Happy birthday to all the Miami University Redskins out there

Miami University in Oxford Ohio turned 200 years old today. It is the 4th oldest college in the United States of America. The universitys first president envisioned that it would become the "Yale of the West" and planned it out accordingly. Over it's history it has graduated many prominent men and women including one president of the United States of America ... and my dad. And that's the reason I'm writing this post. I actually went to a rival school, we made fun of them often for being snobby and stuck up. We liked to call Miami J.Crew-U because there was an urban legend going around that their campus had the highest per capita delivery of J.Crew catalogs of any zip code in the country.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't like that when he went there because that wasn't exactly how he rolled. But I'm pretty sure no matter how it changed, my dad still loved that place. It had to be one of his favorite places on earth. He would tell us about his favorite memories all the time. I thought it was cool how he worked in the radio station even though he wasn't supposed to because he wasn't a broadcast major. He would describe the places so vividly, he would tell us about the bowling alley that he would go to all the time. I could envision him carrying the ball that lived and never moved from a spot in our basement into that alley even though I've never seen the alley. The golf course he played all the time seemed like a place I could tell you how to play certain holes even though I've never been there. I think his love for that place might have been the reason all of his kids (me included) just thought of college as a given. None of us ever thought that not going was an option.

I heard about it on the radio today and thought to myself how much of a kick he would have gotten from it. I'm pretty sure his entire phone book would have gotten a call today.