Professional Wrestling is a cultural enigma......Whenever professional wrestling comes up in my life I always refer to Jerry Seinfeld's philosophical comments on the matter. The most amazing thing to think about is if it didn't exist already.....can you imagine the sales pitch to try and make it become a reality? Seinfeld talks about the pitchman saying, "It'll be great....the guys will be huge but they'll wear these tiny bathing suits. It'll look violent, but they won't really be hitting each other." I always get laughs when I talk about it....and then the conversation will turn to memories of matches on TV, matches at the armory in town, famous one liners, crazy storylines or old friends hanging out around the enigma of professional wrestling.
JOHN LASETER - A wonderful and beautiful enigma in my life passed away earlier this week. I went to his funeral to hug his wife, son and daughter. We laughed and cried......and then we talked about wrestling. Because wrestling was the enigmatic part of our lives that raised this man from just another adult in my life to a Cheshire-grinning sage who stood at a distance, but truly impressed my heart.
John Laseter had a son and a daughter - Jenni and Jay. We attended the same church growing up. My dad was the minister of music and John was an adult Sunday School teacher and a "youth group father" who I treated the way I treated most adults.....the way Charlton Heston told me to at the end of Planet of the Apes. Jenni and I were civil and our biggest interaction came when I met a friend of hers who became my first serious girlfriend. Jay was a few years behind me and I barely noticed him.....but the beautiful enigma hadn't crept to the surface yet.
My first real interaction with John Laseter came AFTER I graduated from high school. He probably had spoken to me many times, but this is when the enigma first surfaced. I had just become a youth sponsor....helping the youth ministry by being a chaperone, game leader, etc. John came up to me in the church hallway and said, "Steven! I've got a great event you need to do with the youth....You need to take the youth down to see the RASSLIN' MATCHES!"................................................................
After the long pause I think I said, "What?!?!?!" I said this because I couldn't believe an adult Sunday School teacher (who may have been an elder at the time too) was saying what I think he was saying. I was also taken aback wondering if he knew that I watched wrestling and making fun or could it be this man knew about wrestling? He kept pestering me almost weekly to "Take those teenagers down to see the RASSLIN' MATCHES!" There were offers to drive, offers to get pastoral approval, and other offers. What also came out of these weekly youth ministry hallway advisory committee meetings was a growing awareness that John Laseter was a real wrestling fan. I never could tell if he was completely serious or completely kidding (which I learned over time was the modus operandi of John Laseter....never too serious and never too sarcastic....almost always a "just right" position to create mischief and learning.)
What also happened at these exchanges was that John was building a relationship with me. After berating me to take the teens down to Center Stage to see WCW, there was always a question about my life, my schooling, my girlfriend, or my job. Slowly I began to ask him about his job (John was the first adult to tell me he hated his job....mainly because he was ready to retire. "One day closer" was a reply I remember), his family and his vacation plans. We were sharing life together. Any advice he dispensed was usually a nugget of truth buried in a cynical joke said with that Cheshire grin smile. In short - John Laseter was talking to me differently from most adults - he was talking to me like a peer - and I will always be grateful for that.
Then the enigma turned beautiful. John's son Jay was now 15-16 years old. Jay was nowhere near a relationship with God. Jay and I had both grown up in wonderful homes, with wonderful parents who were leaders in church and who gave us an opportunity to go to Christian schools......and we went in OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS....at least on the surface. I had always been "the good kid" in the youth group. Jay had developed a reputation as "the rebel" of the youth group. I had spoken in chapel and Jay would skip chapel to be in detention.
I can't remember if Jay and I talked about wrestling beforehand or if it happened when I came over, but John Laseter approached me one more time with a personal request. We had never gotten the kids down to see the RASSLIN' MATCHES, but John invited me over to his house because he and Jay were going to rent the newest wrestling video at Blockbuster (I think it was WCW "Bash at the Beach"). John promised me a mound of pizza, bags upon bags of chips, any soda I could dream of and even some desserts made by Mrs. Laseter. I was shocked when I arrived and saw 3 WHOLE PIZZAS for just the three of us. John was also incredibly excited that there had been two other recent wrestling videos available at the store. John, Jay and I then spent the next six hours watching wrestling, eating way too much food, burping, laughing and building a relationship built on the beautiful enigma that is professional wrestling.
Jay let me in his world because I impressed him with my historical knowledge of wrestling and my old habit of knowing different characters from old wrestling territories (i.e. - Dingo Warrior became Ultimate Warrior, and Vinnie Vegas became Diesel). As we watched the videos John would tell stories about old matches with "15 minutes of head locks complete with one leg drop and a pin." Jay would start a conversation with things like "Did you hear about that new character Undertaker in WWF? He used to be Mean Mark in the WCW..." I would usually try to start a discussion about "Flair vs. Hogan" or "Rock n Roll vs. Midnight Express"? The night would pass way too quickly because we would laugh at the stupidity of the storylines. We would hoot and holler over a new move tried from the top rope ("DID YOU SEE THAT!") We would rewind the best lines of commentary ("Trapezius muscle" from Gorilla, "Flying Tamale" from Bobby Heenan and ANY interview by the Nature Boy). And at the end of the night, when I would drive home......I was closer to John and Jay Laseter then when I got there.
John confessed to me one time that my interaction with Jay while we gorged on wrestling was the "closest thing to church" that Jay had in his life. Again I looked at this wise man and thought, "What?!?!?!?!" We never cracked our Bibles and I never asked Jay about "his walk" or suggested the latest Lucado book. I learned much later in life that John, Jay and I were simply SHARING LIFE. The beautiful enigma of wrestling was used by God and John to help me build a friendship with a wise old man and a young punk who I could ALWAYS talk to anytime and anywhere because we shared a love for the male soap opera of pro wrestling.
We had our wrestling parties a few times a year. We saw many tapes and had many conversations. Almost all of them around wrestling, but there were talks of life, people, school and maybe even a little about the Bible. Out of this male soap opera I developed two good friends. John went to be with his Lord and Savior. I heard about his leadership, his teaching and his military background. Yet to me - John was a laughing, mischievous elder in my church who became my friend and influenced my life very quietly through a loud and obnoxious enigmatic love around wrestling and gluttony.
Thanks John!
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