When the fight began in Chicago's Comiskey Park, somewhere close to where second base could usually be found, at 9:08 P.M. on June 22, 1937, 31 year-old James J. Braddock was heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Forty five minutes later, one minute into round eight, the longest day of the year suddenly got shorter for the champ. Braddock lay unconscious in the middle of the ring, blood flowing from his nose and mouth, after absorbing the 63rd and final blow, a crushing right to the jaw from challenger Joe Louis, only 23 but already known as the Dark Destroyer, and more famously as the Brown Bomber from Detroit. Braddock had to be carried from the ring by his handlers. The fight, a toe to toe brawl that saw Louis floored in the first round, was seen by 80,000 screaming fight fans including the governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Ohio. Braddock recovered to pocket $350,000 for his trouble, three times what Louis got, and to call for a rematch which no one took seriously. The match was broadcast by NBC on a nationwide radio hookup that reached several million people around the country including a loudly cheering dozen or so men and boys gathered in the Fun House of Giessow's Cottage Farm.
Ten year-old, actually 10 and a half, Jaybird Frederick was as excited about the reaction of his dad and the others as by the fight itself. Jaybird's dad, who everybody called coach, had collected $15, one dollar for every round of the scheduled 15-rounder, from the fight enthusiasts who had gathered in the Fun House to listen to announcer Don Dunphy's breathless account of every jab, hook, and uppercut as the fight unfolded. The money went into a round pool and was awarded to the one lucky enough to draw the round in which the fight ended. Jaybird got to hold the money even though he did not have a round of his own since with his 5 cents a week allowance it would have taken him almost half a year to save a dollar if he never spent a penny. Jaybird had been coming here to Cottage Farm every summer since he was five years old because the high school in East Peoria, Illinois where his dad coached football, basketball, and baseball shut down for the summer months. Cottage Farm was the creation of Jaybird's Grampa Otto Giessow, a pint-sized, bald-headed man with muscles like steel cables who liked to imitate Jimmy Durante, and who with grim determination, and inexhaustible cheerfulness had built this place board by board and nail by nail over the last 15 years, and in fact was still building.
Giessow's Cottage Farm was located in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains, 40 miles Southwest of St. Louis, and came into existence in the middle of the roaring twenties not long after Otto Giessow discovered that it was possible to drive a Model T Ford from his Auto Mechanic's Garage on north Locust Street in St.Louis down into those Ozark Mountains. Shortly after World War I ended in 1918 Grampa Giessow was confronted with demands from the United Auto Workers that anyone who worked in his garage must be a member of the union. The idea that a free and native-born American citizen who had paid his taxes and supported the war to end all wars was not free to hire any by-God person he wanted to hire regardless of union affiliation was so repugnant to Grampa Giessow that he sold his business and used the money to buy this land down in the Ozarks that was being advertised in the St.Louis Post-Dispatch by a dirt-poor farmer who couldn't pay his taxes. Right from the start Grampa Giessow knew what he would do with that land ... he would build cottages where people could bring their kids and escape the summer heat and hassle of the city; he would build a playground with swings, slides, and seesaws where the kids could have fun; he would build a Fun House where the grownups could gather to sing and dance, play bingo, and listen to fights and baseball games; he would build a store where he would sell the basic necessities to his customers ... beer and pretzels, ice and bread, candy and ice cream. In short, he would build a summer resort.
The Farm that Jaybird and his family came to in the summer of 1937 consisted of a series of 70 or 80 rough-hewn creosote covered summer cottages built along the top of a bluff, spread out over more than 200 acres commanding a surpassing view of the wide river valley several hundred feet below. There wasn't much about the Farm that Jaybird didn't know after coming here all these years. He knew where the mulberry trees were, he knew the quickest way to get down to the river, he knew where the Sycamore trees grew out over the river so you could rig up a rope to swing out, and he knew where all the limestone caves were. With every passing year Jaybird grew stronger and bolder, and pushed the limits of his exploration further and further. Just last week he had discovered a cave under a stream flowing down to the river that he was eager to explore further. But the cave was not on his mind at the moment ... much to his dismay he saw his mother coming through the door of the Fun House, and that could only mean that she was looking for him to tell him it was time for little boys to be in bed. Jaybird was at the age where he could claim to be a big boy or a little boy depending upon how it played to his advantage, but the problem was that his mom and dad caught on to this ploy almost as soon as he had tried it for the first time. Bed time was one of the prime bones of contention, and tonight Jaybird wanted desperately to be a big boy so he could stay and listen to the fight with his dad and the others. It was only the fifth round and from the sound of it, both fighters were drawing blood. Jaybird didn't want to miss it.
"Come on, Jaybird," his mom said, "it's past ten o'clock, time for little boys to be in bed."
"Aw, Mom, you gotta let me stay ... the fight's in the fifth round, it could end anytime, I'm not a little boy anymore."
Jaybird's mom was tired. Giessow'sCottage Farm may have been designed with rest and recreation in mind, but for a 32 year-old woman with a 10 year-old son, a six month-old daughter, and a husband who only marginally understood her problems, it was a nightmare. Water had to be hauled bucket by bucket from a community pump just across the road from the Fun House. Indoor plumbing was non existent; toilet facilities consisting of chamber pots and reeking outhouses. Cooking was done mostly on electric stoves and grills, power supplied by a battery-operated generator Grampa Giessow had installed when Gramma Giessow made it a condition of her coming down here into these semi-civilized hills.
Jaybird's mom was tired because she had just finished washing two-day's supply of diapers and hanging them out to dry after she had cleaned up after the evening meal. She felt keenly the unfairness of a world where husbands and sons could kick back with cool drinks listening to radio accounts from far away of two men beating each other into a pulp while wives must work their fingers to the bone to keep the house in order. She would take out her frustration on Jaybird because she knew it was futile to confront Jaybird's dad. She seized Jaybird by one ear and pulled him toward the door of the Fun House. "No more talk Mr. big boy," she said.
Jaybird looked to his dad for help but found him laughing along with all the others. It was not easy being ten and half years old.