I tried to cram 10 pounds of stuff into a 5-pound bag in today's print Slice. That happens sometimes when I come back from a week off.

Anyway, one item in particular got a bit deflavorized in the condensing process.

So here is the original submission, pretty much just as reader Bruce Burton emailed it to me.

"Subject: The hardest I have been punched

"Paul, in regards to your question, that's an easy one. In 1976 I was a 15-year-old welterweight, boxing in the California state A.A.U. Junior Olympics and had advanced to the gold medal round. Two days before the big bout my coach thought it would be a good idea to go to a cross-town gym to spar with a middleweight a few years older and more experienced than I was. It didn't take long before I walked into a hard right hand that dropped me so hard I still don't remember leaving the gym or the drive home.

"Twenty years later my Spokane dentist was looking at an X-ray and asked 'So how did you break your jaw?' I knew right away it was that middleweight and that hard right cross."

Burton had not known about the facial fracture before that.

"When I came home that night I dug out the silver medal I had been given for losing that humiliating unanimous decision in L.A. (just two days after getting decked by that middleweight). I threw away the guilt I've had for going to the canvas every time I took a head shot in that gold medal round. Now I feel better knowing that I did get up every time I went down and finished the fight, even with a broken jaw."

Mr. Burton, you were -- and I suspect still are -- one tough hombre.       

---

---