"Dear Lord" I want to change
I want to try. To put a smile
Back on her face. Before
I die.
Pat Patterson wrote those words in a poem 12 years ago as he began to recover from the alcoholism that nearly killed him. But sober now at the age of 76, Patterson is more alive than ever -- even though everyone he's ever dated has died.
"All the women I've went with -- four wives and many girlfriends -- are gone," he says, reclining on his living room couch at 4411 Walnut St. "My youngest daughter told me, 'Daddy, you're a death trap.'"
He takes a long drag on his cigarette and then chuckles. Life is funny to Pat Patterson.
He's been around a long time, seen a lot of things. Had nine sons, four daughters. A retired municipal worker and boxing trainer, he worked with the best Philly fighters of all time at the Passyunk Gym, which turned out one pugilistic star after another 50 years ago: Harold Johnson, Joey Giardello, Matthew Franklin. They're enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame -- thanks, in part, to Patterson.
Patterson thanks South Philly, the neighborhood where he grew up.
"When I was coming up, everyone spoke to everyone else," he says, having moved from his couch to his apartment building's stoop, where he spends most of his days. "If someone was sweeping his step, he'd sweep your step, too. Though we were poor, if someone was making food, they'd invite you to have some. And in those days, if we had an argument, we had a fistfight to decide things and we shook hands when it was over.
"They don't do that anymore," he says, raising his voice in agitation. "They'll shoot anyone."
So 13 years ago, Patterson moved from South Philly to Walnut. He misses the old neighborhood -- where as a kid he played football in the street with five newspapers rolled together -- but he's not naive. His fighters' manager was probably knocked off by the mob there in 1977. "I wouldn't go back," he says. "Besides, I like it here."
West Philly likes him back. Patterson's neighbors often stop by his stoop, where they always know "Mr. Pat" will be waiting to help them. And so, on a recent September Friday, with the sun beaming down on Mr. Pat's bushy mustache, a chubby man in his late 20s arrives at the stoop.
Disheveled, the man asks Mr. Pat for a light. Mr. Pat obliges -- if only the man can assess the age of his distinctive gold-plated lighter. "20 years old?" he guesses. "You got it!" Mr. Pat says. It's a cute episode until Mr. Pat yells after the man as he walks away with his newly lighted cigarette.
"I won't forget about that arm!" Mr. Pat shouts. Patterson will later explain that the man was recently assaulted and hit in the arm with a baseball bat. "They come to me with questions," Mr. Pat will say. "I try to give them an answer."
For now, Mr. Pat's oversized glasses (with distinctive red plastic frames) are surveying his neighborhood from the stoop, taking in surroundings that may be better than South Philly, but only by so much.
"There's a senior citizens' home down the block," he says, "and those people are afraid to go to the store at night." It's this darker aspect of the neighborhood that's turned Pat Patterson, alcoholic, into Mr. Pat, the man who "students love waving to," who tells them, "Don't go here, don't go there."
Mr. Pat's life revolves around the stoop now. Besides watching out for the kids, he spends his day there reading and writing poetry, while another 20-year-old treasure, his transistor radio, plays golden oldies. He has been writing poetry since 1992 and says a woman at the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology wanted to publish some. He refused, saying that at age 76, he wasn't ready for publication yet.
"In 24 years, I'll be 100," he calculates. "Then I'll give them something to remember me by."
His poems touch upon all his thoughts -- from the pain alcoholism inflicts upon others to the disrespect some youths show their elders. Mr. Pat is willing to share those thoughts with anyone who stops by his stoop -- which, a few blocks from campus, is a poignant reminder that professors and historians exist beyond the mahogany-paneled walls of academia, in all walks of life. And at 4411 Walnut, class is always in session.
Gabriel Oppenheim is a College freshman from Scarsdale, N.Y. Opp-Ed appears on Fridays.
