After graduating from high school, my dad moved off to Columbus, Ohio, and started college. He lived under the Ohio State football stadium.
Ohio State’s stadium (ca. 1940), home to the Stadium Scholarship Program
As part of the Stadium Scholarship program, young men could live in the make-shift housing, do chores to help defray living costs, and afford a college education. The program still exists, even though the students no longer live under the stadium.
Daddy only attended Ohio State for a few quarters. It was wartime and he got drafted, ended up at Fort Hood, in Central Texas, met my mother, and…there you go. Mother did not want to leave Texas, and Daddy did not want to leave Mother, so he enrolled in Baylor and used his G.I. Bill money to get a law degree. But, he remained a strong Ohio State supporter and enthusiast, following particularly Ohio State football, especially those Ohio State/Michigan games.
One year (2002) for Christmas, I bought him some bright red Ohio State house shoes. He seemed pleased and wore them around the house. JoAnne and her family came through town for New Year’s and were there for the 2003 Fiesta Bowl–Ohio State and Miami.
Daddy watching the January 2003 Fiesta Bowl, in his magical Ohio State house shoes!
Oh, what a game (I guess folks always say that about big, championship games)! Ohio State eventually won, 31-24, in DOUBLE OVERTIME. Oh, yes. There was yelling and shrieking and moaning and groaning and dancing (finally)! Personally, we’re taking some of the credit, thinking it was all because of the magical red Ohio State house shoes.
In November 2005, Daddy fell at Baylor Stadium (a very big Baylor football fan, too) and broke his hip. He went to the hospital and then into rehab. In rehab, he experienced some other health problems and was sent up to another floor for a couple of days to get the medical help he needed. When he came back down to the rehab floor, we discovered that he was missing his hearing aids and his house shoes. I reported those losses and was met with a lack of enthusiasm for finding those things. The aide on the rehab floor assured me she had packed up all his things when he went upstairs. The staff upstairs assured me that they were searching but without luck (or success). We kept asking, days and days after he had come back to rehab. A couple of weeks later, JoAnne arrived. She had come to spend a week before going to Jeremy and Sarah’s wedding. I explained about the missing items. JoAnne went to work. She’s not mean, she’s just focused and intense and determined. She talked her way up a couple of lines of responsibility and accountability and said, basically, “We’re leaving here on Friday and we want our Dad’s stuff back.” The day we were leaving for Fort Worth for the wedding, I dropped JoAnne off at the hospital to get Daddy packed up. When I returned, she was helping Daddy get dressed to leave. On the bed? You guessed it. The box with his hearing aids and his red Ohio State house shoes.
“They were in the laundry room,” said JoAnne. “Miraculously discovered just this morning.” We packed them up and went off to Fort Worth.
The magical Ohio State house shoes come through again!
In November 2006, I stowed the house shoes in the cedar chest. That’s where they’ve been until last Monday night. I dug them out and put them on and watched myself some football. (For those of you not into football, Ohio State beat Oregon for the first ever College Football Playoff National Championship.) Magical shoes.
“Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.”
Luke 15:8-10 (The Message)
Okay. It was a pair of house shoes. Not exactly irreplaceable (except when we looked into purchasing new ones, we could find only grey ones, not red). The issue isn’t the shoes, it’s the tenacity. That’s what God wants from us–tenacity. Tenacity in how we work, tenacity in how we care, tenacity in how we love.
Meanwhile, what exactly are buckeyes?
And what about that Brutus the Buckeye mascot?
Great story.
Thanks. He was a great guy.
Thanks for the morning misty eyes.
Yeah. I’m getting Sports Illustrated magazine right now. (It was a free subscription, and I get it to take to the V.A. hospice patients.) It arrived yesterday morning. Ohio State was on the cover, and I got a little teary, myself. He would have been sooooo happy.
What a special memory! You made me feel misty eyed and I didn’t even know your Dad! 🙂 I think I’m an Ohio fan now!
David (and Daddy and JoAnne and her husband, Jim and their daughter, Natalie) graduated from Baylor. I, from University of Hawaii. Both sons and daughters-in-law from TCU. And then the Ohio State connection. So, we’ve got lots of schools to be interested in. Sort of the way your family is, too. But, please, join the Ohio fan club, also!
LOVE it
Thanks.
What a great story! You are creating a wonderful treasure of family stories for Kevin, Jeremy and Peter!
Thanks. For Christmas, the kids went through a, um, book-publishing website (?). They had half a dozen books printed with the first year of posts, with the pictures, too. A great gift! One of the upsides of modern life.
Priceless and irreplaceable like your entire family and the indelible footprints all have left for others to follow! A treasured legacy to cherish.. Suzy
With all of heaven’s joy’s do you suppose football triumphs are included?
Think your Christmas gift was the best ever!
Thanks so much for your encouraging words. I’m glad we can connect each week. You and Todd are always in my thoughts.
I need one of those books, because, honestly, I would never have remembered this story. Thanks for saying I’m not mean. But, really, hearing aids are very expensive and magic shoes are priceless!
You don’t remember the lost shoes, or you don’t remember the football game? Anyway, one of those books wouldn’t do you any good; they were for Blog: Year One. They’ll have to do it again next Christmas for the shoe story to be included.
I love this one! And I remember the shoes so well — Uncle David was very proud of them and loved showing them to us when we visited. About the game, we’ve never been OSU fans, especially this year when we thought the Buckeyes didn’t deserve to be in the championship game ahead of Baylor or TCU (guess they proved us wrong about that one!), but we’d always say, “well, Uncle David will be happy”. .. which is exactly what we said on Monday night! Magical shoes, indeed!
Love, Beverly
Maybe I should get a pair of Baylor house shoes, too, for next year. And wear a green one on one foot, and a red one on the other.
I’d never heard this story! I remember the house shoes and when Ohio State won, but I didn’t know about them being lost. What a great story!
Yes, your mom is quite the bloodhound. Maybe she was so focused on telling you about Jeremy and Sarah’s wedding, when she returned to Seattle, that she didn’t think about the missing shoes story.