OR they?

I had a great time in "the other Portland" as I like to call it. Same name, different coast, no other real similarities so I will not compare. I had a great time staying with my friend Danica's mom, Pam, who took ridiculously good care of me. I have never seen a fridge so well-stocked, and I even walked away with some beautiful, one-of-a-kind jewelry that she made herself. I'll keep you all posted when she has a website, because her work is amazing, and I say that as someone who rarely wears jewelry!

As many of you know, Portland is home to the University of Portland, which considers itself the Notre Dame of the west. I'll leave that one alone, but it is run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross (CSC--the acronym of their French name), the same order of priests and brothers that runs ND. I unabashedly love the CSCs. They are awesome guys, very positive and encouraging, and they are a really strong community of faith. Fr. Stephen Koeth, one of my interviewees in Portland, noted that the family atmosphere at ND is really just an echo of the CSC's community, and I wholeheartedly agree. All of the priests I had as professors were really incredible people, and I've stayed in touch with many of them since I graduated. Enough gushing, but I got to interview several CSCs while I was in Portland, since they all go through theo/philo training at ND, so they are all alumni. I got to hear some great stories about Fr. Moreau, the founder of the order who was just beatified last month, and who was apparently an accomplished mimic of his professors at the seminary. I won't disclose my source on that one :)

And it turns out I picked the right week to go to Portland, because my visit coincided with a visit from one of my favorite profs at ND, and one of my favorite people, Fr. Bill Miscamble. Fr. Bill taught me history at ND, and one of the best things about his class, aside from the fascinating subject matter, is the fact that he has an Australian accent and, as he says, a crooked arm that sticks out in the shape of a boomerang. He could have been reading from the dictionary and our class would have been riveted! He's the only person I know who calls me "sport" and "mate," and says "g'day" on his voicemail message without a hint of irony. We got to go have coffee at UP, just as we do when I visit ND. It was an unexpected treat. I was also reunited with my dear old (well, actually pretty young) German/chemistry teacher from Trinity, Mr. Clark. I got to meet his wife and 3 young daughters, the oldest of whom is 5 years old and came home with her first library card when I was there. She was also 75 pages into her book, which had fairly large print but no pictures. As if Herr Clark would have non-genius children! Anyway, that was a really fun interview, with some great stories about ND band mishaps and overzealous chipmunks.

Fr. Bill Hund spent nearly the entire day with me on Thursday, giving me a tour of the UP campus, taking me to lunch and introducing me to a bunch of faculty members, and then I went to "guest night" with their community for Mass and dinner and got to meet some PACE teachers. (PACE is the Pacific NW version of ND's ACE, the Alliance for Catholic Education, where young grads teach in poor schools and get their Masters in ed. at the same time.) It was a great day, and I felt very at home. But that night I had a really scary moment, the only one I've had on this entire trip. I was driving back to Pam's on this unbelievably windy (with a long 'i') road. On the way to the university that morning, it was a spectaculary fun drive—I thought it was almost too fun to be allowed; it was like a closed course you see on a car commercial. But on the way home in the dark, it was really unnerving, especially when I saw a deer hanging out by the side of the road. I would very much prefer to get through this trip without hitting a deer, so that definitely freaked me out. I think that's the only time on this whole trip that I've really felt like something bad might happen to me, which is strange considering what a worrier I am (as my brother Steve says, if I didn't freak out about things, I wouldn't be me. I prefer to say that if I haven't freaked out about something, it's not even a hypothetical, so how are we talking about it? Kind of a chicken and egg sort of thing.)

On Friday I interviewed Matt and Bob, a couple of profs at UP who are both triple Domers, and they team-teach a course on marriage. One's in theo, one's in soc, and they act like an old married couple themselves, so of course I had to interview them together. The best part was at the end of the interview, when I realized (while the mic was still on, thankfully!) that Matt's shoes had been off for the entire interview. I called him out on it, and Bob says, "I KNOW! He takes his shoes off every class, and I'm always tripping over them!" They went back and forth for a good 10 minutes, and I just tried to laugh on the inside so I wouldn't wreck the tape.

I took the weekend off. I got to go to the original Powell's on Saturday—the City of Books. I spent a few hours there, and managed to escape having purchased only two books, which I think shows remarkable restraint on my part. Being on the road must be having a good effect on my willpower. I went to a nice dinner that night at Jake's Grill, a historic Portland restaurant, with Fr. Hund and Peg Hogan, a prof at UP that I know from when I worked at Notre Dame a few years ago. Then I spent the whole day Sunday with Pam and her friend Paul at the Oregon coast, which was so relaxing. I have now officially reached the end of the Oregon Trail—without starving to death or having any of my oxen drown, thank you very much.