Heart of a Mule
The Dick Schafrath Stories
Gray & Company, Publishers

Dick Schafrath might have served as the prototype of WYSIWYG, otherwise known as What You See Is What You Get, a terminology that is a fixture in today’s computerized world. This engaging book explains the man behind the football player and former state legislator, the husband and father. There are not very many people he met along life’s highways that he didn’t like. Here, he tells it all like it was, or still is.

Readers of a certain age will laugh as he relates his growing up years—the more so if they shared a similar homespun lifestyle. Younger readers may well shake their heads in disbelief. But I’ll warn you, disbelieve at your peril! This is how it was. And not all that many years ago, either.

Raised in the rolling hills of Wayne County, roughly 75 miles from the bustling metropolis of Cleveland, his location might just as well have been on another planet, for all the similarity between the two places. Country life instills a sense of self-reliance in a person that isn’t always found in city-bred folks. Being responsible for your own food supply is vastly different than relying on the corner store for easy purchasing.

Such independence was both his blessing and his curse—combined with his German stubborness. (I can relate to that, for sure!) Gifted with a strong, athletically-inclined physique and an inquisitive intelligence, he was highly successful in his youthful sporting adventures. These feats brought him to the attention of Woody Hayes, football coach of The Ohio State University, and then to the fledgling Cleveland Browns. But still, he wondered about baseball. Could he have made it, after all, with the Cincinnati Reds?

Throughout his 70 years (so far, at least) he’s seldom veered from a straightforward path. Oh, he’s stumbled a few times, but who among us hasn’t? Mr. Schafrath tells his story with wit and grace, never striving to be more than what he was, and never building himself up by belittling anyone else. It’s all here, goofiness, warts and all. If you remember those halcyon days of the 60s and the last great football teams of Cleveland, you’ll enjoy reading this book. Even if you don’t remember, you’ll still enjoy it. He could easily have called it ‘from the outhouse to the White House’—a remarkable journey for one lifetime!

Schafrath speaks at the Institute for Learning in Retirement at Baldwin-Wallace College on Tuesday, May 29 at 11AM. For more information, visit http://homepages.bw.edu/ilr. For more details about the book and how to purchase it, click here. Visit Gray & Company's homepage at http://www.grayco.com.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATadelphia.net (:divend:)