and feow lived next door to me, eddie mccarthy, who was a professional fighter 135-pound, lightweight, very good guy. and he took me under his wing. but then he went off to the korean war. justefore he did that, he turned me over to a local boxing hero, kenny isaacs. and he told kenny, "kenny, take young paul here under your wing. he's my protege." kenny did that. and i was gonna retire as soon as i won the flyweight championship of north america, but i never got that far. i got up to the silver medal for the aau in new england at the age of 17. and that was about it. after that, in the follow-up fight, getting ready for the nationals, i got knocked out, the end of that career. another big influence ony life was burl grey, a sign painter that i met back ithe late fties. burl was painting in miami and i was assigned to paint with him. no one else would paint with him because there was a rumor going around about him that he was, yeah, one of them. he was accused of being, ani found out for myself that old burl was an intellectual. and intellectus didn't cut it theign painting circuit. a