From Everbody's Louie, an article about Louis Armstrong, also known as Pops
One night near the end of Pop’s ten-day Atlantic City run
we dallied in his dressing room long past midnight, having a little taste,
while on video-tape heavy weight contender Joe Frazier repeated his brutal
knockout of George Chuvalo. Freshly
toweled by Bob Sherman, wearing a faded robe and a handkerchief tied around his
head so that he resembled Aunt Jemimah, Pops bounced around the cramped room,
grunting and grimacing as gloves thudded against flesh, sucking in air and
occasionally throwing an uppercut of his own..
After he dressed we walked along the Steel Pier, dark now
except for a few dim lights on the outer walkway. The noisy crowds had been dispersed and the
gates locked; a few sleepy night watchmen prowled the shooting galleries,
fun-house rides, and endless rows of concession stands. Strolling the walkway, we could hear the
ocean boiling beneath us. Pops peered up
at a tall tower from which a young blonde on horseback plunges into a giant
tank of water three times each day. He
shook his head. “Ain’t that a hell of a
way to make a living. And them cats in
there fighting on the box – beating each other crazy for the almighty
dollar. Pops, some people got a hell of
a hard row to hoe.”
We paused at the end of the pier jutting into the
Atlantic; Pops lit a cigarette and leaned on a restraining fence to smoke. For long moments he looked up at the full
moon, and watched the surf come and go.
The glow from the cigarette faintly illuminated the dark old face in
repose and I thought of some ancient tribal chieftain musing by his campfire,
majestic and mystical. There was only
the rush of water, gently roaring and boasting at the shore. “Listen to it, Pops,” he said in his low,
chesty rumble. “Whole world’s turned
on. Don’t you dig its pretty sounds?”
Larry
L. King, Harper’s Magazine, November 1967
