Those who have known me for a long time are probably wondering where the moniker Stump originated. Back in the day after Julie graduated from high school and was attending Rock Valley college, she would have her friends over for Monday night football. They were rowdy and raucous and generally had a good time. My original La-Z-Boy didn’t survive their treatment.
They played a lot of trivia games, which I was also fond of. They would bring these obscure questions in an attempt to stump Mitchell, which was me. Unfortunately for them, my mind is a plethora of useless information, which made for a lot of fun and games.
However, another factor came into play. The St. Louis Cardinals football team had a pretty good running back who went by the name of Stump Mitchell. Well, they picked up on this and thought it fitting, and so the name stuck.
After two years Julie went off to Purdue University and the Monday get togethers ended. The name Stump kind of faded away. Julie graduated, got her master’s and returned to Rockford where she joined the ranks of RPS educators.
Then a group of Julies friends formed a coed softball team. She was really excited about this and wanted to play, but Mike her husband refused to play with girls. She recruited me to play on the team with her. They were all young except for the pitcher who was Dean McKean of Rockford College and yours truly who played first base. It was a pretty talented group. We had the women’s softball coaches from Rockford college and guys who had played at various levels. Somewhere along the line someone remembered my nickname. and once again it stuck.
Julie and my career on the team ended when she became pregnant with her firstborn Andy. But our playing time it is among my fondest memories.
