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David Mitchell
I have been saving an idea for a bit of a "series" of memories about OSU. All this stuff from Jack and Beth about Script Ohio and sitting in that stadium makes me think I would be fun to try and throw a few of them at you from time to time.
I don't think any of us could have grown up under the long shadow of that "little" school down on High Street without it leaving some sort of a mark on us. But I may have enjoyed one of the most privileged "front row" views of any of us without ever actually becoming a student there. My dad had a unique historic relationship with the school that provided me the opportunity of a lifetime.
My dad was born in 1911 (one of five) to parents of very modest means, and grew up in a house on either 10th or 11th Avenue (?), just a few blocks east of High Street. Yes, we all know what a "war zone" that neighborhood later evolved into. But I think back then it was reallly a bit of a step up from the rest of the Irish families who dwelt a little further south of that area in "Flytown". I think that was mostly laborers and railroad workers, But Grandpa Albert Mitchell (whom I never knew) sold men's and boys clothing on the first floor (not the "Better Men's Dept" on floor 5, or was it 6?) of the old Union Department Store down about 5th St. and High (help me here Fred). If I remember correctly he worked there for 42 years - after having answered an add in a 1903 newspaper to come from Burlington, Vermont to work in the old Boston Men's Store - also on High Street. Dad explained to me that Grandpa could never quite get ahead. "The Union's" policy was to always put the sales staff back on straight hourly wage (and a low one at that) when times were good and sales boomed - but to switch them to commission whenever the economy and sales slowed.
*(I spent one fall and Christmas season (between flunking out of D.U. and leaving for the Army in January '68) selling men's clothing at the Northland "Union". The head guy of the Men's section, a much older man, caught my name the first week and came up to me one day and asked, "Are you any relation to Albert Mitchell?" I said yes, and he practially went off like a rocket - "OMG! I trained as a boy under your grandfather!" The guy treated me like I was his long lost little brother for the entire time I worked there.)
"Willy" Mitchell (Dad) was the middle kid of 5 and he was the wild adventurous one of the bunch. He roamed the streets of north Columbus with some characters from Holy Name School - good and bad. There was Bob Gordon, who's father owned the 5th Avenue Savings (and who's nephews included Tommy Weilbacher and Phillip Gordon (Watterson '65). Another was a Bob Loar, who was kicked out of school for uncontrollable behavior so many times he never went back after 9th grade - but managed to ritire as the Chairman of the Board of Grumman Allied Industries (Grumman Aviation), and helped his neighgbor, Mr. Grumman to design the Navy's "Hellcat and "Bearcat" fighter bombers for the Navy to win the war in the Pacific. Bob was his neighbor on Long Island and I believe was Grumman's first employee. And he was by far the single funniest man I (any of us) ever knew!
Another one of them was a guy named Howard Fowler and he must have been a strange dude from the stories dad told. (I still have a clipping from a Dispatch article about of Dad's older brother Dave and Howard and their gold mine in northern California in the late 30's. It was real - been there myself as a 9 yr-old kid. but Uncle Dave explained the article about their huge success was completely made up by Howard, the dreamer).
Sorry to ramble so much, I'm just having some fun reminiscing.
When Dad was about 10 and 11, a monstrous new construction project began down along the banks of the Olentangy River just south of Lane Avenue. It was to be called "The Ohio Stadium" and Dad and Howard were drawn to it like flies to honey. They would ride their bikes down to the site after school and wait for the construction workers to quit and leave the site. Dad and Howard learned a way through the constructuon barriers and could get into the stadium undetected. Dad explained that he and Howard began a really fun new activity. They would go along the river bank and gather as many tadpoles and frogs they could hold in their overalls, then go inside the stadium barriers, climb to the top of the closed north end (which was completed to full height first), then drop the tadpoles and frogs over the back of the wall, and run all the way down the steps to see how badly they had splattered on the ground just outside the entrance arches.
To think that this was the beginning of a life-long "relationship" with the School in which Dad was to become the head of a department in the Medical school for about 43 years still gives me a chuckle.
TBC
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