Ernest Arden Davis, 73, was boxer, Air Force veteran

There's a story about "The Street Fighter," from his days in the nursing home, which shows that even near the end he still had the stuff.

Every day at lunchtime, as residents rambled toward chow, Ernest Arden Davis would hang back and watch, waiting for anyone attempting to take advantage of someone frailer in the food line.

"One day, some guy pushed a lady," his son, Ernie Davis, recalled. "So dad decked him."

Even then — pushing 70, the cartilage in his nose eviscerated by punches, his lower teeth all but gone — the former Golden Glove winner and good-natured brawler who once traveled the carnival circuit, was ready to mix it up to defend someone's honor.

Mr. Davis, boxer, Air Force veteran, onetime constable and barman, died Nov. 21 of complications from Alzheimer's. He was 73.

The son of a shipyard iron worker, Mr. Davis grew up in rough-and-tumble working-class 1930s South Park, and by age 11 was catching midnight bus rides to Fort Lewis to sell newspapers to soldiers. Aggressive and fearless, he and his brother also would head off to the Boeing plant to pitch papers to shift-changing workers.

He dabbled in sports at Cleveland High, but didn't find his calling until he met Red Cale, a carnival wrestler, who put him on the traveling circuit as a boxer.

"My dad loved fighting," Ernie Davis said. "He would push people so they'd start fights with his brother. He was tough."

Touring with Cale, Mr. Davis fought under the moniker "The Street Fighter." He finished with a career record of 127 wins, 28 losses and 10 draws. What Mr. Davis lacked in speed, he made up for in the ability to take a punch. He once won because an opponent broke hand bones hitting Mr. Davis in the head. Mr. Davis later liked to brag he'd never been knocked out.

He was an entertainer who attracted gamblers and tavern-goers and made them his crowd. He was a talker who could embellish a story, and his listeners hung on every syllable. "He's the kind guy who could say things the rest of us would never get away with," his brother, Jim Davis, said.

Mr. Davis eventually met promoter George Chemeres, and by the late-1940s, was the Northwest lightweight champion. Enlisting in the Air Force in the early 1950s, he promised Chemeres he wouldn't box in the service. Air Force commanders on his San Antonio base thought otherwise.

"He was kind of hiding, but his commander said, 'If you don't want to fight, there's another mission you can do: You can go to Korea,' " Mr. Davis' son, Ernie Davis, said.

A base favorite, Mr. Davis was charged with managing the base pool and swimming program, although he couldn't swim a stroke. Most of his time was spent keeping in shape. In 1953, he won the Air Force lightweight championship.

After his discharge, Mr. Davis fell into his new second career as a barman. Working in a tavern down the street from the Columbus Hospital, then at the corner of Madison Street and Boren Avenue, he met a woman training to be a nurse. To get her attention, he placed a jar on the bar plastered with her picture, and told everyone he was sponsoring a poor Hungarian. They eventually married.

"He was the classic tavern, bartender guy," his son said. "He knew you, liked giving you hell and loved to have a good time."

He ran a tavern in Eatonville, and bragged that when a bunch of bikers caused a row, he pounded one — who outweighed him by 50 pounds — and the remaining troublemakers left. He remarried and moved to North Dakota to manage a tavern in tiny Hamar, a ranching town of 20 people with only one significant business — a grain elevator. He was so well liked the town made him its constable.

But over the years, time and the punches began to take their toll. Mr. Davis was increasingly forgetful. Visiting family members found him struggling to keep track of bank slips and paychecks. His family moved him back to Seattle in the early 1990s.

Mr. Davis was preceded in death by his brother Harley Davis, and is survived by his brother, Jim Davis; sisters Pat Payton and Marlys Runkle; daughter Kathy Davis; stepson Kevin Yali; son Ernie Davis; and several nieces, nephews and grandchildren. A funeral service will be at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow at Bonney-Watson Washington Memorial, 16445 International Blvd. in SeaTac.