Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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In 1940 when I was eight years old, my dad had three friends who got together with him about once a month to play cards. They played “penny ante” poker. In November it was my dad’s turn to host the game at our house on South Court Street. My dad scheduled the game for a Tuesday night in early November. It was election day, and he thought they could play cards that night as they listened to the election returns on the radio.
They played at a card table in our living room, and I sat on our sofa and watched it all. I knew only one of his guests, a man named Addison McCullough, who lived across the street from us. He had some sort of state political job in Ohio Governor John Bricker’s Republican administration.
When Mr. McCullough showed up at our door that night, he was wearing several political pins. One was a really big pin that said “No Third Term.” You see, in those days there were no presidential term limits, but no president had ever run for a third term. President Franklin Roosevelt was the first to do that. Then there was a pin that said, “Bricker-Wilkie-Burton.” I didn’t know who Burton was, but I knew that Wendell Wilkie was the Republican presidential candidate, and Bricker was Ohio’s Republican governor.
I didn’t know the other two of my dad’s friends. One was a man they called Earl, but I don’t know his last name. He was a Democrat, and he was wearing a large pin that simply said, “F.D.R.” I don’t recall the name of the third man. But he was wearing no pins at all.
As the evening progressed, there was a lot of political joking back and forth between Earl and Mr. McCullough. But it was all in fun as they were good friends. At the and of the day, Earl was happy because President Roosevelt won his third term. Mr. McCullough was also happy because Governor Bricker was re-elected. So they both went home in good spirits, and they gave their political pins to me.
Oh yes, my dad was happy, too. He won more money that night than ever before, and he gave it all to me. I was thrilled, of course, because it was 23 cents. That was a lot of money for an eight-year-old boy in 1940.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com