Though it doesn't happen often (and that can either be a good thing or a bad thing), what goes around can come around.
Shortly after your Granddad got out of the service--he would have been working for CF&I Steel at this time--he went out one Friday evening looking for some companionship (again, a few years before he met your Grandmother). After a short while--and a few drinks--he took up a conversation with a pretty blonde woman. They seemed to be hitting it off....
...until your Granddad discovered she had a very jealous boyfriend. Words were exchanged and the boyfriend, who was about six feet four and weighed about 250 pounds, asked your Granddad if he'd like to step outside. Your Grandfather was easily the most fearless person I have ever met, and all five feet eight, 120 pounds of him said yes, yes he would.
But he was also a shrewd man who understood he had little chance of winning a fight with a man who was quite a bit larger than he, and a few feet before they reached the front door he turned to the jealous boyfriend and said, "Look, man, I don't want to fight you." The young woman's boyfriend turned to your Granddad with a big cocky smile, whereupon your Grandfather--BOOM! was how he described it--pasted his right fist in the middle of that big cocky smile, knocking the man to the floor.
People quickly stepped between them--the guy with the busted lip was led to the front door screaming about how no one sucker punched him and how he was going to take care of your Grandfather once he got outside; your Granddad was led to the bathroom to take care of his profusely bleeding hand (he said it was his own fault because he didn't get his fist squared properly before landing the punch). Once in the restroom, your Granddad placed his hand under running water and tried washing the blood off. Someone came in and said the jealous boyfriend had assembled a bevy of his friends outside and they were waiting for him.
Back in the day, clubs and restaurants had attendants in their restrooms--people who held towels so you could dry them off (today we have the considerably less quaint paper towel dispenser). The elderly gentlemen who walked up to your Gradfather to offer him a towel took one look at him and proclaimed that he was a member of the Sportsmen, a local gang of some ill-repute (I have tried to look them up online many different ways--gangs of the fifties in the San Francisco Bay Area--and have never been able to find anything about them, but it was a long time ago). Granddad figured he was just a crazy old coot, but word spread quickly through the bar.
Your Grandfather said he knew he would have at least stood a chance against a gang with two healthy hands with which to fight, but with his right hand busted up, he had no idea what he was going to do. Eventually he headed for the front door to face his fate and as he did people in the bar were pointing at him and stepping aside. When he pushed the door open, he was greeted by the jealous boyfriend, hands held up in surrender, who told your Grandfather, "Man, I didn't know you were a Sportsman. I don't want any trouble with you." Your Granddad nodded, shook his hand, and made his way to his car.
When he got into his old DeSoto, he was surprised to find that when he pushed in the clutch, his leg was shaking. Your Granddad said it didn't stop until he was almost home.
The End
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