Good day for this. Perfect, in fact. For, this Fourth of July piece is, in part, about one of our genuine patriots: Pop Keirn, gone now from this world for almost a decade now, on to that special place for war heroes.

Keirn and his son, Steve (right), and his assorted legacies they pass along are assembled now south on Dale Mabry Avenue to a last left (west) turn off that busy road into an industrial area of a box buildings that are warehouses, store houses, and a national center of learning that may well one day be named the Pop Keirn Academy for the Art of Professional Wrestling.

It is now the heartbeat, the teaching place, the educational center for pro wrestling in America. It is a luster of buildings, most with the identifying initials of WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment. Inside is an office complex where the photos of wrestling luminaries like Dusty Rhodes, the Undertaker, Cowboy Luttrall, George Zaharias, the Great Malenko and the Briscoes are ready to be hung, or will be. In the entry and ticket office.

The second, big, big room is black, decorated with banners, but with the focus on the center ring full of wrestling students when they were there learning holds. And in the back workout room were three more training rings, filled with wrestlers at work. Keirns’ private office was off that room. A stuffed alligator head was on the file cabinet looking our way.

“You know,” said Steve Keirn, “I’ve been in this business a long time and my first deal was as the Alligator Man. I went into the Glades and brought out a bunch, approved for removal, of course.

Keirn noted that another huge, unfinished area was being remodeled.

This, he said, already is the center for teaching wrestling, for the “people who want the basics and as self defense to those who want to be champion contenders.”

“We can now accommodate about 50 to 60 wrestlers learning, teaching them and training them and giving them their basics, including good manners and respect. We don’t want to permanently hurt anyone. You got to know that, but want all the hitting, all the pinning, all the slamming around, all the slugging, all the squeezes, all the unbreakable holds apparently as punishing as possible.”

“This place will be sensational for the sport and the best place to learn it in the world.”

There was an awful lot of yelling and screaming, and body slamming going on.  The guys, all big, strong and muscular, were lined up three rings for shots at each other. Didn’t see anybody really hurt. You could have been, though, you or me or even Steve now.

Steve Keirn grew up in Tampa, South Tampa, where Cowboy Luttrall with a staff that included Dusty Rhodes and promoter deluxe Gordon Solie first made it work Tuesday nights at the Fort Homer Hesterly Armory and around the state on the other nights, with a dinky ring and offices over a little nearby street.

It paid off. Wrestling hit, with a small TV presentation out of the jammed Albany Avenue office. They made it work. Wasn’t easy. And when Vince McMahon got his wise marketing hands on it, well, Jerry Briscoe had a full-time job booking wrestling for international television, mostly in the Far East.

So now has emerged a new epicenter for pro wrestling at the Keirn place on Dale Mabry.

Steve Keirn is the boss and ought to be. He stuck with it, as he did with his late dad, Richard (shown with war memorabilia), a genuine war hero of World War II and Vietnam. Pop Keirn was shot down in both conflicts, but survived Stalag 1 for a year and over seven atrocity-filled years at the Hanoi Hilton. He’s one of only two known POWs for both WWII and Vietnam. He was twice nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Col. Keirn did in time receive the Silver Star, Legion of Merit with an Oak Leaf Cluster, Distinguished Flying Cross with two clusters, Bronze Star with three clusters, and five Purple Hearts.

“My dad was a hero, a real American Hero. And I couldn’t be more proud. I am happy he gave me the guts to fight through all this to our present place of ours that will be a tribute to our sport. Look around you. And it is only going to get better and bigger and we will be the center of pro wrestling in the world.”

Keirn is particularly proud because he is a forever Tampan, a South Tampa public school product who had a dream for his dad’s memory, and for his part of the Tampa he so loves.

Not a bad first firework on this Fourth, eh?

You’ve got to know the Colonel is proud of his son, somewhere saluting in his direction.