My "Wanna Be" Journey started in High School

My “wanna be” started during the 1970's in high school on Long Island. I took boxing lessons with my buddies, Robby, Johnny and Johnny (now aka Jack) through a park district program. (Funny how in New York, guy's nick names always ended in "Y". I was Joey, of course). Anyway, I would have been pretty good if it wasn’t for the fact that I couldn’t see a punch coming without my glasses and had a keen aptitude for nose bleeding. Not a very good combination for a fighter. Blur and blood …. that was my combination. Even with this career limiting handicap, I still imagined fighting in a ring, crowds cheering and “Bloody Nose Joe” knocking out the champ in a Rocky-esq kind of way.

Many years later when my wife nagged me about not spending enough "quality time" with my five year old daughter, I enrolled in parent/child karate. The dream lived on! Maybe for me it did. Alas, my five year old didn’t quite like the hitting part very much even though she was incredibly adorable with a pony tale in a white gi with pink barrettes. In her defense, It is hard to be both cute and vicious. Over time, she dropped karate to pursue her girly ice skating. I kept going, the brute I was. Oh well, it’s a man’s sport anyway. Move over kid!!

I always wanted to be a fighter like my dad, Joseph Anthony Pulichene. He started out to be boxer on the East side of Manhattan in Little Italy in the late 1930's. He was a pretty good feather weight with a lot of potential, until his immigrant father, stopped him in his tracks. You see, in those days in Little Italy, you either learned to fight and joined the mob or you grew straight and narrow. Legend has it, my dad's father hid his gym shoes the night of a big fight. He couldn't box in his sox and there were no Sportsmart on the East side of Manhattan he could run to. It never made perfect sense to me but legends never do. None-the-less … A career nipped for lack of footwear. Go figure. Maybe that’s why karate seemed to take hold. You can do it in bare feet! I found the answer. No one was going to try that old trick again by hiding my shoes and make me a perpetual “wanna be” or a “should have been”. I was destined for greatness, a somebody! If only my dad found the key to his dream. Although maybe he did. A little rough around the edges and with some broken English, Joseph Anthony grew up pretty darn straight and narrow. He dropped out of H.S. to support the family, fought in a war saving Europe from the Nazi's, got out of Little Italy, married a beautiful young women, raised a family, worked hard achieving the American dream and was truly loved. You did good ... Joseph Anthony!! Maybe his dad really did know better after all.