T.B.D.B.I.T.L.I became a band nerd as a result of having music very much in my blood (and being a very auditory person, which I didn't realize until much later in life), and not by chance, the next path in my life took us from the high school band in Garnett, Kansas to The Best Damn Band in The Land.
In the early months of 1947, my father became very ill with pneumonia and was hospitalized in Kansas City. Following his recovery he realized that he was tired of always being responsible for performances and programs. Together my parents decided (maybe my mother decided) that he should not go into the cattle business with Grandfather Edwards, but should return to graduate school and get a degree perhaps in school administration. They first thought of K.U. but also looked toward the University of Michigan (because my father had met the director of music, Rivelli, at festival with his bands) and also Ohio State where good navy friends were living. They moved our furniture back to Hamilton and Uncle John furnished a farm trailer to pull the necessities to wherever we were going. We arrived in Columbus to visit the Olsens and left the trailer on their drive while going to Ann Arbor to survey the scene.
It turned out that the housing was much less desirable and my parents returned to Columbus, where we moved into Buckeye Village (military barrack-like graduate housing for GI bill students) and settled in at 2670 Defiance Drive. Buckeye Village was filled with families who had children and one parent in graduate school at OSU.
There also was a University laboratory school where Mark and I attended preschool. In the second semester of 1949(at the time Ohio promoted on the half year), I started kindergarten at 9th Avenue School and road a big yellow bus to school. I remember
that our bus driver was a black lady who had us singing all the way to school and back, probably for her sanity more than ours.
I remember several stories from Columbus. I can remember going to watch the band practice by the stadium and I can remember marching in our apartment with my baton to the sound of Buckeye Battle Cry on our 78 record player (I still have the records). I remember trying to pedal rapidly away from a bully who was trying to take my bike and running smack into a milk truck. I also remember taking that bike with my friend to the little creek nearby and discovering clay in the bank. So I pushed my "new" bike home with a big g
lob of wet clay to make some creations. My mother failed to see the wonder of it all and I was chastised for getting my new bike dirty. And I can remember riding my bike with my friend out a road to see the steam engine train come by in the afternoons. Can't forget either my Roy Rogers cup and going to Lazarus to see Elsie and Beauregard, the Borden's cow and her son.
I became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan because of living in Columbus when Vic Janowitz won the Heisman Trophy in 1950. His last game was in the "Snowbowl" against Michigan, which my parents attended and I listened to on the radio. Janowitz subsequently played for the Pirates instead of professional football and I became a fan.
Funny how sometimes we have to live geography to get it. For most of my live I envisioned Three Rivers stadium as being somewhere on the East coast, until my daughter, Vanessa, and I drove from Toronto back to Kansas and when we got to Erie, Pa. I realized that Pittsburgh was straight south. We also got to stop in Columbus overnight and visit Buckeye stadium and 2670 Defiance Drive, where Buckeye Village barracks housing had been torn down and rebuilt in brick buildings, still university housing.
My father finished his masters degree and decided to continue and obtain a PhD. This was completed in 1951 and the next path took us back to where my father had been discharged from the navy, Norman, Oklahoma. Mark and I went to Kansas to stay with Grandmother Edwards and Uncle John while Mom and Dad finished his dissertation. Our stay was prolonged because a flood on the Mississippi and throughout Kansas and Missouri made their trip from Columbus with the trailer take over a week.
Additional Photos:
Santa at Lazarus
Nice hats, Dudes!
Mark and me and the Matriarchs
Easter with baskets (and cool hats)
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