Competition - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Competition

As a competitive person, my desire to win has helped me over the years whenever playing sports and competing in business. On the other hand, my wife tends not to be nearly as competitive, which makes our lives together interesting and rewarding because we tend to complement each other. My competitive spirit started slowly, primarily because I was the oldest child and had no one to compete against growing up until we would visit my older cousins who had such things as basketball hoops and makeshift ball diamonds in their back yards. Trying to “compete” against older cousins who had obviously played the various sports much more challenged my limited skills. Needless to say, I’d get creamed, but did quickly learn the games and especially to buckle down and win. If you knew my cousins, they never intentionally let the younger ones win; instead you had to earn it the old fashioned way. It was those early experiences that provided the foundation for my intense competitiveness.

My wife was also the oldest child, plus she was one of the oldest cousins in her extended family, so that meant no games to stir the competitive juices. Knowing her, she also was much nicer to her younger family members and cousins than in my case. To further compound the situation, during an incident in grade school she was relegated to the end of the chain in a crack the whip game to see who could hold on the longest. Almost flying off the ground like this sculpture depicts, she had to let go and broke her arm!

That sculpture is along the route of one of our regular walking paths, so needless to say, she's always reminded of a painful period in her life, with such an incident at such a young age obviously limiting her competitiveness. And all along the way through her school years, girls sports, had they existed like today, would have potentially allowed her to nurture her competitiveness. Worse yet, the gym classes back then were no better at generating competitiveness, limited mostly to exercises and running with no real goal in mind. This quote essentially captures my wife’s perspective on the subject of competition.

Competition in areas other than sports obviously presented themselves growing up, such as the quest for good grades and events like spelling bees, science fairs and art shows. At the time, we didn’t perceive those as competing against our fellow classmates, but instead the test itself or the word to be spelled was the “opponent” that had to be conquered. Probably the most competitive thing my wife did in her younger years was trying out for the cheerleading squad. No doubt she was a great cheerleader, but it’s unlikely she considered it competition. It was more of a popular thing to do. Ditto for her three younger sisters shown on this photo from their cheerleading days.

As kids we played lots of board games and cards, so those activities generated some added competition, but mostly it was considered just fun stuff to do. Finally, playing in organized sports starting out with Little League baseball providing my real first official taste of competition. We didn’t start with T-Ball like today, instead faced live pitching on day one, which was a real challenge for me. So was fielding, so bottom line, I spent a lot of time on the bench. Basketball was similar, because I was very clumsy and uncoordinated.

But over time, dissatisfied with being a sub and a strong desire to improve, my competitive skills were honed not just for sports but also later for the business world. However, the auto industry where I worked for my entire career took its toll, as the business competitiveness was intense. And working in Ford Truck engineering, the drive stay #1 was daunting, yet exhilarating.

Without the physical exertion of sports competition, there was no stress relieving mechanism in the business world, so I could feel my body aging by the year at a rate faster than my actual age. That’s why I chose to retire on the first day eligible in 2000, over 21 years ago, having never looked back. Of course I did work after officially retiring, but on my own terms. Next to marrying my wife and having our son, retiring early was the best thing that ever happened to me.

For one thing, the extra time allowed me to further nurture my competitiveness in golf and tennis, sustainable even to this day. At age 73, somehow I’m playing the best golf and tennis of my life! I enjoy the competition more than ever and love to beat the younger players! It’s not only fun, but also healthy, except perhaps for the beer afterwards!