When I heard that legendary professional wrestler Vern Gagne had killed a 97-year-old fellow resident in a nursing home, I admit I was filled with mirth.

The first words out of my mouth were, "I hope it was a pile driver." But then I made the mistake of looking into the incident a little, and all the mirth slipped away.

Gagne, who is 82, suffers from Alzheimer's disease. The man he killed, Helmut R. Gutmann, 97, was a violinst and a well-known cancer researcher who had fled Nazi Germany. Not much room for giggling there. Gutmann's family has so far compassionately declined to pursue legal action. Gagne's family is understandably mortified.

By the time I finished reading about the incident, the milk of human kindness was running in my veins, not Geri-speed. (Geri-speed was the magic elixir Gagne used to promote on television back in the golden black and white age of All Star Wrestling.)

It fills me with melancholy to think that Gagne has Alzheimer's and will finish his life in a care (possibly maximum care) facility.

To paraphrase Douglas MacArthur, old professional wrestlers shouldn't die, they should just fade away into a kind of wrestling Valhalla, where Wahoo McDaniel and Pampero Firpo the Wild Bull of the Pampas are locked forever in a two-out-of-three-fall grudge match on the plains of heaven, and all the others are sitting around in lush folding chairs drinking ster . . . I mean carrot juice cocktails.

A heaven in the shape of a "squared circle," where Wahoo will always do his signature Indian war whoop around the ring. Where Firpo will always rake his opponent's eyes along the zipper of his full-torso wrestling tunic, to the outraged pantomimic consternation of the 140-pound referee.

I first saw All Star Wrestling at my grandparents' farm in Fergus Falls, Minn., when I was in seventh grade. They had a little grainy black and white television set not much larger than a dinner plate. They went to bed early because they were dairy farmers, but Grandma would sometimes stay up with me on Saturday night to watch part of the broadcast.

It was she who informed me in semi-reverent tones that Vern Gagne was something special, a gifted high school athlete and amateur wrestler, a "gentleman of the ring," who attempted to bring decorum and legitimate wrestling moves to a sport regarded by its critics as a form of carnival.

Grandma reckoned that pro wrestling was fake, but in fact was not altogether sure, and we together cried foul out loud in that lonely Minnesota farm house when The Crusher snuck a "foreign object" into the ring with which to jab at Gagne's throat or eyes.

This was always a profound mistake. Gagne played by the rules - never choked, gouged or bit, always broke the hold when the referee tapped his shoulder - but the moment The Crusher or Gorgeous Bobby Heenan introduced a "foreign object" or went for the eyes or choked for an unnecessarily long period of time, the inner Gagne woke up and the match was soon over.

Gagne would go into warp drive and deliver one, two, sometimes three flying drop kicks in quick succession. Then in quiet contempt he simply put his knee on his vanquished opponent's chest while the referee counted him out.

My grandfather would wake up to our protest shouts at the television set and grumble loud enough for Grandma to excuse herself and trundle off to bed.

After that I watched All Star Wrestling every Saturday night for a couple of years - until my own Geri-speed kicked in. I saw two bouts live, submitted photographs to "Wrestling News" and got Vern Gagne's autograph. For a brief time in my life, he was a god in a Speedo to me.

Every year or so since, I have tuned in to see what's new in the world of professional wrestling, but it has no appeal to me now, not because I have grown up, but rather because the sport has.

It is far too violent now, too acrobatic, too highly produced, too raw, too vulgar in language and gesture. Once the Vaudeville went away, so for me did the appeal.

It was so much better when it was clunky and redolent of the carnival, when the top ropes were still basically off limits, when there were no chairs and tables in the ring, when the interviews had a comic feel to them, when female wrestlers looked every bit like the reluctant wives of the male wrestlers, tunic'd up for the good of the struggling corporation.

If Gagne is in a nursing home, where, I wonder, are all the others? Where are the Vachon Brothers, Maurice ("Mad Dog") and Paul ("The Butcher") Vachon? I read a few years ago that Mad Dog Vachon had his leg amputated in 1987 after he was injured in a hit-and-run accident in Omaha, Neb. (Which of us does not suspect Dr. X at the wheel of that vehicle?)

Where is Scrap Iron George Gadaski? (Alas, he is buried in the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery in Clayton, Wis.) Where is The Flying Frenchman Rene Goulet, with his lovely sequined glove? Where is The Very Capable Kenny Jay? He was born with the dumb name Kenny Benkowski in Holdingford, Minn., in 1937, but he soon realized he would never become an international superstar unless he ditched his birth name for something heroic like "Kenny Jay."

Where is Dr. X? At an undisclosed location, no doubt. More to the point, who was Dr. X? Why was he never successfully unmasked? And does he still have a $1,000 certified check in a Minneapolis bank for anyone who can break the figure four leg lock once properly applied?

Above all, where is Roger Kent, the fabulous AWA play-by-play announcer, who opened the show every week with the line, "Hello everyone, this is Roger Kent ringside coming to you from the Minnesota Armory …"

For a long time, I reckoned his last name must be Ringside, for I never heard it any other way. No program went by without RKR saying, "He's going for an arm bar with a twist - sounds like a drink to me!" and "Oh, I hate to see that hold. That hold is banned in many states."

These memories fill me with joy and sadness. I would give all that I have to spend one more Saturday night with my grandmother Rhoda Straus in that farmhouse watching one of the Vachon Brothers beat the living daylights out of The Very Capable Kenny Jay.

Alas, that Vern Gagne should end his great life in a disqualification.

(Clay Jenkinson is the director of the Dakota Institute. He also is the Theodore Roosevelt Scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. Contact Jenkinson at Jeffysage@aol.com.)