Dave Hamilton. I always said somebody should write about Dave someday. I just want to pass along a few good memories about him.. Like most people that have become close to me in my life, he was the original real deal, a maverick and most times soft spoken. That's why I liked him.
I first met Dave when I was working at Allied Mutual in Des Moines as an underwriter. He was an insurance agent from Grinnell. It was my job to accept or reject business that was submitted by agents like Dave. We got to be good friends after getting together socially through my manager, John DuMont back in the late 1960's. One thing that made Dave unique also was that to put it mildly he would not make it as a model for Esquire magazine.
After my divorce in the mid 1970's, I started going to Iowa Hawkeye football games with two good friends, Bob Merritt and Don Brittin. We would get our tickets through Dave as he was a huge supporter of Iowa athletics. It was something to see him come in to Allied Mutual with an attache case full of tickets. In the late 1960's and most of the 1970's, the Hawkeyes were not very good to say the least. I am not sure if Dave had to pat for all those tickets, but, it was amazing to see dozens and dozens of tickets lined up in that case.
We sat many a game on the end-zone line, 10 yard line or in the end zone, but, you had to hand it to Dave Dave for his support and out there selling tickets for a losing program. I do know that Dave, up until he passed away, possessed 20 seats all together on the west side and top two rows just off the fifty yard line. This was before they built the new press box. I witnessed Dave one time give a teacher from northwest Iowa two of his tickets on the east side and right on the fifty yard line. Dave possessed over 100 seats around that stadium. Amazing!
One story about Dave involved a trip to a Iowa-Minnesota football game in St. Paul before they played at the Dome. There were the four of us-Dave, Bob, Don, and myself. All the way up. Dave started saying something about not remembering whether he had guaranteed rooms at this Holiday Inn near Bloomington.
It started bothering me tat we might not have rooms when we arrived. We had no cell phones in those days, of course. And, when I suggested he call the hotel from a pay phone, he would just say, Oh! I'm sure it will be okay." He had me!
When we arrived at the hotel, the marquee read, "Welcome Ortonville Bob and Iowa Hawkeyes." The reference to Ortonville was the fact that Bob Merritt's company. Monarch Manufacturing , was located near the site of what had been a small town of Ortonville-pretty much disappeared by then. It was on the east edge of Waukee on highway 6. Of course, the innkeeper there was a "personal friend" of Dave's and we each had our own room. That was Dave!
---------------to be continued!
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