Iron History

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08/27/2004 Entry: "8/27/2004: Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark"

[Mac Batchelor]

The circumstances of Mac's passing are as follows. Some time in October, he began to have trouble urinating. He went to see the doc and was told he had cancer of the prostate. The surgeon and the oncologist made the decision to perform an orchidotomy - that is, surgically remove his testicles. Scheduled the op for two weeks hence. He was then close to 90 so why they would subject him to radical surgery at that age is beyond me. I asked the Reverend Todd why some sort of chemo therapy wasn't resorted to, such as injections of estrogen. He replied that had been considered but rejected because- get this- it would HARDEN HIS ARTERIES.

In the meantime Mac starts to have some ischematic strokes at home- small affairs that more often than not go unnoticed. So off he goes to hospital- 400 dollars a day for room alone, BASTARDS- and stays there where the strokes continue and increase in severity- as is their normal course. Finally they stick him in a nursing home, where his condition gets worse. Back he goes into the hospital again, gradually worsening in condition and drifting in and out of a coma.

Suddenly he can't eat. They try feeding him via esophagus but can't get the tube in. So they incision his stomach and feed him right into it.

Then his kidneys start to act up, so they give him antibiotics. These cause him to have severe diahorrhea and dehydrate him. Then he starts to run a fever and goes up to 104. It would seem that at this point, realizing they couldn't do anything for him, the Doctor says "No Leo". This is a medical and nursing phrase- according to Vera, in which, in the event of any crisis, no measures will be taken to prolong or help restore life. He passed away 12:30 PM on Saturday, December 6th. [1986]

This man is one of the unsung, un-honored members of a band who have done more for weightlifting than the Woodland Hills Weed is likely to do if he and a million of his kidney lived a million lifetimes. Mac was the very first person in America- and for all I know the world- to teach weightlifting at any American University as a college CREDIT COURSE- a tradition that has continued to this day. Starting in 1920 !!

No, I didn't attend the funeral. I haven't gone to any since my wife died and that was so distressing for me that I vowed I'd never go to another one- except my own.

As for your writing for Balik, GREAT. I can see no reason why not. As I see things you CAN WRITE. In fact anyone can write if he has something to say and feels strongly enough about it�He, Balik, seems to be reliable. He has phoned me a few times and spoken at length. Has asked me to do articles. I have. He has PAID ON ACCECPTANCE something good honest Rader NEVER DID. In fact Balik has articles by the carton, scores of them still unpacked, that he took over from Rader, NONE OF WHICH HAVE BEEN PAID FOR. Don't sell yourself short. You can write BETTER than most of those authors he had in his first issue. So hop to it.

I have been getting a load of feed back over the first issue of IM put out by Balik. The great majority of it negative. Those who don't know what is entailed in putting out a mag have screamed the loudest. There are mainly the so called 'Old Timers' who would holler at ANY change simply because change has taken place, not whether that change was for the better or otherwise.

Balik phoned me and asked me for a critique and to pull no punches. I did. We had 122 pages- including covers- of body copy. 52 pages of ads. But just as each dog comes with fleas, so mags come with ads. You have to have them in order for the mag to survive. The mistake as I saw it was that NONE OF THE ADS were for Balik's products. He also had one man with two articles and another with three. Something he said he wouldn't do. None of the articles with the exception of three were worth reading. The so called gossip column was a shoddy, thread bare imitation of Rick Wayne's column in FLEX. There were also sixteen pages of contest results. On the other hand the mag was, because of larger type, easier to read and the photos tops. But he has forgotten that these alone will not sell his mag. The majority of IM readers are guys who have no interest in getting hugely muscular, but who just want a reasonable amount of strength and muscularity and build, PLUS good health. They don't want to be Mr. Americas or Olympias, and so need loads of HOW TO articles, plus a gossip column and letters to the editor.

One guy I know, tore the mag in half and mailed it back to Balik with a note to say, 'Send me no more of such trash.' BLOODY IDIOT. Balik should be supported by all HONEST guys in the game. If IM sinks, then the weed will have the entire field to himself.

Fred Howell is howling since- rather because- Balik hasn't returned his articles. Rader had them with no complaints from Fred. But Fred wants Balik to shove them back at once if not faster. I can't understand it. For years Rader has done this, enriching himself at writers' expense by paying them nothing for articles or publishing the articles of arrant idiots who wanted to get their names in print. Now that it is over, Balik's actions are seen as an affront, where they were once accepted without one word of complaint.

I have two articles coming up in IM shortly. One is about honesty in our sport and knocking the claims of the wunderkind to have invented all to do with weight training. The other is about the Collection, but with a different - somewhat- slant. Lots of Old Timers tales in it. And to go with it a couple of magnificent photos of Bobby Pandour and one of George Hackenschmidt. This latter has never been published before to my knowledge. It shows Hack as a very young man and is from the private collection of Hack's mentor, Dr. Krajewski.

As for that ad re the 'hitherto undiscovered' Grimek movies. This might well be true. It is a possibility- and just that- that they are from the collection of a character whose real names was Jack Abrams, but who also used the name Jack Kent- there was a bent presser by this same name- and Hugo Olsen, and other noms de crime. His habit was to contact people, ask them if they had anything to exchange or sell, or tell them what great deals he had to offer in the way of selling, hook the sucker, take his stuff or money and not follow through with delivery. When sucker screamed, he'd shove their way inferior merchandise, something they didn't want or order and sit back. Postal authorities had so many complaints re his dirty deeds they stepped in and put the block on him.

Vic Boff tells me he, Abrams, had closets filled with movies of the greats. What happened to them Vic doesn't know, but Abrams passed away, the victim of Parkinson's disease.

[the remainder of the letter is about Vera's nursing travels overseas and does not concern iron history]

Best of everything to you and yours,

Chas.