Turnovers … by Alan B. Gibson

Posted June 22, 2016 at 1:43 pm

Experiencing the Ali Memorial

I had several comments following my recent column about the death and memorial ceremony of Muhammad Ali but a couple stood out in particular.

Local businessman and long-time friend Bill Talbott of Talbott Lumber Company in south Albany, stopped by last week to spend several minutes with me sharing his thoughts about Muhammad Ali.

The most interesting part of his story involved an older fellow from Clinton County who was related to Bill and had retired to the Louisville area in the early 1960s.

Always accustomed to getting up before sunrise, the elderly gentleman would find his way to a nearby park each morning to watch the sunrise and the city awaken. Most mornings, a young Cassius Clay would be running by while training and would almost always end his morning run in the vicinity of the park bench that the gentleman sat on each morning. The two spent many mornings talking and “trying to figure each other out” as Bill told me in this particular story.

Another interesting turn of events surrounding Muhammad Ali came from Albany attorney David Choate, another long-time friend that I have spent many hours with at the KHSAA Sweet 16 several years ago.

Choate tells me that a garden show scheduled in the Old Louisville area had attracted he and his wife Susan and they had made reservations at a Louisville Marriott several weeks prior to Ali’s death, and as it turned out, they found themselves in the Derby City during the same weekend as the Memorial Service.

Choate noted that downtown Louisville that Friday afternoon was packed with people and “celebrities were just wandering around everywhere.”

Among the celebs he mentioned seeing in the crowds were Jesse Jackson, Don King, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, David Beckham, Mike Tyson, Will Smith.

Susan had driven to Louisville earlier and stood in line to get tickets to the Memorial and was successful in obtaining the free admission tickets just as the limit was reached and the windows closed. During the service, the Choate’s were fortunate to see Billy Crystal, Bryant Gumble, Bill Clinton and others speak, recall and celebrate the life of Muhammad Ali.

Later that night back at the hotel, when an elderly gentleman asked to use some chairs from their table, they learned he had been Ali’s tailor, and had also been a personal tailor to Ronald Reagan. He later introduced the Choate’s to Ali’s second wife and Ali’s daughters.

Choate had previously met and shook hands with Ali during a chance meeting some 25 years ago when he happened upon the Ali entourage at Disney World.