the summer of 1968 and Indonesia during the monsoon season in 1975.
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"Here, hold her," my friend said as she held out her baby.
"No, thanks," I said.
"Oh, come one, she likes you!"
The baby smiled at me with a goofy baby grin.
"No, really, she'll break somehow," I said.
When I was 8 my family moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. I started playing hockey that fall. I loved hockey for its speed and action. But for sheer danger and human drama, hockey paled to the blood-rush I felt when I discovered tobogganing.
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I don't fix things. My dad did. He was born in the depression. They had to make things last. He didn't call for a fix it guy. He fixed it himself. He would take the toaster out in the garage and take it apart. He started out happy and whistling. Two hours later he was banging and yelling at the toaster, "What's wrong with you, you damn toaster??!!" We knew then to high-tail it for the hockey rink or the mall.
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My brothers and I were professional wrestlers. We didn’t work for the WWF or WCW. We produced our own show- DWF- the Ditzel Wrestling Federation.
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