Story Time With Bomb Volume 3...Charles In 3-D: Sweetchuck & The Chuckster

The first, and only time to date, that I met Charles Barkley was late in the evening in Atlantic City. It was Fall 1987, after the conclusion of our first quarterly marking period. I was 11 years old, in the sixth grade, my first attending middle school.

Charles was my favorite hooper and playing for my hometown Philadelphia 76ers.

It was shortly after I'd just witnessed Tyson pummel Tyrell Biggs for 7 rounds, alongside my uncle John, from the $50 nose-bleed seats in AC.

Big title fights, especially peak-era, undefeated, unified world heavyweight champion Iron Mike Tyson fights, are amazing places to people watch. There was likely no better place to be post-Ali, to spot countless celebrities under one roof, all there to have a good time, taking in one singularly adrenalin-charged event.

I’d ‘met' Hall of Fame Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor that night, on his way out the fight in the concourse, but didn't actually speak to him. As I approached, LT was tossing folks out the way like o-lineman, with a wild look in his eye.

Later in life that look, along with his activity, made more sense to me.

But back to Charles.....

Sometime shortly after Tyson's savage bludgeoning of Atlantic City-bred, 1984 Gold Medalist, undefeated Olympian Biggs, was stopped by the referee and scored a TKO, Uncle John and I were walking out of Atlantic City's Convention Hall. Clutching my fight program, wearing my white Tyson/Biggs hoodie, a prized piece of clothing in '87/'88 Unc had copped pre-fight at the gift shop.

I waited outside, gawking at a bare-chested fight promoter named Butch Lewis, wearing a tuxedo vest like it was a wife beater, barking orders to his minions.

I would wear that hoodie so many days my first year of middle school, that it was on when kids cleaned up nice for Picture Day. Mom was less impressed and opted not to frame that year’s edition.

Standing outside with my uncle, I spotted the Round Mound of Rebound, walking out from sliding casino doors in a tuxedo, with a couple other similarly dressed, seemingly important people, who signaled the valet for their ride.

"There's Charles Barkley!" I exclaimed to Unc as we looked on from 50 yards yards away.

"Go get his autograph", Unc said.

This seemed like a sensible, perhaps even inspired, idea at the time.

But keep in mind I'm an 11-year-old kid, not yet fully confident in my approach.

Nevertheless, I begin creeping across the parking lot in spite of my own hesitation.

Got to the pavilion where the valet featured a long lane of limo cars, out front of the Plaza, where Charles was hobnobbing with his important friends.

I didn't have a pen let alone a Sharpie, a thought which occurred to me too late.

After standing frozen still for a second, or was it a minute, Charles Barkley made a waving motion with his hand.

I didn't make much of it, he was Charles Barkley, in a tuxedo on fight night, waiting on a ride, talking to those doing the same.

He waved a second time. This time it really seemed like he was staring right at me, which couldn’t be.

Looked behind to see if there was grown, important sharp dressed men or fine women in evening gowns in that lot.

Nope.

Third wave.

By this time we were at a close enough distance to detect direct eye contact.

But I still wasn't buying it.

"Me?" I said out loud, in an tone of inquiry, while pointing to the middle of my chest, adorned with Mike Tyson and Tyrell Biggs faces on it.

"Yeah, YOU! Boy, get over here!"

All the sudden I was crossing the limo line, approaching the franchise power forward of the Sixers, an intense man whose poster hung on my bedroom wall, whose two-handed rim-hanging power dunks I'd tried to imitate at the dunkball court by Kingsway Learning Center, on Elm Street, and especially the low. backboard-less rim hanging over Ro’s folks’ garage on Belmont Ave, that I’d eventually rip down with said move.

Charles continued to motion me closer and ceased stopped talking to his friends.

"Hi, Mr. Barkley"

"Hey little man, what's your name?"

"Matt", I said, still a few nickname shifts away from the Bomb you know today.

"You lookin' lost over there son, you need something?"-The Chuckster.

"Well, I'm a Sixer fan, you're my favorite player, I didn’t wanna bother you but wanted to see if you would autograph my fight program”

"Where you go to school, Matt? What grade you in?" asked Charles, making conversation in the interim.

"Haddonfield Middle School, sixth grade, it's my first year there" came my reply, already developing a habit for long replies to short questions.

"How you like it?"

"It's good"

"How your grades?"

*slight pause*

"They're pretty good."

Author's Note: I was already, in my mind, lying by omission. I'd recently received my first 'C'. School was getting a little harder now, since I could no longer coast on natural intellect, and expected to actually hit the books to get into the messy business of things like homework, term papers, assigned reading, or studying for tests.

"Hey son, you hesitated, you tellin' me the truth?"

*longer pause, muted reply*

"Yeah" (in a voice lacking bass even by my own pre-pubescent standard)

"What'd you get on your last report card? I wanna hear every class, every grade!"

*gulping*

"Well, I got an A in Math, an A in English, an A- in Social Studies, a B+ in Science, an A in PE, a B+ in Spanish and *trailing off into a barely audible lets-wrap-this-up-mumble*.....a-C-in-Technology*

"Hold on now, you said that last one too quick, say it again"

Sheepishly, but more audibly, “'C' in Technology"

"Technology?!? What kinda class is that?"

"Well....it's this class where we have like....projects, like we saw wood, use this metal vice, carve stu-"

*Charles cuts me off quick, with an incredulous retort/question*

"You mean SHOP?!?"

*pausing to think*

"Yeah, guess so"

"BOY! How in Thee.....HELL......are you gonna get A's & B's in Math, English, Science, and then turn around and get a C in SHOP?!?"

*struggling to find an answer, twisting and turning inside, no discernible words being produced from my mouth in reply*

"Boy, didn't anybody tell you SHOP the easiest class they got in them schools?!?"

Charles Barkley seemed genuinely pissed, like my father upon seeing the mark a month earlier.

Nevertheless, he grabbed the program from my hand, possibly noticing it beginning to shake in my grip.

"Now I'ma sign this for you......but don't ever let me hear you got a ‘C’ in no damn SHOP again!"

*beginning to exhale*

"I won't"

"Where's your pen at?"

*uh-oh*

"Um, I don't have one"

Charles again looking annoyed and disappointed, makes his way to a limo behind me, as a window rolls down, Charles asks the driver for a pen, who produces one for him.

"You should always keep a pen with you, even when you ain't in school, never know when you might need to write something down."

"Okay, thanks, Mr. Barkley.”

"You alright, little man, go find your people before they leave you here and I get stuck with you.”

"Okay, thanks again”

Three decades since, Charles Barkley surely has no recollection of that exchange but gave me three jewels I’ve kept with me since: