Nick Jones waits. Nervously checking his phone every couple of minutes, he stands in the lobby of the Ramada Inn, for updates from his wife on the progress of the car that may change his life.
As the car pulls into the parking lot, he wonders what to do. It is a moment he has played in his head countless times during the last 48 hours, but now it’s here. Impatient, he bursts through the door of the hotel lobby and strides toward a father he has never met.
His father smiles, one hand in his pocket.
“How are you?”
Nick extends his right hand, wrapping the other arm around his dad. Perry Hogsten grips both of Nick’s hands tightly before throwing his arms around the son he never knew he had.
Nick simply says, “It’s good to finally meet you.”
And after 20 years, nothing could be closer to the truth.
The fact the two had never met was no one’s fault, just a case of bad timing. In 1988, Stephanie Jones was dating Perry Hogsten, an air force sergeant stationed at Dyess Air Force Base. The two were planning to marry when Hogsten was unexpectedly deployed to Panama.
Jones intended to wait for him in Abilene, until she found out she was pregnant. When the pregnancy became risky, Stephanie’s mother moved her back to Amarillo, where Nick was born. When Hogsten returned a number of years later, Stephanie was gone.
“My mom told me she tried to look for him a couple times,” Nick said. “But I think she got the feeling that he had moved on.”
During his childhood, Nick played football just like any other kid — almost.
“It was different for me,” Nick said. “I could not wave to my dad in the crowd like most of the kids.”
Nick said he never pressed his mom for an explanation, accepting it as part of who he was.
Who he was changed quickly when, at age 19, he and his wife of one year had a baby. Nick became a father without ever having one of his own.
Having a family was only one of Nick’s accomplishments. After standing out in track and football in high school, he came to ACU on scholarship. He quickly made a name for himself on the track team, winning the national championship in discus his freshman and sophomore year.
Still, there was something missing.
“After we found out Miriam was pregnant, she started pushing me to find my dad.” Nick said.
So, Nick paid for an online person search, which yielded an address or two and a couple of phone numbers. After calling the first number, which had been disconnected, Nick stopped calling.
“I really do not know why I did not call the other number,” he said. “I guess that I was just nervous. So I just saved the number on a flash drive, and it stayed there.”
After a little more time, Miriam pressed harder.
“I kept telling him that he needed to find his dad, that even though he never knew he had a son, he deserved to know that he has a grandson now,” Miriam said.
But Nick kept finding excuses, so Miriam finally took matters into her own hands. Deciding it was worth a try, she searched Facebook for the name Perry Hogsten.
“As soon as I saw the picture, I knew it was Nick’s dad,” Miriam said. “They had the same face, the same ears and even the same eyes.”
After exchanging a message or two, Miriam decided to tell her husband, putting Nick in contact with the man he had always wanted to meet.
Nick and Hogsten exchanged e-mails and phone calls for about a month, but had not determined when they would meet face to face. Hogsten lived in Independence, Mo., which happens to be about two hours away from Maryville, Mo., home of the Bearcats. Nick knew if the Wildcats made the playoffs, they’d probably have to face Northwest Missouri — and they did.
When Nick boarded the plane with the rest of his team, he wasn’t thinking about the game.
“I was wondering what I was going to say,” he said “I didn’t know.”
It didn’t matter. With very little sleep and no idea what was going to happen, Nick walked out to meet his father. And in one hug, 20 years faded away.
