At 78, Master Fencer Has Foiled the Best Over the Years; In U.S. He Has No Peers

John McKee isn’t fencing competitively anymore, but it doesn’t matter. There isn’t anyone in the United States good enough to challenge him, let alone beat him. And he’s 78 years old.

“It’s like being the best in anything,” said McKee of Huntington Beach, this country’s only master fencer, the equivalent of being ranked No. 1 in any sport. “You have to beat everyone else to challenge the champion. Right now there’s no one like that in this country.”

And that spells a dim outlook for the United States in the upcoming Olympic Games in Seoul. “I don’t think we’ll do very much,” said McKee, who has been teaching fencing for 50 years and holds classes twice weekly at the Fullerton YMCA. He sees the classes as a way to develop future competitors for the United States.

He’d like to live long enough to see a U.S. Olympic fencing champion. “But I doubt that I ever will,” McKee said, noting that U.S. fencers achieved only a third place in the 1984 Summer Olympics, even though fencers from traditionally strong Eastern Europe were boycotting the Games.

One of the problems for Americans, he said he fears, is “the lack of feeling for the sword. Europeans grew up with swords and had one over their fireplace. Americans grew up with muskets.”

Besides that, said McKee--who has won 275 out of 300 matches in his illustrious career and hasn’t lost in 40 years--fencing requires a lot of time.

“American kids today just don’t have the time,” he said. “We’re very lucky to get them to put in four hours of practice a week. In Europe, they put in 40 hours a week.”

McKee is selective about students in his classes, which he limits to 10. “We don’t want people who are brutal or sadistic,” he said. “It’s not like boxing, where the object is to inflict punishment.”

In his 50 years of teaching, “We have never had an injury by the sword.”

Most of all, he said, fencing is a personal duel in which contestants must read body movements because they can’t read each other’s expressions with faces covered by masks.

McKee said fencers today are as modern and quick and as athletic as tennis players. “Perhaps one of these days the United States will make a turnaround in fencing, like we did in skiing,” he said.

That may be wishful thinking for McKee. “There’s no one the horizon,” he said, including his son, Michael. “He’s more interested in skiing.”

“They have never been so royally treated,” said Madeline Evans of the 38 mentally retarded athletes from Orange County who raised their own money to compete in the recent Japanese National Games in Osaka.

They were the only non-Japanese athletes competing.

Evans, director of the Orange County Special Olympics, said the Japanese were reciprocating the hospitality shown in 1983 by her group to some Japanese retarded athletes.

The hospitality also extended to food. “They gave the American athletes pizza for some of their meals,” she said.

The La Habra Chess Club named its Nov. 15 chess tournament “Not for Turkeys.” Club member Robert Goulet said, “It really doesn’t mean anything. We just give our tournaments crazy names.” No doubt it must be the Thanksgiving season.

Patricia A. McBride-Burris, 48, of Anaheim has had what you could call a changing life.

For instance, she has been a career woman, author, 1978 contestant in the Mrs. California pageant, entrepreneur, community volunteer, abused child, battered wife and divorcee.

And she has used her experiences to build a successful life, including operating a business, writing two books and lecturing as a motivational speaker.

Now happily married, she turned the phrase “If Life Gives You Lemons--Make Lemonade,” into a life style and formed a support group for people with personal problems.

She calls it “Can Can Girls,” meaning “I can, you can, we can,” now in its third year. “It’s been a blessing to me and the group,” she said.

So much, in fact, that McBride-Burris is forming a new group. She’s going to name it “Can Can Girls II.”

Acknowledgments--Jack Paholski, 26, a Los Alamitos reserve police officer attending the Orange County Sheriff’s Training Academy, finished first in his class and set a new academic high at the 20-year-old academy. “We’re happy to have him,” said Los Alamitos Police Chief James Guess, after making Paholski a full-time police officer.