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| BANNER DAYS: the Life of Pro Wrestling Legend Penny Banner
Release Date: July 2004 / Authors: Penny Banner and Gerry Hostetler / Publisher: Flying Mare Press DESCRIPTION The Book starts in Angola, Indiana where I tell the process of winning the women's FIRST A.W.A. Wrestling title in 1961 when June Byers, the N.W.A. Women’s Champion who defeated Mildred Burke, failed to show up after I went to a draw with her in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It goes on to tell the part of my life that Kay Flair was absolutely overwhelmed at hearing…Beginning with the unusual circumstances which involved my parents' divorce, and going into an orphan's home…Getting out 9 months later to live in a U.S. government housing project, called the Peabody Terrace Projects in St. Louis…Leaving high school for work to help my mother cope with raising us 4 siblings without a father…Meeting a man named Blackie when I was at 16 yrs. old; he was 5 years my senior and tried to rape me nightly…The time when the FBI came to me and asked for help in capturing him - which I did…Going in hiding at 16 yrs of age and becoming a Governess for the 3 children of "Mag," a wonderful man who was my family's Superman…Training - not to wrestle but to defeat Blackie, when he got out of jail…How serendipity set in, and the details of how a girl could become a wrestler, when she never watched wrestling or seen women wrestle…How I went from a governess of three years to a wrestler in just two weeks because I'd already learned Judo to protect myself from Blackie if he ever found me…Road stories of the life and times of a girl wrestler in the mid 50's, a time when states barred women wrestling, and how we paved the way for states to allow women to wrestle, and the chauvinism we found in "payoffs"…My years of dreamy dates with Elvis, just before he went into the Army (from 1956 til March 1958)…My stormy 35 year marriage... and the events that led to my divorce…My volunteering for youth and loving to teach them…Finding out I had a touch of emphysema after 43 years of smoking cigarettes, then throwing them away…Joining the Senior Olympic Games at age 56, and taking up swimming to help my lungs, and competing in the Discus/Shot Put/Hammer Throw…My opinion of the display of women in what is going on in today's " Soaps" called wrestling…My life today as a real estate agent, and loving to sing Karaoke…The wonderful people who have helped me travel that long, hard road called ' LIFE.' REVIEWS Mick N. Brawler: Banner expects us to believe she really won all those matches. She also claims she didn’t realize wrestling was a work until she read Ole Anderson’s book. What does that tell you? Recommend you pass on this one. Order from Penny Banner |