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Faith and f ightf ill young athlete's life Story and photo by Evelyn Zappia
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Jtaris Alexander could be called a paradox. By day, he is a gentle and patient man working with developmenat Potrero tal^ disabled senior citizens Hill Neighborhood House in the city. By night , he is - by some standards - brutal , sparing in earnest at the Police Athletic League (PAL) gymnasium in Hunters Point getting in shape for his next professional fight. Alexander, 34, boasts to be the only man to hold the California Lightweight Title (June 1996) and the United States Lightweight Title (Jul y 1996) at the same time. "At one time, I was the only game in town," he said, adding: "The state title means the most to me because I won it in front of my hometown crowd at the Longshoremen 's Hall in San Francisco." Alexander 's ancestry is black and white. His mother Jean, who recently died, was African American. His father, James, is Irish American. "That makes me 'Black-rish' ," smiled Alexander. At present, he is a "vagabond Catholic, " not belonging to any particular parish since he travels, extensively throughout the world. In the last year-and-one-half, he has foug ht in Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Germany, Finland, and - he smiles, again - "Paris," France. The United States ' boxing fan 's traditional focus on heavyweight fighters to the exclusion of other weight i classes forces him to box outside the country. "It's the I only way to get decent money for a match," he ; explained. PARIS Continued on page 12
Veterans Day
I Polish World War II veteran tells little known story in book By Kamille Maher
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"Good night, sleep tight," goes the nursery rhyme, "don 't let the bedbugs bite." Thus are children sent off to sleep - without necessarily knowing what bedbugs do. Wanda Pomykalski knows. Bedbugs, the size of a woman 's thumbnail, emerge from holes in prison walls and feast on human flesh at about the midnig ht hour. One can hear them pouncing onto the surface of the skin. Pomykalski also knows why the hungry Bolshevik soldiers marauding through Lwow, Poland, in 1939 reeked of coal tar, and how long an 18-year-old woman can live with inadequate amounts of food before she becomes sterile. VETERAN Continued on page 13