without noting my hopelessly unsuccessful attempt to learn to chew tobacco. Most of the guys chewed tobacco partly, I’m sure, for the nicotine fix but also because it kept their mouths moist during the hot, dry, and dusty days that followed one after the other, especially in July and August. I thought it would be “cool” to chew, and I planned to brag about it to my pals. Regrettably, it never happened. Let me tell you that there is an art to chewing tobacco, as surprising as that may seem. The trick is to do it without swallowing any of the tobacco juice that is generated by chewing. This is obviously foul stuff and spoils all the fun! Try as I might I could never master it. I guess this just proves that there is skill required in this ancient habit, and it was a skill that I simply did not possess!*
I graduated from Nelsonville High School in 1948. There were fifty-two of us in the graduating class. It was truly a wonderful group of kids. We got along wonderfully well together, and I still count many of them among the closest friends I have ever had.
My mother and dad on their honeymoon at Niagara Falls in 1916.
Yes, that’s me!
My dad, grandfather, and uncle in front of the family shoe store.
My mother and her one-room schoolhouse class. Note the number of bare feet!
Dad, as President Pro Tem of the Ohio Senate, with Governor Jim Rhodes.
In spite of a weak link (me), we had a pretty good basketball team. I’m in the first row, second from the right.
My brother, Bill, my dad, me, my sister, Alice, and her husband, George, on the occasion of my receiving an Honorary Doctorate at Ohio University in 1984.
The four horsemen we ain’t! I’m number 13—seems fitting.
CHAPTER III
Miami University
MY CHOICE OF a college was not complicated. For financial reasons, I needed to go to a state-supported Ohio college. I really only thought about two—Ohio University and Miami University. I rejected Ohio University, even though it was and is a fine school, because I wanted to get farther away from home (it was only thirteen miles from Nelsonville), but not too far. I had never been to Miami (forty miles north of Cincinnati), but I liked everything I knew about it and the few people I knew who went there as well. So, off I went to Miami in the fall of 1948, and I have never regretted the decision. It marked a major turning point in my life, in more ways than one.
I knew very few people when I arrived at Miami, and so I was looking forward to meeting my roommate and becoming pals. I just knew that would make it easier for me to adjust and be less homesick. (I knew I was going to be homesick!) So, after unpacking and bidding my folks goodbye, I waited anxiously in my room for my new pal.
They arrived! Yes, I said they for I was to have not one roommate but two! Not just any two guys. Oh no! These guys were high school buddies from nearby Dayton. They were nice guys and we got along, but they didn’t need me to be a friend. Moreover, they went home to Dayton almost every weekend, and I was by myself. The result was that I studied a lot—far more than I would have if my roommate situation had turned out as I had expected. This in turn got me into study habits that led to better grades than I had ever imagined and made it possible for me to seriously think about attending Yale Law School. And thereby hangs another tale of good luck.
In those days, Miami had a system of faculty counselors. I was assigned to a political science professor named Straetz. When I first met him he looked me right in the eye and asked where I wanted to go to law school. I said that I didn’t know. He said, “Don’t you think you should try to go to the best law school in the country?” I acknowledged that seemed the right thing to do. He then said that as far as he was concerned the best school was Yale, and that’s what I should strive for. He made it very clear, however, that I had no chance unless my grades were very good.
So, I had an advisor who set me on a tough, but wise, course and an environment in which I had plenty of time to study! I call that good luck! In spite of all this, my first semester was not a happy one. I was lonely and missed my home and family. When I went home for Christmas, I told my brother that I wanted to leave Miami and enroll at Ohio University—close to home. Instead of lecturing me, he said he understood, but suggested that I finish out the year, and if I still wanted to transfer he would help me convince my father that it was the right thing to do—not a task I wanted to handle by myself!
By the end of my freshman year nothing could have persuaded me to leave. And, again, good luck was on my side. I went on to build an academic record that allowed me to get into Yale. I was elected president of the student council and developed a wonderful group of friends, particularly my fraternity brothers.
HOWEVER, THE GREATESTstroke of good fortune came in my junior year—when I met the lady who became my wife and who remains so today. I am sure everyone remembers how and where he or she first met his or her spouse. I surely do! Again, my good luck!
One of my duties during my term as president of the student council at Miami was to meet the candidates for freshman council and explain to them the rules of election—such as no signs on trees. We assembled in a classroom late in the afternoon on a rainy day. Shortly after I had begun to speak, a late arrival came into the back of the room and quietly sat down in the last row (it was, by the way, the first and last time in her life that Marilyn Brown was late for anything).
In any case, I was instantly smitten. She was the prettiest thing I had ever seen. When I finished my remarks, I handed out a printed copy of the election rules. But, I slyly made sure to walk to the back of the room and hand-deliver copies to those in the last couple of rows, including, of course, Miss Brown. I might add that she was even prettier up close.
All the candidates signed the sheet with their names and addresses. I noted that Miss Brown lived in a dormitory called Swing Hall. After the meeting, I went back to my room at my fraternity house and located one of my fraternity brothers, Sam Badger, who worked as a waiter at Swing Hall. I asked Sam if he knew Marilyn Brown who lived at Swing. He said he did, and I asked him if he could arrange a date for me. He did and—as they say—the rest is history.
Another one of my duties as president of the Student Faculty Council at Miami University was to head up the so-called Artists Series, which was a program of music and drama that lasted throughout the year and featured six or seven different performances. The most memorable one by far, indeed the only one I recollect, was when a quartet of the world’s most distinguished actors came to Miami to perform George Bernard Shaw’s great play Don Juan in Hell. This group—Charles Boyer, Charles Laughton, Sir Cedric Hardwick, and Agnes Morehead—were certainly four of the world’s great performers, and they were taking Don Juan in Hell on the road after a dazzling success in New York City. The nearest airport to Miami University is Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, and that is where the group was arriving. I managed to borrow a clean but fairly old car (since Miami did not permit students to have cars) and drove to the airport to meet the group. In retrospect, I simply cannot imagine that I did this. Why I didn’t have the