This story comes from BT, who was told it by his grandpa. The excerpt below comes as a section of a longer conversation, but has been pieced together for coherence and clarity. Great care was taken to preserve the language and intent of BT during this story, and was paraphrased for greater readability.

BT’s grandpa on his dad’s side was the youngest of 9 children, and the second one closest to him was 5 years older. At the time, they lived in Fort Madison on the river (a small town in Iowa). In high school, he gets a job at an ice cream shop for like 5 years up until he goes to college. The deal he had with the ice cream shop was that he got paid a few cents for the hours of work (he would get up really early and have to clean the entire store before it opened). As additional compensation, the catch was the fact that he got as much ice cream as he could ever want for free while working. While cleaning up, BT’s grandpa would mix ice cream in the machines, making super thick ice cream (going for like 3 hours). He would always put on the whole thing, peanuts, the works (for toppings). Grandpa does this for 5 years, and eventually has so much dairy, etc. that he bloats out, but also working out a lot, cleaning the store for hours, he becomes a super big kid (fat and muscle). Back when college was kinda cheap, he did his interview for the University of Iowa, to hopefully be accepted into university. He goes into the interview for the college, and the interviewer mistakes him for a football recruit. As a result, he gets a full-ride scholarship to go to Iowa without ever playing a down of football for the school, without anyone seemingly bothered to confirm his status for the entire 4 years.

This story about BT’s grandpa highlights the principle of “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” but is instead explained in narrative fashion. While BT’s grandpa didn’t do anything particularly remarkable to receive his full-ride scholarship, he never complained and would routinely brag about his good fortune to both friends and family alike. BT, from the conversation, contained a mix of both pride in his family’s story, defending its values against others listening in, and a twinge of envy for the fortune to have college paid for in full. This story, while perhaps slightly mundane, still teaches a valuable lesson in appreciating the good breaks one gets in life, and to make sure to take every available opportunity, regardless of the pathway it could lead down. As BT’s family hailed from a small rural town in Iowa, the opportunities to expand past their town were somewhat limited, but college was an excellent gateway into a wider world. While the scholarship may have been a fluke, sometimes a bit of good fortune is required to get off the ground. BT has shown growth in himself while interacting with this story over time. At first, it was a funny story about how eating as much ice cream as possible is both cool and effective to further one’s career. As BT grew older, he began to appreciate the nuance in taking rare opportunities and not letting them slip by without at least trying to see the road it leads down.