Throwback Thursday #27: Real Hugs

"Where I live if someone gives you a hug it's from the heart." ~ Steve Irwin

I've been on a throwback to college kick here lately, so that's going to continue for another week.

As you may have read about on here before, our group of friends loved going to the Copper Penny, which is the ag college bar at OSU, or at least it was when we were in school there. There was always country music playing, guys in boots and cowboy hats, cow crap on the floor, and frequently a dog running around. It was sort of like Cheers, where everyone knew your name. And I do mean everyone--even the owner, Penny, knew who we were. More than once when one of the boys would get a little out of control, she would come find me in the sea of people and be sure I was driving them home. I'm telling you, it was like home!

I frequently was the driver of the group. We have lots of stories from those journeys from Washington Street to 44th and Western. There were screaming fits, threats of pulling the care over and making them walk, and my favorite game of "guess who" where the guy in the back seat would put his hands over the driver's eyes. Ah yes.....we were at school to become the leaders of tomorrow.


One of my favorite stories occurred after one of these drives home. One of the Animal House boys was quite the hugger. As he got ready to get out of the car, he went to hug College Roomie and I. We gave him the one-armed sideways hug, which was really all we could do while sitting in a car.

Well Animal House Boy got infurated. He went off on a tangent about how that was not a real hug and we couldn't leave until we gave him a "real" hug and he was not getting out of the car until this happened. So there we are, 2:00 am, piling out of the car to give Animal House Boy a two armed "real" hug. After that, he went inside, we got back in the car and went home.

They say that the most important lessons you learn in college don't happen in the classroom. I totally beleive that to be true. Animal House Boy taught us that night that sometimes, a person just needs a hug. A real hug. And it's a lesson I haven't forgotten.