Collection: About the Budfather
In the beginning........@1969
The Budfather moved from my birthplace in Stroudsburg Pa. to Allentown Pa.
During that year my father introduced me to the world of Professional wrestling. As a nine year old I watched countless hours of the old WWWF TV wrestling out of Philadelphia with Bill Cardille and Capitol Wrestling out of Washington D.C. with Ray Morgan.
My very first favorite was the high flying Puerto Rican Victor Rivera. Along with other good guys Mario Milano , Dominc DeNucci , Manny Soto , Mike Pappas , Tony Marino and of course the Living Legend Bruno Sammartino . They took on a host of bad guys , Krippler Karl Kovacks , Bulldog Brower , George Steel , Eric the Red , Waldo Von Eric and Ivan Koloff.
I was captivated. Even late at night we sometimes got Championship Wrestling from Florida with Gordon SolIe.
About 1971 my father sent away for my very first wrestling magazine simply titled " Bruno".
Talk about adding fuel to the fire. In the magazine was a subscription coupon for Wrestling Revue Magazine. That was my Christmas present that year.
All that next year on the 20th or the 21st of the month I would conveniently get sick and miss school. I guess my mom didn't catch on , but those were the days that the magazine came in the mail around 10:30.
Now my sister who was a few years older than me and was into the Tigerbeat and "16" magazine thing turned me on to a shore in down town Allentown called " Booka Rama " that sold used magazines. Well there is where the explosion started. I could buy outdated wrestling magazines for ten cents each . And there was a Pizza joint right around the corner called Hi-Fi Pizza , for a buck you could get two New York style slices and a soda. Iwas in heaven !
Wait t gets better .
Inside the magazines were the "fan club news" and even in a few and I had hundreds ( even as a young teen age boy , well get to that in a minute ) there was results/ news from he booking offices.
At that time I was the neighborhood work horse , always the first out to shovel snow , cut grass and rake leaves and any odd job I could pick up , My dad had done some small jobs around to pick up some extra cash and I would help him for a few bucks here and there. Needless to say the all important paper route. So with the money I was making I would write to the fan clubs and booking offices asking for an autograph of course I sent a very polite letter and a return envelope with my request.
Id like to say that I did very well with this project but I didn't. About 90% of my stuff wasn't returned , because I didn't know that the wrestlers traveled so much and the magazines were a month or so behind on the stories. Makes sense now. However out of the 10% that I got back I got some serious stuff. I didnt know it then , Iwas just a fan , but I put the stuff I did get back into scrap books , remember them ?I had a bunch of them.
I want to take this time to thank my Mom for not throwing out my treasures when I went into the Marines in 1978. You know the horror story you hear all the time.
In 1978 I went into the Marine Corps where I discovered Mid Atlantic and Georgia Wrestling . Different from the wrestling I was used to at home but I fell in love with wrestling all over again. Tommy Wildfire Rich was on fire , Harley Race and Ric Flair were the Champions. Me and a few buddies of mine often went to the live shows in the North Carolina area including the Cumberland County Coliseum in Fayetteville where Dusty Rhodes and Magnum Ta battled the Four Horseman , The Road Warriors and the Russians. We must have seen the Russian Bear Ivan Koloff wrestle the Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant a dozen or more times on the smaller local shows. Who would have thought that later on in life they would become close personal friends of mine. GOD is good. Did I stop buying wrestling magazine while I was in the Marines , just the opposite , at that time there was about a dozen or more out on the market every month and I bought every one of them. When I came home on leave those magazines joining the rest of my magazines and my scrap books and baseball cards ( that's a whole other chapter ) in the closet. Sometimes I think Mom knew that skipping school would turn out to be something big in the future.
Exit the Marine Corps. Now I find myself raising a family , I must say that 36 years later I'm very proud of my children , both are educated , successful well adjusted adults who run there own business's .
II never stopped collecting. Actually it increased. As my children grew we attended lots of sports card shows and flee markets looking for treasures. We found them , knowing one day we would open our own shop one day.
And we did ! Our first autograph session was with the Living Legend Bruno Sammartino. From then on the flood gates opened , close to over 200 personal signings , conventions , and help from friends here we are. What your going to see on this website is an accumulation of that 50 plus year journey. Am I done yet ?......
The Budfather moved from my birthplace in Stroudsburg Pa. to Allentown Pa.
During that year my father introduced me to the world of Professional wrestling. As a nine year old I watched countless hours of the old WWWF TV wrestling out of Philadelphia with Bill Cardille and Capitol Wrestling out of Washington D.C. with Ray Morgan.
My very first favorite was the high flying Puerto Rican Victor Rivera. Along with other good guys Mario Milano , Dominc DeNucci , Manny Soto , Mike Pappas , Tony Marino and of course the Living Legend Bruno Sammartino . They took on a host of bad guys , Krippler Karl Kovacks , Bulldog Brower , George Steel , Eric the Red , Waldo Von Eric and Ivan Koloff.
I was captivated. Even late at night we sometimes got Championship Wrestling from Florida with Gordon SolIe.
About 1971 my father sent away for my very first wrestling magazine simply titled " Bruno".
Talk about adding fuel to the fire. In the magazine was a subscription coupon for Wrestling Revue Magazine. That was my Christmas present that year.
All that next year on the 20th or the 21st of the month I would conveniently get sick and miss school. I guess my mom didn't catch on , but those were the days that the magazine came in the mail around 10:30.
Now my sister who was a few years older than me and was into the Tigerbeat and "16" magazine thing turned me on to a shore in down town Allentown called " Booka Rama " that sold used magazines. Well there is where the explosion started. I could buy outdated wrestling magazines for ten cents each . And there was a Pizza joint right around the corner called Hi-Fi Pizza , for a buck you could get two New York style slices and a soda. Iwas in heaven !
Wait t gets better .
Inside the magazines were the "fan club news" and even in a few and I had hundreds ( even as a young teen age boy , well get to that in a minute ) there was results/ news from he booking offices.
At that time I was the neighborhood work horse , always the first out to shovel snow , cut grass and rake leaves and any odd job I could pick up , My dad had done some small jobs around to pick up some extra cash and I would help him for a few bucks here and there. Needless to say the all important paper route. So with the money I was making I would write to the fan clubs and booking offices asking for an autograph of course I sent a very polite letter and a return envelope with my request.
Id like to say that I did very well with this project but I didn't. About 90% of my stuff wasn't returned , because I didn't know that the wrestlers traveled so much and the magazines were a month or so behind on the stories. Makes sense now. However out of the 10% that I got back I got some serious stuff. I didnt know it then , Iwas just a fan , but I put the stuff I did get back into scrap books , remember them ?I had a bunch of them.
I want to take this time to thank my Mom for not throwing out my treasures when I went into the Marines in 1978. You know the horror story you hear all the time.
In 1978 I went into the Marine Corps where I discovered Mid Atlantic and Georgia Wrestling . Different from the wrestling I was used to at home but I fell in love with wrestling all over again. Tommy Wildfire Rich was on fire , Harley Race and Ric Flair were the Champions. Me and a few buddies of mine often went to the live shows in the North Carolina area including the Cumberland County Coliseum in Fayetteville where Dusty Rhodes and Magnum Ta battled the Four Horseman , The Road Warriors and the Russians. We must have seen the Russian Bear Ivan Koloff wrestle the Boogie Woogie Man Jimmy Valiant a dozen or more times on the smaller local shows. Who would have thought that later on in life they would become close personal friends of mine. GOD is good. Did I stop buying wrestling magazine while I was in the Marines , just the opposite , at that time there was about a dozen or more out on the market every month and I bought every one of them. When I came home on leave those magazines joining the rest of my magazines and my scrap books and baseball cards ( that's a whole other chapter ) in the closet. Sometimes I think Mom knew that skipping school would turn out to be something big in the future.
Exit the Marine Corps. Now I find myself raising a family , I must say that 36 years later I'm very proud of my children , both are educated , successful well adjusted adults who run there own business's .
II never stopped collecting. Actually it increased. As my children grew we attended lots of sports card shows and flee markets looking for treasures. We found them , knowing one day we would open our own shop one day.
And we did ! Our first autograph session was with the Living Legend Bruno Sammartino. From then on the flood gates opened , close to over 200 personal signings , conventions , and help from friends here we are. What your going to see on this website is an accumulation of that 50 plus year journey. Am I done yet ?......