Richard R. Ujdur Sr. / Richard RUjdur Sr. / Sherri Ann Ujdur-Vendl
The day the music died, I was living in the small town, Crockett, California. Population, three thousand. I am now in my middle eighties. When you live in a small town, you don’t meet or see many celebrities. Me, my son, and dear friend went to Muhammad Ali’s training camp in the Pocono Mountains in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania, to get a product endorsement from Muhammad Ali. We were there for three days. We took many pictures with Ali doing what he loved the most: doing magic tricks, especially for children. Also, we took lots pictures around his camp.Ali even chopped down a tree for us, that was on a hill in back of his camp. It’s a great picture. I gave that picture to Ali’s mother, Odessa Clay, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas the day after the music died. I was there with a lady friend. I spent time not with the greatest fighter, but the greatest loving person that I have ever known. Ask anyone that was in contact with Muhammad Ali. Even the prizefighters that fought Ali in the ring said that being around Ali for any amount of time was an unexplainable supernatural experience of love that they carry around daily. After Holmes beat Ali badly at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, he said, he went to his hotel room and cried, because of the love he had for Ali.
