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09/25/2008 Entry: "9/26/2008: The first two pages of a letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe from December 11, 1987"

Letter from Charles A. Smith to Joe Roark December 11, 1987 pp1-2

Dear Joe,
Got your latest the other day and again congrats are in order. The newsletter gets better each time one is shoved out. Keep it up.

Before I get into the meal, may I wish you and your family all the best for the coming Holiday and New Year. May things be prosperous for you and yours, and, above all, may you be happy.

My oldest grand daughter- my oldest daughter, Evelyn�s daughter�now doesn�t THAT sound complicated�graduated the same day as your kid did, from the University of Texas School of Business Administration and at once landed herself a job with the Target chain store, salary for starters 18,700 a year, with a 7 percent raise after her probationary period as manager trainee. Not bad for a kid of 24.

I am enclosing by separate letter some clippings from a British Mag- STRENGTH ATHLETE- the one who stole my article and published it under someone else�s name. These cuttings should prove of interest to you.

One is by a man named Tony Fitton, British, I am ashamed to say, which purports to be an interview of Bill Kazmeier. Fitton was caught at the Texas- belay that- California and Mexico border with a load of drugs in his car, worth three quarters of a million on the street. Placed on bail before trial, he promptly skipped town and remained loose for a year before US Marshalls caught up with him in Colorado. He got five years, but for some weird reason did only a few months, after conviction for drug smuggling and unlawful flight to avoid justice. How in the hell he wasn�t deported on moral turpitude charges is beyond me. You will notice references to the Reverend in the �article�. I feel sure these are stabs at Reverend Todd because of the part the Reverend played in Fitton�s conviction- so the Reverend says.

But of greater interest is the stuff about the Bombay Bullshit artist, to wit, Sri Chinmoy. You will note the abusive tone of the letter about David Webster. The writer, Levine, calls himself AGRA, no doubt an abbreviation of aggravate.

You will also notice that they dwell more on what the Cheerie Chapp has done for world peace, the poems he has composed, the books he has written and his 100 thousand odd paintings. What these have to do with his lifting 7000 with one arm I don�t know. They also dwell on how he �psyched� himself up, his mental powers that allowed him to press with one arm that enormous weight. The author of the article who calls herself B. Torpy does not give her real name but a Hindu adopted name. Her piece can easily be picked to pieces. If the Cheery Chappie�s mental powers are such that he can lift over three tons with one arm, how much more easier would it be for him to bring the weight down to earth and do a one hand dead lift of 700 or a two hands clean and jerk of 600. I am afraid we won�t see these feats. What we shall see however are those Moonbeams From The Larger Lunacy shouting even louder at all who say the Cheery Chappie is a bullshit artist.

They also wrote a very caustic, indeed threatening, letter to IM re: the Reverend�s article recently carried in. This, I guess, you have seen. It would appear to be that little of the Cheery Chappie�s teachings of peace and brotherhood have rubbed off on his cohorts. Meanwhile Sri Chinmoy- I can�t remember if I have told you this �has been sued by the United Nations for unauthorized use of their logo.

Your stuff on Arthur Saxon was very enjoyable. BUT, I have a lot of doubt in my mind about the feats he claimed, or may have been claimed for him.

At no time, nowhere, have I ever seen any description of how Saxon got the bar into his shoulder before bent pressing it. NOWHERE.

If you can get hold of Bill Pullumn�s book, WEIGHTLIFTING MADE EASY AND INTERESTING, you will see that in those days the bent press was used as a competition lift and there were two methods allowed. The Bent Press, one hand into the shoulder and the Bent Press two hands into the shoulder. Thus there were two ways of cleaning the weight before bent pressing it- cleaning it with one hand and cleaning it with two.

Obviously no man could do a clean of over 300 with one hand and no man could clean a 385 pound weight with two hands then. The way a bent press was cleaned with two hands was by grasping the bar, dead center with both hands holding the bar at the same place, THEN heaving it into the shoulder. There was also a third way of bent pressing, and that was �anyhow into the shoulder�. But this way entailed difficulties that would have taken too much out of the lifter to have enabled him to bent press anywhere close to 385 claimed either by, or for, Saxon. So, was it handed to him by two other men? No one seems to know.

I have always doubted his two hands anyhow of 448, There he is in the body bent double position with 336 overhead with one arm, grasping a 112 pound dumbbell on the floor, cleaning that up to his left shoulder, recovering to UPRIGHT POSITION THEN military pressing the 112 to arms length. NO SIR. Can�t be done especially at 210 bodyweight. To accept the bent press claims made for or by Saxon, I want to know where each titanic lift was performed, who were present as officials to weight the weight and pass judgment on its authenticity.

Like the tales told of Oscar Wilde in his many biographies, some �Just ain�t so� stories have been repeated and embellished. This is so in tales of Saxon. It is plain the Saxons drank beer and in quantities that would seem prodigious to those who were not born in Germany, where it is drunk as often as Chinese drink tea.

[next week, pages 3-4]