squirrel moments

The End of the Road

2008-02-21T23:28:00.004-05:00

Ok, last post. As I write this, I'm in my bed at my parents' house, wearing eight layers of clothing and tucked under five blankets. And flannel sheets. I will be looking for my electric blanket tomorrow, and hopefully that will allow me to cut down on layers, because I am seriously having trouble moving my arms (ala Randy in A Christmas Story), and my knee-high soccer socks under my leggings are cutting off the circulation to my calves. It's good to be home.

I've been on a break for the past few weeks visiting friends in the Northeast and cramming in as many Oscar nominees as possible before this Sunday. Many of you know my obsession with going to the movies, and I haven't been able to indulge that much on this trip, so it's been a very pleasant and relaxing break. This week I'll be preparing to meet with the powers that be and determine what happens to all the amazing interviews I've collected. I'm really excited about listening to them and getting to work editing all of them.

I just got back this afternoon, and it is great to see my family here again after nearly five months. My mom made me my favorite dinner, my dad brought Stephen over from ND for dinner, and Pete told me that when I go out tomorrow, he's planning to "melt all the doorknobs so I can't get back in." Ah, there's no place like home. Really, though, isn't he creative? Most people would change the locks, but Pete's version is so much more interesting, and certainly more visually compelling.

I also came back to a whole lot of mail. Like, a folder full. My mom has been diligently saving every scrap of paper anyone has sent me over the past four months. Some of it's pretty useless—1099s, free credit cards with "Your Name Here" on the front—but a lot of it is from people I've met on this trip. And I hope you won't mistake my meaning when I say that I'd forgotten about these people. They are very important to me, and I think about them all the time, as I do all of my friends. I reflect on the things we talked about, and I think about them and how they live their lives, and I remember them when I see something they'd like...but I guess people are recalled to you differently when you're holding a physical letter from them in your hand and reading their current news. I think probably I won't realize the full impact they've had on my life for awhile, but right now, I feel really grateful to them for all their generosity, and I'm honored that they shared their stories with me. I know that sounds unbelievably trite, but those are the only English words I know to describe it. And I gave up swearing for Lent, which includes swearing for emphasis. Otherwise, I'd be emphasizing everything.

When people ask me about this trip, it's hard for me just to start talking about it or describing it in general terms. Every day, every city, every home, every interview was different. In my mind it's a mosaic of all these little moments, like this guy giving me his map of Yellowstone and telling me best places to go; and my friend's mom buying me postcards because she didn't think I'd have time to get them myself; and another guy telling me he's dying of cancer and he's not afraid; and believing him; and seeing the sun come up on my first day in Minneapolis; and trying to reheat rice at my brother's apartment without a microwave; and reading Frog and Toad Are Friends to a room full of third graders. And that's just off the top of my head. It's a weird hodgepodge, I know, but that's how I see it in my mind at this point.

I appreciate all the support many of you reading this have given me over the past six months. I'll save the Academy Award speech, but now I know what they mean when they say they couldn't have done it without (insert 50 names here). I suppose I could list you all, since there is no music here, but this is the worldwide web, susceptible to all kinds of readership, so I'll avoid naming names. I'll also avoid naming places and plans for now, partly for the reason I just stated but also because they're not all final. I've got a few things worked out for the next couple of months, and those of you are interested in knowing about that may email me at your leisure. In any case, thanks for reading this!

Last stop

2008-02-21T22:09:00.002-05:00

Sorry for the long hiatus...thanks to everyone who's been sending along kind comments about this blog, but the fact is that I enjoy doing stuff more than writing about it. So I'll write up the last part of the trip, and then do a brief wrap-up.

I made my way from Raleigh to Washington, DC, stopping along the way for a delightful visit with a couple of friends in Charlottesville, VA. In case you've never been (I hadn't really), Virginia is completely gorgeous, and it was a really fun drive because Sibyl, for some reason unknown to me (when is her reasoning ever known to me?!) decided we'd take the back roads, which wind through the beautiful hills of VA. I met up with my friend/former neighbor/fellow Saltie Jesse Dukes, who is doing some cool work for a program in association with UVA's station, as well as some great freelance pieces (check out his work at http://www.jessedukes.com). He was doing a bit of volunteer consulting with a group of high-school kids who interviewed elderly people in their community and are putting together multimedia pieces using their interviews and photos. So I helped with that for about 10 minutes, and then we went for tea, just like in the old days in our neighborhood on Vesper Street. I also got to catch up (briefly) with my old roommate-for-a-summer Jenaro, so it was a very Vesper-y afternoon. It was a very pleasant afternoon, despite the cloudy weather.

And then I drove into DC, where I stayed with my friend Rebecca and her roommate Jeanne. And the whirlwind began. From the time I hit the city to the day I left, it was a blur of parties, museums, family, old friends and a few new friends, plus a lot of work. Every time I thought I was about to do my final interview, someone else would call back, or reschedule, or strongly recommend a friend...and each one was better than the next, so I couldn't very well say no.

Most of my interview subjects in DC were veterans and former government employees, so they had a lot of interesting historical-type stories. I got to talk to a 96-year-old man who met the King of England and Gen. Patton during World War II. When I asked if he was there when Patton slapped the kid from Mishawaka (thank you, Fr. Blantz's American History class), he told me that he wasn't, but if he had been, he would have slapped the general right back and damn the consequences. I also talked to a guy who used to work in defense intelligence about the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a guy who worked in nuclear regulation about the prospects of nuclear energy with regard to the new green trend. Really cool stuff.

I also ended up spending a lot of time in Arlington National Cemetery. I had to go take some photos for the project, and then some of Rebecca's friends invited me to go with them...I should explain that Rebecca and my brother David who lives in DC were both on the road a bit for work while I was in town, and the result was that I got my own bed and spent far less time in bars than I usually do when I visit DC. I also ended up spending a lot of time with Rebecca's friends, I think because I was staying at her place and we look enough alike that I was a suitable substitute for the week. A little weird, but they were fun. In any case, how often do you get a call asking, "Are you up for an afternoon of solemn contemplation of our nation's great heroes?"—or something to that effect. And it was really cool to tour the cemetery with people who actually knew some of the history. Turns out, Arlington National Cemetery is located on what was Robert E. Lee's estate. Actually, it was his wife's estate—Mrs. Lee was a descendant of George Washington. So when they evacuated during the Civil War (the Lee estate overlooks DC, and thus was a strategic location for the Union), she took with her many family heirlooms that had belonged to Washington. Then one of the Union generals decided to make sure the Lees could never return to the estate by burying fallen soldiers (and sometimes the limbs of amputees) in Mrs. Lee's rose garden. What a story. The writers on Desperate Housewives wish they could come up with something so deliciously vindictive.

I also got to spend some time at the Air and Space Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the Hirshhorn and a few other hot spots on the mall. Yea, free museums! Definitely the best thing about Washington. You know, if you're not into government.

I have to admit, though, it was a little tough getting around the city. I am declaring Washington, DC the most difficult city I've had to drive in, for a number of reasons. Apparently the city was purposely designed to confuse invaders and give the U.S. military clear access to shooting at them. Right, except that I'm guessing invaders will carefully study a map beforehand and do a few dry runs before battle. Whereas your casual visitor to the city may or may not have studied their route from home to wherever it is they are going quite that diligently, let alone trying to execute it in real time. Add in a bunch of lost tourists, a few insane cabbies, and a dozen or so "because we feel like it" road blocks, and I found myself just kind of hoping I didn't hit anything when I left the house.

But all in all, I had a fantastic time in Washington, and though I was sad to wrap up my interviews, it was nice to end with a really strong bunch.

What's the difference?

2008-01-29T17:34:00.001-05:00

Last week I stayed in Raleigh with my Uncle Joe, Aunt Melanie and their four kids, Heather (13), Caitlin (9), Anthony (5), and Thomas, almost 3. I did do a few interviews, but honestly, my trip to Raleigh was mostly social, with a bit of pampering mixed in. Heather and Caitlin gave me a facial and a pedicure the first morning I was there before I was declared fit to leave the house. I turned down the manicure because I don't like wearing nail polish, but as the week went on, I was tempted to reconsider as I developed a blister on my thumb from playing Super Mario Brothers. And a sore arm from all the Wii bowling, basketball, and air hockey. Did I mention the Raleigh Freddosos have a game room?

But actually while I was there I learned a new game, which has become one of my favorites. (My family will understand when I say it's in the same vain as Pete's old joke game—"why did the calendar chase the priest?", etc.) The new game was developed by my cousin Anthony, and it's called "What's the Difference?" Here's an example:

Anthony: Katie, what's the difference between a table and a raisin?

Me: You put plates on a table, but not on a raisin.

Anthony: No, you eat a raisin, but you don't eat a table.

Me: You got me again. Man, you're good at this. So Thomas, what's the difference between a lampshade and my forehead?

As you can probably guess, this can go on for awhile, and it's always wildly entertaining. And speaking of entertaining, Uncle Joe, Caitlin and I got to go see Anthony play some basketball...fortunately, I don't have to eff the ineffable here—the local news crew did a bit of filming at the previous week's game, so you can watch for yourself (Anthony is #3 on the Celtics, who are in yellow):

This was only the second time I've ever been to North Carolina, which is silly, because some of my favorite people live there. I got to spend a day touring Duke with my friend Sheryl, who is just now wrapping up her oral exams and getting ready to dazzle the theological world with her dissertation. And I went down to Southern Pines for an interview and got to see my friend Rebecca's parents, who took me out to lunch and then sent me over to their house so I could get some work down while they were at work, and then made me a home-cooked dinner. The best part of this, aside from their very pleasant company, was calling Rebecca from her childhood home to tell her I was going through all of her stuff.

I had such a good time I didn't want to leave North Carolina, but all good things must come to an end. In fact, this entire trip is coming to an end soon. As I write this, I am in Washington, DC, where I will conclude my interviews for the project and my always belated blog entries. I will continue up the coast when I'm done, but just for a break, and hopefully I'll have time to procrastinate individual correspondence again.

Super-adorable!

2008-01-21T15:23:00.001-05:00

It's four hours from Jensen Beach to Jacksonville, four hours from Jacksonville to Charleston, and four hours from Charleston to Raleigh. And last week I discovered that there's nothing longer than a four-hour drive. Two hours, and you're practically there before you had a chance to switch out your CD. Eight hours, and you go into it prepared for a day-long trip. But I haven't quite mastered the psychological prep needed for the Four...you think it's going to be short and easy, but then you get hungry, and you have to stop for gas, etc. It's the worst, because when you've only got two more hours to go, you get this feeling like you just cannot go on. On three out of the four four-hour drives on this entire trip, I have needed to stop at a rest area and take a power-nap in my car. I'm a little concerned about the Raleigh-to-DC trip awaiting me this weekend...

In any case, after a couple of interviews in Jacksonville last Wednesday, I set out for Charleston, SC. It was my first-ever trip to South Carolina, and hopefully not my last. I stayed with my friends Griff and Kara; Griff was editor of Scholastic our senior year at ND, and he and Kara have been dating since we graduated. They moved from northern Indiana outside of South Bend to Charleston just in time to put me up for a few nights. Of course, this will probably complicate hosting their annual summertime tailgate, when a group of our classmates, mostly Midwest-based, descend upon their house for a weekend of burgers, beer, and a tape of one of ND's great victories from the previous season. On the other hand, maybe this is a good year to skip that tradition...

As ill-fortune and the Verizon network/Motorola conspiracy would have it (that's for another blog entry), I was not able to do an interview in Charleston as planned. But the upside was that I had plenty of time to sleep in and then explore downtown Charleston with Griff. Charleston was absolutely charming—it's right on the ocean, it's brimming with history, the houses are all painted bright colors, and I hear that in springtime, the world seems to be dripping with wisteria vines and azaleas. Not that I read the guidebook or anything. Even in the cold drizzle, Griff and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon taking photos and rambling around town, and at one point, I turned to him and said, "Wow, Griff, this place is super-adorable!" And though he laughed, he agreed that it's true. In the evening, Kara met us for sushi and the three of us sampled some local brews before heading home, where Griff and I stayed up until 2 in the morning talking about my trip, his recent 6-week backpacking trip through Ireland, and the joys of getting 8 hours of sleep.

The next morning, after a blissful 8 hours, I drove four hours to my uncle's house in Raleigh, stopping, of course, for a quick nap along the way.

Break, family, and the recurrence of Jimmy Johnson

2008-01-15T10:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I'm a little behind these days (again!) I'll try to catch up a bit...

You know that feeling when you've taken a break so long that you forget what day of the week it is? Yes. It was a long break down in Jensen Beach...two weeks of watching movies, watching football, playing games, making pasta, eating out, shopping, and visiting with old family friends. It also worked out that while I was in town, my dad and his siblings all came down to celebrate my uncle's 60th birthday. It made for a full house, but it was great to see everyone. I think my favorite part of the break was spending one-on-one time with None, my dear 89-year-old grandmother.

I think I mentioned None briefly in the last post, but I should take a little time here and explain why she is the best grandmother ever. First of all, she is the sweetest, most kind woman in the world. For real, sometimes she's so sweet that I wonder if we're even related. The children's choir at Christmas Mass literally brought her to tears. But don't let the sweet exterior fool you: She's tough as nails, and she always gets what she wants. Fortunately, she wants good things! She rarely has an unkind word for anyone, so when she does, it's simultaneously scathing and hilarious. She generally saves her vitriol for politicians—Bush is referred to as that "arrogant jerk who keeps sending our boys to die", and when the political commercials air during Wheel of Fortune, it's, "Oh, him again?" But one morning over breakfast, much to my surprise, she really let Jimmy Johnson have it. We were talking about the Dolphins' disastrous season, and None was saying that my Uncle Joe had once introduced her to Dan Marino, who was "such a nice young man," but that she had never liked...what was his name? Johnny Johnson? Jimmy Johnson. Her exact words were: "I feel terrible saying this, but just the look of him, as soon as I saw him I thought to myself, 'That guy looks like a jerk!'" I swear, this was without any prompting from me! None also uses all kinds of old-fashioned expressions that crack me up. My personal favorites are, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" and "Holy cats!" She also refers to her group of friends as "the girls," which I think is really cute. And this is totally selfish, but now that I'm not in Florida I miss the constant affirmation. Everything I do at None's house is "beautiful" and "precious," and everything I wear, including sweatpants and old T-shirts, is "darling." Plus, she always tells me that she's praying for me and thinking of me and everyone in our family, and it's true. And then she wonders why I'm happy to take her grocery shopping or make tea for her. I mean, come on.

But after two weeks of hanging out with the fam, it was time to get back to work. And it felt good to be busy again for awhile, although I'll confess (and you might be able to tell by how long it's taken me to update my blog) that it's been hard to get back to normal and be on top of things. Fortunately, the people I interview are still interesting, so my work hasn't suffered too much. I talked to some great older and younger guys about their memories of bedchecks, the War, cancer, imminent death, and the advent of color TV. Among other things.

"The unexamined life...": A Philosophical Blog Reflection

2008-01-06T20:11:00.000-05:00

I'd like to begin by dedicating this post to my father, who taught me that a single nitpicking remark can break through a seemingly immovable writer's block.

In this blog posting, I will improve my blog, and in so doing attempt to improve myself, by writing in the style of an academic philosopher. I will accomplish this in three ways: Firstly, I will be sure that the title of the post includes both a quote and a colon. Secondly, I will structure the posting in such a way that I will tell the reader what I am going to do, do it, and then explain what I just did. And finally, I will use a more academic vocabulary, using words such as "therefore" and "thus" more frequently. This also will entail abstaining from the use of slang, contractions, unnecessary adverbs, and unorthodox punctuation, colloquial though it may be.

In this post, I will describe for you several observations I made on my 12-hour drive from New Orleans to my grandmother's* house in Jensen Beach, Fla. These observations are a sign of inadequacies in modes of thinking and communicating through advertising and art.

Though the drive was enjoyable, I found myself getting a little bored after nine hours. To alleviate my boredom, therefore, I started using the seek function on my radio in hopes of discovering something interesting. Thus I was able to hear many ridiculous Christmas commercials to which I might otherwise have remained oblivious. Among the most ridiculous was one that began, "Surprise your pet this holiday season with a gift from PetSmart!" Now, this statement raises a number of questions for the intelligent listener: How can one surprise one's pet in any way other than jumping out from behind something? And even in such instances, do pets experience what we call "surprise" in the same way humans do? Is there perhaps a hierarchy of intelligence and emotional range among species that function as pets in human households, such that a gift might surprise larger mammals (e.g., cats and dogs) and birds, but would mean nothing to smaller mammals (e.g., mice and guinea pigs), amphibians, reptiles, fish, etc. Or maybe rather than separating them by species, one should instead look at the pets on an individual basis, as it is easily observed that some cats are more intelligent than others, and the same with dogs, and so forth. Furthermore, outside of changes in temperature and precipitation, are pets even aware of seasons, holiday or otherwise? Admittedly, my knowledge of biology and animal psychology is insufficient to answer these questions, but that is not the task of this post. I am simply noting that this ad unwittingly raises many questions, thus distracting from its true end, i.e., convincing the listener to buy pet supplies.

Another ad suffering from a similar problem was one for some sort of medication (I cannot remember which), that concluded by telling its listeners that if they still had questions about whether this medicine is right for them, they should "ask someone logical, like [their] healthcare professional." As I said, I cannot even remember the pharmaceutical being advertised, perhaps because I was so distracted by this last line. The advertiser seems to be saying that anyone logical will be able to provide me with information about this product and its implications for my health. I find this irksome because they are implying that (1) I, the listener, am not logical, and (2) a logician can prescribe medication just as well as a physician (in which case again I must not be logical, because it would likely be much cheaper to consult a logician.) In addition, I am not entirely convinced that a healthcare professional needs to be logical in order to be effective. Again, I am not trying to answer these questions. I am just pointing out that this ad was ineffective and even insulting to the intelligent listener. This is an especially unfortunate communication error, given the potential importance of the product.

Finally, I observed with some horror a billboard announcing the upcoming sequel to a film that was itself a sequel to two film series: Alien vs. Predator — Requiem (AVPR). I find the concept of this film problematic. As a general rule of thumb, sequels should be produced either to answer remaining questions from the original film or to develop new facets of characters or ideas that have peaked an audience's interest. For AVPR, however, it is necessarily impossible for either to be the case. The very title of the original movie indicates that it was a battle to the death between the alien from the Alien series and the predator from the Predator films. Presumably, one of them won, in which case there is no need to revisit the original, or else it was a draw, but then what audience would be interested in watching them fight again? I suppose there is a third alternative, which would be that the humans involved somehow won. This seems unlikely, given the sort of audience the producers are trying to attract, but even if that were the outcome, it seems that the obliteration of both lead characters precludes a sequel. I suppose this entire discussion is moot, because the film has already been produced and, as of my writing this, released to poor reviews, but the question remains: Why?

Thus, my twelve-hour drive to Florida occasioned a variety of observations that yielded a number of unanswered questions regarding geography, biology, medical science, language, and art. While I cannot answer those questions, I believe that their existence is significant, in that it points to the inadequacy of existing methods of thinking and communicating.

In this blog posting, I have attempted to improve my blog, and by extension, myself, by writing in the style of an academic philosopher. I structured the posting in such a way that I explained to the reader what I was going to do, did it, and then explained what I just did. I use a more academic vocabulary, using words such as "therefore," "thus," and "hence" with more frequency than in previous posts. In addition, I abstained from the use of slang, contractions, unnecessary adverbs, and unorthodox punctuation.

In conclusion, I would like to apologize to anyone reading this who has taken offense at my blog's stylistic inadequacies. I know there's little I can do to mitigate the suffering I have caused, but perhaps I can prevent further distress by suggesting that you find other reading materials to provide amusement and information. I've heard the Summa Theologiae is a fantastic read...but I have a feeling you're already reading it.**

*Henceforth on this blog, I will refer to my grandmother as None, (pronounced no-nah) in accordance with our family appellation.
**I love you, Dad!

Mansion camping in New Orleans

2008-01-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

On my last day in Texas, I had an interview down in Galveston, and from there I left for New Orleans. It was one of the most fun drives of this whole trip. One of the guys I interviewed earlier in the week had told me about this back way I could take through rural Louisiana. AND I got to take a car ferry on the Gulf of Mexico from Galveston to another little town. It was really cool, and quite entertaining to hear Sibyl tell me to "board the ferry." Then she got upset when it went a little off course, and I have to say it was nice to hear her recalculate without feeling responsible. AND I actually found a post office out off of this two-lane county road in bayou country, which is a big deal, because I am always looking for post offices on this trip, and there it was, in this little two-street town. AND the postal lady called me "sugar baby," and I managed not to laugh out loud until I was back in the car. All in all, a good day.

While in New Orleans, I stayed with my friend Jessica, who used to live around the corner from me in Portland. She and her friend Grant were in town for the month housesitting for her grandmother for the month and watching Raffles, the incredibly mellow Great Dane. The two of them were also working on putting together a brief film documentary about the current housing/homelessness situation in New Orleans. I was really happy to see Jessica, and I'd never met Grant before, but upon learning my name he immediately offered me a drink, so I knew we'd get along just fine. And we did for the most part, though all week we had an intense competition going to see who could be the best house guest. Anyway, the three of us Yankees decided to pretend we were native Southerners by drinking bourbon out on the porch of our Garden District mansion, and Grant announced his new name for our lifestyle: mansion camping. Works for me. We were joined a little later by one of Jessica's friends from college and my friend Dallas, a carpenter who moved to New Orleans from Portland about a year ago.

We spent the next few days listening to great live music, touring the city, joining impromptu street parades, and playing "Katrina paparazzi," photographing storm damage in various neighborhoods. I've seen a lot about the storm damage on the news and heard it on the radio, but it was really incredible to see it there in person. To give you an idea: In the middle of a halfway-rebuilt neighborhood, we saw one house that was basically a shell. The outer walls were up, but there was no roof, and the front door was hanging off the hinges, so you could see that on the inside it was stripped down to the studs. But there was still a mailbox next to the front door, and the mailman had delivered that week's JC Penney ad. (Neither snow, nor rain, nor the fact that a house is uninhabited...)

That kind of sums up my impression New Orleans. Overall, I loved the city, the music, the old houses with their amazing gardens, the atmosphere...I had a fantastic time there, but there's this sense that...well, that there is no sense. There's this wildness to it that is at once appealing and appalling. I don't really know how to put that into words, but there's my attempt.

My interviews in New Orleans were amazing. Obviously, people had pretty incredible stories about Katrina, but more than that, I was blown away by their attitude about it, which was basically, well, nothing worse than that's going to happen. My last interview was with a guy named Mike Read at his office in downtown New Orleans. His daughter Lauren was in my class at ND, though we didn't know each other, but two years she had complications after surgery, and she is now a quadriplegic. At first, they thought she'd be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life, and they even pulled the plug a couple of times, but she survived. She's come a long way, and she still can't talk, but she can understand what is going on around her. She was in the hospital when Katrina hit, and through a series of miracles, she survived and was evacuated, after the hospital lost power, water, etc. And he tells me this harrowing story of her evacuation and everything they went through, and then he tells me that they're so glad it happened. While I was picking my jaw up off the floor, he explained that the doctors and nurses in Baton Rouge told them about new treatments for Lauren, and they actually hired one of the nurses to come care for her at their home four days a week. I'm leaving out most of the details, but it was an incredible interview. I packed up my gear, and then we stood at the window in his office watching a protest in front of City Hall turn into a riot.

That's all I'm going to write about New Orleans. I'm currently suffering from a Christmas cookie-induced writer's block, and I just can't see putting all of the bizarre, amazing things that happened there into coherent sentences.

ND Women and Football

2007-12-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

A number of the men I've interviewed have told me that one of their main concerns when ND went co-ed in 1972 was that the student body's football knowledge would suffer, thus making games less intense and less interesting. (Seriously, this was usually their only concern.) As it turns out, they needn't have worried. I'd pit just about any of my female ND friends or interview subjects against any of the guys on both knowledge of the game and fanaticism, and from what I hear, the games now are better than ever.

Some of the best stories on this trip have been from women talking about football games, and two of my favorites were in Houston. One was an attorney who went back to ND a few years after graduating for a football game. And she brought her non-ND boyfriend of about 6 months with her. At one point during the game, everyone's on their feet screaming, and the boyfriend is seated, studiously taking it in, and she leans over and whispers in his ear, "Your behavior at this football game will greatly influence the future of this relationship." And he was on his feet. Oh, and they're married now.

And then I asked Connie Klenke about the greatest ND game she ever been to, and she's like, oh, that's easy. After the 1990 Miami game, her husband proposed to her. Or as she put it, "That's when my husband proposed marriage to me...but the Irish also won the game, so it was a good day." That pretty much sums it up.

No Apollo 13 references, I promise...

2007-12-26T15:06:00.000-05:00

...but I will say Ed Harris, not Tom Hanks, made that movie.

Anyway, the drive from Dallas to Houston is pretty boring in general (or so I am told by people who do it regularly), and the day I made the trip, there was this weird weather pattern that started as a cool rain in Dallas and ended up in Houston as kind of a sticky, tepid fog that made it hard to tell whether you were warm or cold. With that on top of my recent illness, I felt sort of drained and in a daze when I got to the Klenkes' house, where I would be staying for the next four nights. Not how you want to feel when you're about to walk into the home of someone you've never met...and did I mention they have six kids. But they were being so gracious to host me, so I sucked it up and went in and met Connie (the mom), then the kids, and the dog, and I sat down and had a drink of water with them while the older kids were doing their homework. And then I sort of quietly crept into my room and started trying to catch up on some work. But I left the door slightly ajar, and after a few minutes I realized I had an audience, of the shy, adorable 5-year-old girl variety.

Ten minutes later, I was assembling my gear to show the four children sitting on my bed what I do. These kids were easy to photograph because they were absolutely adorable, and the "interview" was quite surprising, as 3-year-old Maeve, when asked about her family, immediately announced that Mommy is pregnant again. Kindergartner Bridget and 8-year-old Creigh confirmed. The four girls want a girl, and the two boys want a boy, but they can all agree on one thing: they don't want to share their rooms. Anyway, Connie and Allan are both ND grads (Connie did undergrad there, and they met in the MBA program a few years later), and their entire family was an absolute delight to spend time with. Connie is yet another on-top-of-it mom (I've stayed with a number of those on this trip!), and the kids were so sweet, they brought me pictures they had colored in school.

I could go on about the Klenkes forever, but I will stop now so I can go on for awhile about another awesome family in Houston, my family's dear friends, the Halls. From the time I was about 4 until I turned 13, our family celebrated virtually every major holiday, and pretty much every other day, with the Halls. They had four boys, and when we all got together we were absolute terrors. (Well, we children were. We didn't pay too much attention to the grown-ups!) Then Terry got a job teaching at the University of St. Thomas in Houston (he and Valerie both teach there now), and aside from a quick visit with Zack (the oldest) last fall, I haven't seen them since they moved away. So it was really nice to catch up with Terry and Valerie, and Nick and his wife (!) and two well-behaved (!!) children, and Brendan, who is no longer 5 and no longer blond. It was fun to hear about what they're doing now and reminisce about the weird games we used to invent to occupy ourselves. And of course, our Halloween dominance in the Halls' neighborhood, despite the fact that every year someone wore a motion-limiting costume. It was a really wonderful evening.

I guess I haven't really said much about work here...my interviews in Houston were, for the most part, fantastic. The one that stands out the most looking back is my interview with a guy named Jason Brown, an '02 MBA grad. Jason is a singer/songwriter who got his MBA so he could market his music and start his own record company. He's a really good storyteller, and he had all kinds of stories about getting started with his music, and touring, and all of the sacrifices the music business entailed, but the thing that I remember most clearly from the interview was his story about going to the dining hall with his friends on Sunday morning. They'd trek from Fisher Grad over to South, they'd eat and hang out, and then they'd get up and go home. When I write it, it's totally boring; when he tells it, it's the most compelling story you've ever heard. Sorry, that probably doesn't make for an interesting read, but it will be a great listen if I ever get to the editing phase of this project!

Cheese and macaroni

2007-12-23T22:09:00.000-05:00

I've been more behind on my updates than usual, but I'm hoping to do a little make-up blogging over the holidays...First, I want to clarify a couple of things about the last post, since I've gotten quite a few emails and comments (who knew Pee Wee Herman would generate such a response?!): The two lines quoted are in fact the only part of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" I know. And, for those of you who inquired, that is not my favorite part of that movie. My favorite part would be a toss-up between the part with the Mr. T cereal, the part where Pee Wee dances to "Tequila" and then rides a motorcycle into a billboard, the part where he rescues the snakes from the pet store and then passes out, or the part where the butler tells him Francis is taking a bath and Pee Wee says, "Oh, really? Where are they hosing him down?"...Actually, I think I love pretty much the whole movie, except the part with the scary trucker that freaks me out completely.

But I digress. One of the greatest coincidences of this trip happened during my second-to-last interview in Dallas, with John Conway. A little history: When I was a student at Notre Dame, I was on the staff of Scholastic magazine, the oldest continuous college publication in the US (or something like that), and every year around April 1, we published an edition known as Sarcastic lampooning various campus news, events, figureheads, etc. Those of us on staff who were historically minded liked to get inspiration from past editions of the magazine, one of our favorites being the 1986 Sarcastic. That beacon of cleverness and entertainment features a hilarious interview with the newly elected leaders of student government, who had run on the platform of starting a campus revolution by changing the dining hall nomenclature from "macaroni and cheese" to "cheese and macaroni." And they beat a guy who had been preparing to be student body president since Freshmen O. Ouch. Anyway, a few of us enjoy this issue so much that before we graduated, we went and made copies of it so we could look at it years later. And for the past five years, I have kept my copy, and I even brought it on this trip, because it always cheers me up when I'm having a bad day. I have come to believe that there is no problem so great that it cannot be overcome by McDonald's French fries and the 1986 Sarcastic. Anyway, John and I sat down and started to talk, and he starts telling me about his roommates in Cavanaugh Hall, and how he managed their campaign for student government using only signs written in crayon. At which point I actually stopped the interview and said, "Oh my God, you were roommates with Mike and Don?!" Which was a little weird, and completely unprofessional, but once I explained to him that I had a magazine that is pretty much dedicated to his old roommates in the trunk of my car, he totally understood. And it was a funny sort of interview, because I actually was able to remind him specifically about things in his own past that he had forgotten.

Unfortunately, immediately after that interview, the cold that had been threatening to happen all week hit hard. I was spending the weekend at the home of Greg and Susan, who were out of town all weekend, and the only one home was their youngest son Zack, who is staying at home while finishing up college. I had gone to meet them and pick up the key the day before, which was a little weird even for this trip. So after my interview with John, I drove to their house, lugged in my gear, put on my pjs and took a nice 3-hour nap. Then I woke up, picked at my dinner, and slept for another 12 hours. That's when I know I'm not feeling good. But the good news was that I had my own space to rest and recover, and Zack was a very gracious host, checking on me and making me special tea for my throat. Since I couldn't have my mom, it was nice to have a brother stand-in for the weekend. On Monday morning, I was feeling better, so I packed up and headed down to Houston as planned.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

2007-12-17T13:12:00.000-05:00

Sorry it's been awhile...Ok, so when we last left off, Austin's Christmas spirit was underwhelming, but I had a great time. So I was kind of sorry to leave for Dallas, but after a few solid days off, I was antsy to do some more interviews. As I write this, I've done nearly 95 interviews, and I'm still nervous about my first interview after a "long" (more than one day) absence. Ridiculous, I know, but there it is.

I had only one interview on the day I got to Dallas, and that was with Frank Finn, class of '49, with whom I had one of the most hilarious phone exchanges ever:

Me: Hi, may I speak with Frank please?
Frank Finn: No, but you are speaking to Mr. Finn.
Me: Oh...um, hi, this is Katie, I was calling because you had contacted me about being interviewed for the Notre Dame Oral History Project...
FF: Oh, sorry about that, I thought you were some young lawyer. How the heck are you, Katie?

Needless to say, I couldn't wait to meet this guy, and he did not disappoint. He invited me to come with him to the ND Dallas Club's Annual Presidents Luncheon, which is where the current president ushers in the new president in the presence of all the past presidents of the club, and they vote on who will receive the club's big award (I abstained) and give an update on the club's scholarships, service work, and other activities, complete with spreadsheets, projections for next year's market, etc. Basically, it was me and about 30 older gentlemen, plus a couple of younger women, having a very tasty lunch at the top of one of Dallas's tallest skyscrapers and talking Notre Dame.

Sometimes people ask me if I miss spending time with people my own age on this trip. And yes, sometimes I do miss my peers. But I also feel very comfortable kicking it with the older crowd, because as anyone who knows me knows, I practically am a little old man: I get up early, I like to take naps, and I read the obits and do crosswords for fun. And on this particular afternoon, I further cemented my oldmanness after the lunch, when Frank and I wandered around for a good 45 minutes looking for our car. We'd been having a lively conversation (about football—what else?) on the way into the building, and neither of us could remember where we'd parked his car. Turns out there are two parking garages attached to this particular building, and we were in the wrong one. My only concern was for Frank, since he's still recovering from his hip-replacement surgery, but he assured me that his doctor had told him to walk for an hour a day, so this was his PT. Fortunately, Frank and I really hit it off, so it was actually fun to be able to hang out a little longer. I could go on and on about Frank, but I will make you wait to hear his interview.

After our interview, I drove out to my new home for the next 3 days: Twin Oaks Ranch, a real, working Texas cattle ranch north of the city. Tom Wageman, who was my original connection to the class of '56, had invited me to come stay up there. Tom and his wife Letty own the ranch, his son Pete runs it, and their daughter Meghan is a professional chef who worked in some of the best restaurants in SF and Chicago before she started her family. Now she and her husband live with their kids on the ranch, and she is the cook. And she's really good. So I got to stay in my own little cottage for 3 days, with a professional chef and Tom and Letty's good company. Not a bad deal.

The ranch was about an hour from Dallas, and about 10 miles from the nearest town, which was tiny. After being in the city a lot lately, it was refreshing to be a bit isolated. There was virtually no light pollution, so the nights were really dark and you could see so many stars. It reminded me of that moment in Pee Wee's Big Adventure (as you will remember, that's the one where Pee Wee goes to San Antonio to find his bike, which he thinks is in the basement of the Alamo), and he calls one of his friends, and she doesn't believe him that he's in Texas, so he holds up the phone and sings, "The stars at night/Are big and bright," and everyone walking by stops what they're doing and claps together and sings "Deep in the heart of Texas." I'm not doing the scene justice, so I'm sorry if you haven't seen the movie...well, I'm sorry if you haven't seen the movie anyway, because it's awesome, but my point is, that's what I thought of as I gazed up at the stars in the middle of this ranch. Yes, I realize how ridiculous that is, and I promise I laughed out loud at myself. Update: watch the scene on YouTube. Thanks, Kristen!

The only downside of life out at the ranch was the long commute into the city. I was very busy in Dallas with 3 interviews pretty much every day, so I was pretty exhausted by the time I had to leave. I was sad not to have more time at there, but at least it was cool while it lasted.

Awwwstin

2007-12-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

After a harrowing drive through western Texas, where they apparently don't expect many visitors, given that there are literally 5 gas stations between the New Mexico border and Fredericksburg, I finally made it to Austin, home of my brother Michael. When I called Mike on my way into town, he suggested I go straight over to his girlfriend Jacqueline's place, because guess what she just got a new puppy named Lucy. As if I need another reason to speed.

Mike mentioned Lucy was really cute, but he neglected to tell me that she is actually the most adorable puppy ever to walk this earth. And that's not an exaggeration, I promise. She's a West Highland terrier, white with pointed ears and a wise face, "all whiskers and eyebrows," to use PG Wodehouse's apt description of a terrier. Jacqueline and I took her all over town, and we couldn't go anywhere without causing a scene. Lucy is a very bold little dog, and she is not afraid of people or other dogs, even Atlas, the neighbor's Bouvier who outweighs her by about 200 lbs. The three of us debated whether she needed a tougher name—"Killer" was tossed around more than once—but as it turns out, that name came along by itself. Being a puppy, she's still got a bit of training to do, and once after witnessing an accident, I half-groaned, half-yelled, "Oh, Lucifer!" So now her name is Lucy, short for Lucifer.

I guess I should stop talking about Lucy and say something about spending time with my brother...Michael and I got along quite well, and I don't mean to brag, but it turns out we're kind of the dynamic duo when it comes to taking care of a house. I like to clean, and Mike likes to cook, so I cleaned his apartment top to bottom and bought him a vacuum (I won't say how long he'd been there without vacuuming...) while he made gourmet meals for me and Jacqueline. (Of course, separately, we're kind of pathetic and helpless. Sorry, Mom.) It was actually very relaxing and satisfying to clean, since I haven't had to do that at all in the last couple months, and cleaning Mike's apartment was my favorite kind of cleaning—the kind where you can see the results :)

I was busy with interviews during the week, which went very well, and then my friend Carolyn flew into town to hang out for the weekend. Between Carolyn, Jacqueline, and my interviewees, I got to see a lot of Austin and go to some great restaurants while Mike had to work.

Austin of course is known for its music scene and quaint downtown, and both of those delivered, but what they don't tell you about is the traffic. Apparently, Austin has just about doubled in population in the last 10 years, and its roads are a little behind. In addition, the collective commitment of the people of Austin to going under the speed limit is unlike anything I'd ever seen. Carolyn can be my witness: Even when there were only a few cars on the road, everyone was going 55 in a 60 mph zone. If harnessed for the good, such dedication and teamwork could end poverty worldwide. Unfortunately, in this case, it meant that a 15-minute drive on a Saturday afternoon to find a hiking trail turned into a frustrating mini-road trip, one for which neither of us was really prepared. I guess a lot of people were out having a nice little Saturday at the Home Depot. Somehow we ended up finding the beginning of a trail behind a Toys 'R' Us (anyone know how to make a backwards R?), which turned out to be quite muddy and enjoyable. And then we got back in the car and drove another hour back to Mike's.

On Saturday night, we went downtown to a little jazz club my brother loves (with good reason—great music, ideal atmosphere), and we were surprised at how many families were out on a Saturday night. Turns out it was opening night of the Nutcracker and the lighting of the tree at the State House. The next day, Carolyn and I decided to explore downtown a little more, and we took our own little tour of the State House, where we were surprised to find what I would have to say is the most pathetic Christmas tree I've ever seen at a public building. This was a tree of Charlie Brown proportions, without any of the cuteness or charm. Surely, we thought, this could not be the tree everyone came out to see, but it was. How sad for the children of Texas. The upside is that the State House itself is beautiful, and anyone who goes to Austin should check it out, if only to see the paintings of the grandchildren of the Texas Congressmen, who serve as the government's "mascots."

On the road again

2007-12-07T06:53:00.000-05:00

After a restful Thanksgiving and "Black Friday" (someone needs to explain that one to me) at the Grand Canyon, I got back in the car and drove to Austin. It's a two-day drive, and I mapped it out beforehand--something I almost never do now because of Sibyl--so that I'd go through Albuquerque and Roswell and end up in Carlsbad, NM. Turns out Sibyl has a very jealous personality. When I went my way instead of hers, she completely flipped out. We got into a huge fight....I told her to recalculate, she insisted with all the urgency her monotone can muster that when possible, I should to make a U-turn. It escalated from there, and I think we both said a few things we didn't mean. Things are ok now. I don't know if they'll ever be the same, but I like to think that fight brought us closer together.

Anyway, on Saturday, I drove through New Mexico listening to the Notre Dame-Stanford game on AM radio when possible, and trying to find the Notre Dame-Stanford game on the radio when I couldn't hear it. The result was a rather eerie drive, with these weird AM reception noises coming out of my radio as I drove through a totally flat, empty landscape. The reception seemed completely arbitrary, and often I'd hear the first half of a sentence, and then the second half was just static. Hence when I got to the hotel that night, I thought the amazing lateral passing play had resulted in a touchdown, blissfully unaware of the ensuing controversial penalty. Bummer. But we won, and let's face it, ND needed that win over Stanford this season.

In any case, the landscape was beautiful, ranging from the rockfaces of the Painted Desert area to a completely flat farm/desert terrain covered in a green brush. Well, I don't actually know if it was desert or what was really going on under that brush because from Albuquerque on, everything was covered in about 3 inches of snow, which is normal in the city and surrounding area due to the altitude, but definitely atypical in southern New Mexico. I stayed over at a hotel in Carlsbad, and the next morning, my car was covered in another 2 inches of what would be known in the Midwest as really good packing snow. Fortunately, I've got the world's greatest snow brush and the mini-shovel I "borrowed" from my Uncle Russ last year, so cleaning off the car was no sweat. I noticed a few cowboys brushing off their pick-up trucks with their bare hands giving me the jealous eye, but no self-respecting cowboy asks a little lady for help getting the snow off his truck in a Holiday Inn Express parking lot. So I just got in my car and headed off into the sunrise.

A to the Z

2007-11-23T21:24:00.000-05:00

As I said in my last post, I spent Thanksgiving and today at the Grand Canyon, which has been a very relaxing break. Well, once I figured out where to go to avoid some of the crowds. I've had the pleasure of going to a handful of National Parks on this trip, and I have to say that the people here are the most aggressive viewers of nature I've ever encountered. Which is scary, because there's not a giant guardrail all the way around the rim of the Canyon. It seems like a lot of people come just to get a picture, and God help anyone standing in their way. So it was hard to find a spot to sit and look at it and just take it in. But the Canyon itself is so spectacular, and I even caught the sunrise this morning, which was...wow. I took some photos, but I feel like it's one of those "you had to be there" things, so that's all I'll say about that. Tomorrow I'm hitting the road for the two-day drive to Austin, where I'm going to be staying with my brother Mike.

My 10 days in Arizona have been the most challenging and the most rewarding of this entire trip. I've had a great time, but it hasn't been all sunshine and retirement. It's been a week of hilarious pranks, deaths in the family, serving the poor, recurring cancer, timeless romance, eating disorders, and of course, football highs and lows...In the past week, I've interviewed twelve people, four of whom broke down crying while telling me about things they've suffered in their lives. I even cried during one interview. Bob Horn ('60, '63) basically relived the day his son drowned 30 years ago, then described how that's affected his entire life. The story was so horrific, and so unexpected, I just sat there holding the mic with my mouth open and tears rolling down my cheeks. Bob pretty much kept it together, and the interview kept going just fine. I know that's not very professional, and I don't intend to make a habit of it, but when someone is telling a story like that, I'm not really sure that being professional should be my most important concern. Most of the people I'm interviewing, especially lately, are people I've gotten to know and genuinely like. I've gone to lunch with them, stayed at their houses, hung out with their families, etc. Because of the eat, sleep and breathe nature of this project, sometimes it's hard for me to be detached from my subjects. And I know that might sound cold, and I'm not trying to say I would rather not be friends with them—I've gotten so much out of knowing the people I've met on this trip, and they've gotten to know me, too. But it can be confusing to interview friends, and often I feel like I'm walking a fine line with that.

So it feels good to get away for awhile and have some time to myself to decompress, and think, and be outside, and watch some of the CSI: Miami marathon on A&E. I just learned that bath salts conduct electricity more efficiently than if you just take a regular bath and then drop the toaster in. It's a good show, but someone needs to tell David Caruso to quit taking his sunglasses off in what he apparently thinks is a bad-ass manner. Trust me, dude, it's not.

Phoenix: Community Service, Love Stories, and The Pig-Faced Satan

2007-11-23T19:09:00.001-05:00

I'm posting today from Williams, AZ, outside the Grand Canyon, where I've been taking a little break. I drove up here yesterday from Phoenix, where I'd stayed in three different places: a home for unwed mothers founded by an ND alumna a few years ago and currently staffed by ND grads, an '04 almuna's apartment, and the home of Tyra and Corey Babington. Both of them are Domers, and Tyra is the president of the Phoenix club. It was a bit of an abrupt transition from my brush with retirement in Tucson—I went out with people my age, stayed up late, and didn't eat at a single country club—but I was very well taken care of in each place.

Maggie's Place is a home for unwed mothers who would otherwise be on the streets because of their financial situations. The mothers typically move in while they're pregnant and then leave 6 months after they give birth. I got to meet some moms and babies, and I interviewed a couple of recent grads about their work. The staff live at the house and work to make MP as much of a home as possible, and they're kind of moms to the moms, which can be a bit awkward, since they're usually younger. I interviewed Sarah Smith and Madeline Heck, and I was so impressed with them. They're both a few years younger than I am, but they have clearly learned a lot in their time at MP. Their job is to live on site 24/7 and create a community of loving support for the moms, many of whom have past substance abuse problems, issues with their babies' fathers, etc. Madeline summed it up best: "Love is going to the hospital in the middle of the night with a mom who thinks she's going into labor, even though you know she isn't." Wow.

I went out with the staff and stayed over at MP on Saturday night, then on Sunday I went to stay with Leslie Pechkurow, an '04 grad who insisted that I sleep in her bed and eat what was in the fridge. Leslie is one of those cool people who is plugged into every socket in the wall: among other things, she's in grad school for counseling at ASU, she works a job and an internship, and she volunteers for her church's youth group. Her interview was also really impressive—I may already have said this, but it's so inspiring to me to talk to young alumni who are doing so much good and really seem to have it together.

On Tuesday I spent the afternoon with Bob and Kay Sanford, who dated back before Bob graduated in 1940, then lost touch, then found each other again after 29 years. They've now been married for almost 40 years. Classic—and they tell the story much better than what I just wrote! Bob's two ND claims to fame, aside from one of the greatest romance stories ever, are that he has been class secretary for the class of 1940 since he graduated, giving him the most class write-ups of any other class secretary (most of the older guys inherited the job from someone else), and he still holds the Featherweight Championship in the Bengal Bouts--they stopped boxing featherweight after his sophomore year :)

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday night at the Babingtons, and I had a great time. After a brief tour of the house, Corey and I sat down and talked ND football for two hours. Not about this season, of course, but Corey's freshman year was 1989, and he actually was friends with Rocket Ismail and Tony Rice. The Rocket even told him the locker room story of the 1988 Miami game, which I had never heard before, though maybe some readers of this blog have. For those of you unfamiliar with ND football history, in 1988, when I was 8 years old, the Irish won the National Championship, with Rice at qb and Rocket as our punt returner/running back/wide receiver/what can he not do. The guy was INCREDIBLE--even now when I watch the tape on YouTube (yes, I watch the tape on YouTube), I can't get over how fast he was. I used to daydream that girls would be allowed to play when I got to college, and Lou Holtz would recruit me to play with the Rocket. The idea that he would graduate, or that I would completely lack hand-eye coordination when I got older, never occurred to me. Anyway, in 1988, Miami came to ND for what became known as Catholics vs. Convicts. The Hurricanes were coached by Jimmy Johnson, known around campus as The Pig-Faced Satan (hey, I'm just telling it like it was.) Anyway, Miami was #1, and they were known for intimidating their opponents before the game. In that spirit, they came out of the tunnel and ran through our players' pregame workout. The Irish weren't having it, and the brawl that ensued was ugly. According to the Rocket, when they got back to the locker room, the players were a little worried about what Lou would say, because he did not like any shenanigans on or off the field. But Lou just looked around, told them he didn't think they needed much of a pregame talk, but just go out there, play hard, and take them down, but "save Jimmy Johnson's butt for me." The players were so amped up that they actually broke the locker room door down and went out and won 31-30 in what many consider to be the greatest game ever played at Notre Dame Stadium. ND has had many great football teams, but that's the team I grew up with, and as you can probably tell by reading this, I could talk about them all day. So Corey and I hit it off right away, and when Tyra came home the three of us just hung out and ate pizza and drank beer and had a great time. I got to interview them the next night after eating the best lasagna I've ever had in my life (the secret ingredient: cream cheese instead of ricotta--so good!), and it was another fantastic how we met story, plus it turns out Tyra didn't learn about football until after they got married (after she graduated), and now she even has her own fantasy team. How cool is that?

The next morning, they were off to San Francisco for the Stanford game, and I headed up to the Grand Canyon. More soon.

When I grow up, I want to be retired.

2007-11-21T00:35:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday, I drove from L.A. to Tucson, stopping in Palm Desert along the way to interview John Manion. John is the secretary for the class of '56, which has kind of adopted me and my project, which has been AWESOME. I have spoken with a '56er in nearly every city I've gone to, and members of the class are always calling and sending me encouraging emails. Say it with me: Awwww...Anyway, the '56ers are in very close touch, due in large part to John's weekly emails and monthly newsletter, and it was fun to see his HQ/command center, which includes a 6-ft. signed portrait of Knute Rockne. For real.

Four hours later, I was back on the road, and by that time, it was getting late. I watched the sun set over the mountains in California, then headed on in the dark to Tucson, where I was to stay with Vin and Peg Boyen. Vin and Peg are native New Yorkers who retired to AZ a few years ago, and their house is basically their dream Western-style home. The next morning, I woke up and went out on the back patio, and there in front of me was this amazing desert paradise. First of all, it was 70 degrees and sunny, and then there were all these cacti and a perfect view of the Catalina Mountains. It was so different from anything I've ever seen, and so beautiful that it actually seemed fake, if that makes any sense. I guess I mean it felt that weird to be there, especially since I'd made the topographical transition in the dark. This is my first time ever in Arizona, and I really wasn't expecting to like it so much. It immediately called to mind this great moment in Lawrence of Arabia, where this journalist asks Lawrence what he likes about the desert, and he says, "I like it because it's clean." Which is kind of counter-intuitive, since it's all dusty, but it's really true; it's so hot in the sun, even in November, and the dust actually absorbs or blows over anything that's out there for long that isn't alive. And it turns out that dry heat means my hair looks perfect every day--bonus!

I showed up in Tucson on the right day, because the ND Club was having their monthly luncheon. So I went and met a bunch of people and filled up my schedule for the next few days. And then I spent the rest of the day touring Tucson with Vin. He took me to Saguaro National Park, which is basically a forest of cacti in the mountains. I think my eyes were popping out of my head, and I was giving Katie Holmes a run for her money on the "amazing" front, which he and Peg got a real kick out of. Then we went back to the house and had a glass of wine while watching the sun set over the mountains. The Boyens were so awesome, and they introduced me to a bunch of their friends. So for a few days, I got to be part of the Cool Retired Guys and Their Awesome Wives Club. And I found out that when you retire, you pretty much get to do some of the most enjoyable things in life—reading, going to the movies, eating at nice restaurants, taking naps, Sunday crosswords—all the time. Makes me wish I had a 401k...

Smells like burning

2007-11-16T18:53:00.000-05:00

**I want to preface this entry by letting those of you who have been calling and emailing know: I promise I'm not avoiding you, I've just been on the road a lot this week, and this is the first time I've gotten to check my email this week. I'll try to catch up over Thanksgiving, but please be patient with me!**

Last week I stayed in Redlands, CA, just east of L.A., home of the University of Redlands and of my friend Laura who teaches there. It was great to stay with someone whose first words when I arrived were, "You can just go ahead and explode in the room upstairs tomorrow, but for now why don't you just go to bed?" Phew—none of that having to be personable for a few minutes when I'm really just dying to go to sleep! Laura was an excellent hostess, and while I was in town she even scored us a tour of the local NPR/PBS station in San Bernardino with her friend Dave who works there and is somewhat of a local celebrity. For comparison for those of you in Portland, he's their Irwin Gratz, or maybe more like their Justin Ellis on the radio. Very cool.

My week or so in L.A. was a lot of catch-up work and actually not too many interviews. Given the layout of the city, it's basically impossible to be centrally located, and it's tough to get in more than two interviews in one day because of the distances involved. I talked to two lawyers in downtown L.A. on Wednesday. I wish I had known ahead of time how high security the downtown offices are: Not only are you not allowed to take the elevator without a pass (which I've seen in other cities), but you're not allowed to even walk in the general direction of the elevator without being yelled at by a sniper. Ok, maybe he was unarmed, but he definitely ran at me in a fearless, I've-been-trained-to-kill manner. Apparently L.A. thinks the next 9/11 will be perpetrated by a young woman with a camera blowing up a downtown law firm. In their defense, I was carrying a backpack, and after the traffic hassles I'd endured to get there, I probably looked suicidal. Anyway, both interviews went well, so it was worth all of it. I got to hear more great getting to and from ND stories, and I talked to a guy whose son-in-law is part of the WGA, which just went on strike last week and hopefully will come back soon so I can see new episodes of The Office when I watch TV.

On Thursday I went down to Oceanside, which is down near San Diego, to interview Joe Leaser. Joe and his wife Liz were really fun to talk to, and their house had an amazing view of the ocean and the fire-devastated hills. They were lucky enough to avoid evacuation, particularly since they're both diabetic and two of their dogs are blind, but the surrounding area is full of charred trees and ravaged land. It was stunning, and the smell was actually a bit overwhelming. The fires had been out for almost a week when I got there, but the air quality in most of L.A. and down by Oceanside was still pretty bad, especially for me since I hadn't been acclimated to it as it happened. That evening, I went to Dana Point for dinner with the Kheriaty family. Aaron was a good friend of my brother Dave when he was at ND, and now he's teaching psychiatry at UC Irvine, where he runs an institute that studies issues of psychiatry and spirituality. I won't elaborate too much, but I will say I want to do that, too. Here's the link if you want to find out more: http://today.uci.edu/Features/profile_detail.asp?key=300
Aaron and his wife Jen have three young sons, all of whom proved mroe skillful with my camera than I am. It was a fun shoot.

I had the most amazing weekend after that. First of all, I took two days in a row completely off from work. I went to Santa Monica to watch ND get pounded by Air Force. Yes, Air Force. But it was ok, because I was with my friend Andrew, with whom I have witnessed many sad Notre Dame debacles. Andrew and I were good friends as undergrads, and now he's doing his residency in emergency medicine at the UCLA hospital. He gave me a quick tour of UCLA, which has a beautiful campus, and then the two of us headed down to Laguna Niguel, where I was spending the night with my friend (and former Portland roommate) Rebecca, who just happened to be in town on business, staying at the Ritz Carlton. On the beach. Talk about fortuitous timing! Andrew, Rebecca, Rebecca's friend Tom (a fellow philosophy nerd, yea!), and I went out to dinner, and then headed back to the hotel for some fun and games...now you may be wondering, what do four intelligent, fun, interesting young people do on a Saturday night at the Ritz? Buy a cheap bottle of wine at the grocery store and play football in the public parking lot down the road, of course! Andrew used his well-honed ND skills to open the wine without a corkscrew, and then the two of us regaled the Davidson grads with tales of football Saturdays, and they told us all about their library. A truly entertaining evening, followed by a good night's sleep in the world's largest bed at the Ritz. Where they put the ocean on flatsrceen TV so you can fall asleep to the sound of the waves. Seriously.

So I enjoyed my time in southern California, and I know my friends there won't take it the wrong way when I say that it takes a special kind of crazy to live out there. With all the fires, earthquakes, mudslides, floods, droughts and ants, Los Angeles is a microcosm of the Apocalypse. And that would be the Apocalypse plus traffic that can strike at any moment, turning a perfectly nice trip to the grocery store into a harrowing trek through the desert, and the smog that makes every day feel like you're watching an episode of the Brady Bunch. Oh, and I'm leaving out the flagrant materialism; the contrast between rich and poor in L.A. was truly shocking. Like, brand new Ferraris next to old pickup trucks on the freeway shocking. I think I'm the wrong kind of crazy for that area, but I'm glad 8 million people seem able to make it work.

Anyway, I'm already in Tucson as I write this—more soon!

It's not the driving, it's the parking...

2007-11-09T21:22:00.000-05:00

After a long week of work in San Francisco, I was really psyched to have a nice, relaxing a day off and hang out in the city before heading down to L.A. on Sunday. On Saturday I'd planned to meet up with Barry, a friend of a friend who is also an ND grad, and spend the day with him and some other young alums (including my friend Maureen, whom I hadn't seen since college) watching the game and then seeing some sights. At the end of the night, we planned to go see a show, and I parked in the neighborhood where the show was, thinking it would be nice to just get in the car and go home at the end of the night.

Then ND lost to Navy for the first time in 43 years. Ouch. Barry, Maureen, Derrick, Ben and I allayed our sorrow with a driving tour of the city. It was another perfectly clear and sunny day, and we entertained ourselves by reenacting a few scenes from Bullitt. I should mention that I was not driving (Dad) as my car was parked in the aforementioned garage all day, so Barry played the role of Steve McQueen. It was great fun, and after dropping Maureen off, we all went out for sushi and then headed to the show. Dropkick Murphys played a good show, wild, loud, etc., and terrible opening act aside, we all had a great time. All in all, a great day. And then we went to go get my car. *sigh*

Long story short, despite the repeated assurances of the garage attendant that the garage was open 24 hours, it was closed when we got there. And we were told it wasn't going to open until 6:30 the next morning. Fortunately, the guys were really cool about it, and I slept on Barry's couch, and then we got up at 6 the next morning to go get the car so I could head out. Oh, but the night-time phone operator apparently was never told that the garage doesn't open at 6:30 on Sundays--it opens at 10. So I was pretty much ready to kick the door in, but Barry had the presence of mind to suggest breakfast, which turned out much better. We took the driving tour of the city part two, then ate at this great diner called Mama's that is so popular people line up an hour before it opens. And when you have an hour to kill, why not? We had a nice breakfast, did the Chronicle crossword, and it turned out to be a relaxing Sunday morning. When we went to get my car, I was tired and feeling gross after sleeping in my clothes (I hate sleeping in my clothes!), and I was still fuming at the garage and couldn't resist suggesting new signage when the attendant pointed out the sign that tells you, in 12-point font, that they are under new management and the garage closes at 10:30 pm on weekends. But I was actually feeling ok about how it had all turned out, and I had a fantastic time in San Francisco, even with all the parking drama. The city is absolutely beautiful, and the people I met there took really good care of me. And not to sound trite, but as I turned the corner to drive back to Palo Alto and shower, I saw a homeless guy waking up on the sidewalk, which puts spending one night in your clothes on a friend's couch into perspective.

So that was my San Francisco adventure. After all of that, I hurried back to Palo Alto, showered, packed, and headed down to Aptos, CA, near Santa Cruz, to interview Christine Fahrenbach, class of '82. To be honest, I was tempted to call and cancel, because I was really tired, and at this point it was 1:30 and it takes about 7 hours to get to L.A. But I am SO GLAD that I didn't, because it was such a phenomenal interview. Christine is such an amazing woman, very intelligent, very articulate, and so spiritual, and not in a hokey kind of way. She told me that she has just always had this natural curiosity about God and has always understood herself as being very close to him, and I was impressed because that was so evident from the moment I met her. She was refreshingly positive--not bubbly, thank God, I was SO not in the mood for bubbly--but just open and so comfortable in her own skin that it was an easy interview with a lot of depth. I know I'm not describing this very well. Sorry, that's the best I can do, but as I left her house, I actually felt as though I had just woken up from a really restful nap. Which was a good thing, because it was a long drive.

The San Francisco treat

2007-11-05T00:43:00.000-05:00

I just got in to LA after a whirlwind week in San Francisco. As those of you that I've been able to talk to in the past few weeks are aware, I was pretty worried about this segment of the trip. Which just means more worried than usual, right? I'd had a bit of trouble getting in touch with the SF Bay Area Club, and I was concerned that their members didn't know about the project. And as it turns out, I was right, but fortunately I ended up getting in touch with the right people, and I got what I think are some of the best interviews of the trip so far in SF.

Highlights from my first few days in San Fran:

—On Wednesday I got to have lunch with Kerry Seed, known to most of you at Salt, Blunt, etc. He was kind enough to take a break from his grad work at Berkeley to come meet me for lunch in Oakland. For those of you who don't know him, Kerry is a very talented journalist and radio producer (check out his work at http://www.kerryseed.org/), and he's helped me out more than once when I had trouble with my stuff. It was great to catch up and hear about some of his grad school projects, and as it turns out one of his profs at Berkeley is a ND alumna. She gave a fantastic interview later that afternoon, the first interview in which my subject carved a pumpkin, which made for some fun photos.

—Halloween was all the rage in SF, and not just the costumes. People on the radio were calling in to tell ghost stories and tell all about their haunted houses, which makes me wonder why I was listening to the radio. But it also turned out to be further confirmation of my deep-seated belief that I myself am haunted...by John Mellencamp. I cannot turn on the radio, in any part of the country, any day of the week, without hearing that icon of the perpetual midlife crisis and his hoarse vocals. Such is the peril of my existence.

—On Thursday I interviewed Larry Soletti, the former president of the Alumni Association, who had not only good stories and great recommendations, but also...a puffin! Well, a little puffin statue on his mantle, a souvenir of one of his trips to Iceland (of course I asked!) He also has the same GPS I do, and he calls her Sibyl, too! I've found my soulmate :) Then we went to a lunch attended by a bunch of East Bay alums, and I met a couple older guys that I spent the afternoon interviewing. I hung out with Jim and Jane Gillis for about 4 hours. Jim played baseball at ND, then joined the FBI, then became a sportscaster, and Jane is from the Bend originally, and grew up on the same street I did. Jim just published his autobiography, so he had plenty of stories fresh in his mind (one of which involved meeting Mel Allen!), and then I helped them figure out how to use their GPS. It was the least I could do.

—Friday was my favorite day in the Bay Area. It was a perfectly clear day, and after an early-morning interview at Stanford, I got to go into San Francisco for the first time since I'd gotten to the Bay Area. I talked to Ted Weber, a '45 grad who was a student of Frank O'Malley's and had actually saved his old papers on which O'Malley had written notes. For those of you non-Domers: Frank O'Malley is one of the famous "bachelor dons," single laymen who lived in the dorms and spent a lot of time with their students. O'Malley started a prestigious club that would discuss literature, films, culture, etc., and many people took that club even more seriously than an actual class. He also famously (or infamously) had a pretty serious drinking problem. But he was beloved by his students, and I've found that his students are among the most interesting people I've ever met. Ted was no exception. And he had a spectacular view of San Francisco from the window of his apartment. All in all, a great time. Then I drove up to Tiburon to speak with Dr. Angelo Capozzi, a plastic surgeon who travels the world doing reconstructive surgery for children in third world countries. When I talked to him on the phone to schedule the interview, he warned me that I would have to take the Golden Gate Bridge to get there. And I said, "Oh, well if I have to..." He lived in one of the coolest houses I've ever seen, with a two-level patio overlooking the bridge, the city, and the bay. And he had one of the most amazing "how I got to ND" stories I've heard so far—I think he's the first person who has actually cried in an interview for this project. It was really touching.

And then that night, I met up with my cousin Jim and his girlfriend Dawn for dinner at a great little Mexican place in their neighborhood, and I got to hear all about their 2-month trip to India. It was the best time! I'd never met Dawn before, but it turns out she's a very talented artist who, among other things, writes and illustrates children's books. I was very impressed.

Anyway, as you can tell by reading this, and by the fact that I haven't written in awhile, I've been really busy with work lately. I'll write more about the disastrous, hilarious day off that followed all of this later.

Here in Cali

2007-10-31T00:11:00.000-04:00

Sorry to double-post, but otherwise I'll never catch up. I'm in San Francisco right now, well actually Palo Alto, where I'm staying with a family my brother knows. Yesterday I drove from Portland down to Sacramento, where I had an interview with the class of '95 valedictorian, a lovely woman who is now a stay-at-home mom, and happens to be the kind of person who agrees to house you after a long drive for only the price of an interview. Deal.

Then this morning I stopped in Santa Rosa to interview an artist in his studio, and I ended up hanging out with him for several hours. He had all kinds of good stories and interesting theories about art, plus a backyard full of wildlife. I mean seriously, what else is there? Wine country was beautiful—I just love seeing all those plants in perfect alignment. Tell me that doesn't appeal to everyone's inner perfectionist! And yes, Dad, I said hi to Dennis Quaid. Anyone who doesn't get that can email me off-blog, because I don't want to embarrass my dad by revealing that his favorite movie is the new Parent Trap—the one with Lindsay Lohan. Oh, oops! :)

Then this afternoon I drove down to Oakland to talk with a superior court judge. He had some good prank stories, my favorite of which was sliding a manila envelope full of shaving cream under someone's door, open-side in, then you step on the envelope and all the shaving cream squirts out into the room. A great way to get someone, even if he locks his door. He was also fortuitously saved from being drafted despite having the number 26 and being classified as 1A due to the fact that he went to Notre Dame. You'll have to wait for the podcast to hear that one.

Now I'm in Palo Alto, and we just had an earthquake—my first earthquake ever! (Is there a "Baby's First Earthquake" or something out there?) Apparently it was a 5.6, but it didn't seem that bad. Not that I really have a point of reference. We all just kind of looked at each other and then it passed after about 15 seconds, no big deal. No one else made a move to do anything, so I didn't make a move either, not actually knowing what one is supposed to do. Acting nonchalant, while good in a nonchalant sort of way, probably isn't the way to go in the future, but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus about what to do. Some say go outside, others say then the building might fall on you, but won't it fall on you for certain if you're indoors, etc. So I'm kind of just hoping I won't have to confront that issue again while I'm here. Now I'm going to bed for some hopefully quake-free rest.

Oh, and one more thing (shout out to Clare Burgess): When you're winding through the mountains going 75 mph, and you start to get kind of hungry, wouldn't you think that a minibox of Rice Krispies would be an ideal snack? Trust me, it's not.

OR they?

2007-10-30T23:02:00.000-04:00

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.

Finishing up...

2007-10-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't been very consistent with the blog lately, but I'm doing my best! I'm actually in Portland right now (that would be the other Portland), but I wanted to finish telling you about my time in Seattle, and then I'll get to where I am now, probably tomorrow because I'm tired.

This past Sunday, I went to the aquarium with Kristen, Jim and the kids. We went to Pike's Market first for lunch, and here's a tip: don't go to Pike's Market for lunch with 3 children and an infant. It's not really set up for family dining. Kristen and I were saying later that sometimes having children in the city is a huge pain, but the payoff is that when you go to a place like the aquarium, you get a lot more out of it. Kids just have no filter, and they are not shy about letting you know when something is cool. So we WOWed around the aquarium for a few hours, and the kids pointed at the eels and squealed with delight at the otters, and sometimes just sat wide-eyed in front of the fish tanks. It was way more fun than going with older people. My whole time at Kristen's house was really fun—a nice break from work!

And there was plenty of work. I had a bunch of interviews this week in Seattle. A couple of the most notable:

—I talked to Jerry Kane, class of '38. I walked into his apartment at his assisted living place and started getting out my gear, and he asked me what I was going to do to him. I thought he was just being funny, and I told him I was just going to record our interview, like I had said on the phone. Turns out he's been sick lately, and he thought I was there to draw blood. We both got a good laugh out of that, and then he told me incredible stories about riding an open boxcar from Seattle to Chicago to get to school, and then coping with the death of his first wife from Alzheimer's.

—I also interviewed Karen Moyer, wife of MLB pitcher Jamie Moyer, daughter of famed ND basketball coach Digger Phelps, and certainly a force to be reckoned with in her own right. She's the mother of 7 kids, and she started and runs a foundation that gives grants for the research of childhood diseases and organizes camps for sick and bereaved children. And Steve Stone introduced her to her husband back when he pitched for the Cubs. I mean, seriously.

And one last thing about Seattle: Everyone knows it rains in Seattle. A lot. But everyone I met kept saying things like, "on a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainier from here," and I thought, so, you're saying one day a year you can see a mountain. Big deal. But as it turns out, I am the luckiest person in the world, because I experienced two clear days in a row in Seattle. And driving into that city on a clear day was absolutely incredible. To get there from the East Side, I had to drive across one of the floating bridges (520, for those of you who know the area.) As it approaches the city, 520 goes uphill a little bit, and as you drove up the hill on a clear day, you just see this row of snow-capped mountains in the distance. Then when you come over the top of the hill, you're on the bridge, with water on both sides (can't remember if it's the lake or the Sound, or both), and the whole city is right there in front of you, all these houses built into the sides of the hills, and skyscrapers off in the distance. It was absolutely incredible, and the best part was that I got to see it like that twice, since I had to go downtown on those two clear days.

So the moral of the story is, visit Seattle if you get the chance. Seattle, Seattle, Seattle. Ok, I'm done now :)

Attention, Trinity girls!

2007-10-22T23:47:00.000-04:00

Guys, I got an email from our beloved Mr. Clark—or Herr Clark, as he was known to those of us lucky enough to take German. Turns out Herr Clark is an ND grad, and I'm interviewing him in Portland this Thursday. Let me know if you have any burning questions you've always wanted to ask him, or if you want me to ask him to re-tell any of his old stories for posterity. Like how he lost his Brooklyn accent because everyone in his new school in Cleveland asked for choowocolate ice cream...or the time his favorite chemistry class class brought him M&Ms for National Mol Day :) Email me your ideas!

Let's go, Buffalo!

2007-10-20T22:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend, my dad's side of the family is having our annual reunion in Buffalo, NY. Every fall for the last 15 years, we've driven out there for a Bills game, but of course, we don't just show up on Sunday and then leave. On Saturday, about 40 people descend on my cousin Andy's house for pizza and wings, and we all watch the Notre Dame game (very unfortunate this year!), and then on Sunday we go to the Bills game, driving to Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park via my dad and Uncle Joe's "special route." It may look farther on the map, but woe to anyone who would question their expert knowledge of traffic patterns in the city of Buffalo on game day.

Obviously I'm not there this year, and I'm very sorry to miss it! I hope you guys have good weather this year. Go Bills!

Oh, the raindrops...

2007-10-20T21:05:00.000-04:00

I've never been to the Pacific Northwest before, and I have really been looking forward to coming to Seattle. Seattle has always interested to me, having grown up in the grunge rock era, and also because I find that double t next to the l so appealing. Seattle. I could just spell it all day!

So far it's been alot like what I was expecting. When I arrived, Pearl Jam was playing on the radio, and it was...raining! I know, huge surprise, it's the rain forest. Driving in the rain is such a pain, because I can never get the windshield wiper speed just right. Too fast and it squeaks, too slow and you can't see. It completely distracts me. But residents say the beautiful mountains and the ocean make it worth the rainy climate, and I can see that.

Anyway, enough of this gripping weather report. On Thursday afternoon I drove from Missoula into Seattle, well actually Duvall, where my cousin Kristen and her husband Jim live with their four children. When I was 14, I was a junior bridesmaid in Kristen's wedding, and it's really cool to see her and Jim now almost 15 years later as parents. I'm blessed to come from a family of very competent women, and Kristen is no exception. She's totally on top of things, and Jim's no slouch, either! I know some readers of this blog will be happy to know that two of my young cousins are redheads :) As soon as I got here, I was pulled into a high-stakes game of hide and seek, and this afternoon we had a rousing game of "Katie Says." I'm hoping the novelty doesn't wear off on that one...for them!

Yesterday I had an interview in Everett with Bill O'Neil, a 1946 grad who was a track and field All-American and just recently returned from his 23rd trip to Ireland. He and his wife prepared a nice lunch for me, and she left us alone to talk Notre Dame. Bill had lived in my dorm (yea, BP!) for a year, so we had lots to talk about. Afterward I drove up to Vancouver to see Zack and Beatrice, friends from Portland and fellow Salties who moved out here for grad school. There was a LONG wait at the border, but it was definitely worth it! We went out to dinner at a hip little restaurant in their neighborhood, then went for a driving tour of the city. I heard on the radio that Vancouver is Canada's second most polite city (I saw a bus that said, "Sorry, out of service!" I mean, seriously, how often does public transportation apologize for letting you down?), and it is also home to a clock that runs off of the steam that in other cities just comes up through vents in the sidewalk. At one point we got stuck on what appeared to be an inescapable loop, but that was just an opportunity for Zack to solidify his status as my most patient friend. The thing is that in Canada, the signs are a little confusing, plus Bea and I were laughing too hard to be much help. This morning, we woke up and recited the Pledge of Allegiance—they like to keep it patriotic :)—then ate oatmeal for breakfast and talked politics, urban planning and documentaries. One of my newest paranoias (when do I not worry?) is that I'm not asking the right questions, and when I get to the end of all of this, I'll wish I had done all the interviews differently. But Bea very diplomatically pointed out that at the end of the day, I'll have what I have, and I'll make it work. That may sound obvious, but it's nice to hear. Despite the long drive, it was a very relaxing visit—thanks, guys!

Tonight, I'm doing laundry and indulging my inner old man...hoping to get to bed by 9! :)

Hiking the M

2007-10-17T17:31:00.000-04:00

I'm staying in Missoula with Kevin and Susan Miltko, both class of '91. Kevin is president of the club here, and he offered me a place to stay after I cold-called him on his cell phone. The Miltkos are a really cool family—they have three young daughters, plus their "Brazilian daughter," a foreign exchange student who has lived with them for over a year and goes to the University of Montana. The girls are awesome, very enthusiastic and just fun to be around. Kevin and Susan are a dentist and lawyer, respectively, and both are very committed to the community through service work, and they also host a wide variety of guests on a regular basis, so staying here feels very comfortable. Last night after soccer practice Susan made us all brownies and then I wrote thank-you notes while they put together 200 invitations to their annual family Halloween party, now in its 11th year. Susan had bought a bunch of fun stamps, including Star Wars-themed, and 7-year-old Molly's job was to pick who got which stamp. Things went smoothly until Grandma got the Sith Lord.

Missoula is a university town, and you know what that means...yes, giant landscaped letters! Like the interlocking ND flowerbed (which recently bit the dust to make way for a hideously collossal campus entrance on Notre Dame Ave.), the University of Montana has a big M made out of concrete on the side of the mountain overlooking campus. The trail going up to the M—aka the M Trail—is a popular hike for students and locals, and Kevin recommended I give it a try. It was a good day for it. The foliage here is at its peak, and it's one of those fall days where it looks like it's going to rain but doesn't feel like it's going to rain, if that makes any sense. So I spent the afternoon hiking and then hanging out at the campus.

My interviews here have gone very well. I've talked to a few younger graduates, one a '99 alum who is about to have her first baby, and we hit it off right away, so it was a particularly fun interview. She did the ACE program and now practices law here in town, and she was very articulate and passionate. That one will be a tough edit. And the highlight by far was my interview with Bob Sullivan, a 1940 grad who played football and then coached for Frank Leahy for a few years after he graduated. He had saved all kinds of stuff, including playbooks, scouting reports, programs, his own notes on proper techniques for tackling, etc., and his old uniform! It's funny because those uniforms were really thick wool, and the jersey actually came up underneath and buttoned like a onesy! Bob laughed when I pointed this out. You don't live to be 90 without accumulating a lot of great stories, and he told me all about his late wife and his son who was killed in Vietnam, plus the football and ND stuff. He had a real instinct for radio, in the sense that he described what we were looking at in detail without being asked. I was there for a full 3 hours, which was exhausting, but we both were having such a good time!

I'm really enjoying Missoula (or Zootown, as those in the know call it), but it has to be a brief visit—tomorrow I'm heading to Seattle, where I'll be staying with my cousin Kristen and her family. It's a pretty long drive, but thanks to one of the guys I interviewed the other day, I know all the best places to stop and things to see on the way. He literally drew out my entire route and told me exactly which exits to take. This is the third time someone has done this for me, and I've enjoyed everything I've been tipped off to so far. One of the things about this trip is that from the outside it might look like a sort of individual exercise in self-reliance, since I'm traveling mostly alone, setting my own schedule, deciding who to interview. But I've actually found the opposite is true; I'm asking for even the most basic things (a place to live, food, laundry, etc.) sometimes from complete strangers. And so far they have completely risen to the occasion, and in most cases gone way beyond my expectations. So in the middle of Week 3, so far, so good.

Catching up!

2007-10-15T19:56:00.000-04:00

The past couple days:

—I interviewed a guy in Deadwood, SD, whose dad was a Triple Domer (graduated from grade school, high school and college at ND), class of 1914 with Knute Rockne. He had all kinds of great memorabilia, etc., but I think one of my favorite parts of the interview was a story he told me about his roommate's dad, who lived and died by ND football. He would come to every game, and one Saturday, we weren't doing so well, and he was really upset, yelling at the team and the refs, and someone sitting behind him said, "Hey, you better sit down or you're going to have a heart attack." And he turned around and said, "I can't think of a better place!" That's the second time in 2 weeks of doing these interviews that someone has expressed the wish to die and be buried at Notre Dame Stadium. I think what I loved about this particular story was that it reminded me of my Great Uncle Harry, a fiery subway alumnus who recently passed away. I could see him doing something like that.

—Yellowstone was incredible. After going on and on about the Badlands, I won't go into it too much here, but I ended up spending two days at the park, hiking and driving through. Amazing. My usual hyperbole is totally inadequate.

—Yesterday I drove from Yellowstone to Helena, MT, where I stayed with the Smillies (pronounced "smiley"), a family my family was friends with way back in the early '90s when Mark was getting his PhD at Notre Dame. The Smillies are the kind of people who are always really busy, and then when they get an email from me, who they haven't seen in 15 years, asking them for a place to stay, they ask how long I need to stay and even bust out the nice dinner glasses. They have 8 kids, ranging in age from 21 to 3, and staying with them last night was so much fun! Mark took me on a quick tour of Helena and showed me around the school he and Donna started with two other families, because the schools in the area were so bad. It's a K-12 with 175 kids, and Donna is the principal. We spent most of the night around the dinner table, catching up and just hanging out while the kids did their homework and ate the candy their mom just brought back from a recent trip to Canada. The kids introduced me to the Kinder Surprise, a chocolate shell shaped like an egg, with a toy enclosed in a plastic capsule on the inside. I got a little green car, which Johnny showed me how to assemble and take apart. I'll need to leave it assembled, because I could not figure it out. And we looked through all of my change to add to Matt's state quarter collection, and apparently there are two quarters per state, one from Denver (D), and one from Philadelphia (P). I didn't know that, and I worked at a bank...But it was exciting, because coming from the east, I was more likely to have some of the Ps he needed for his collection. Anyway, the whole evening was fantastic and really relaxing--the sort of controlled chaos I'm used to at home!

This catches the blog up to this morning, but I have to go. I'm in Missoula for the next few days. More later.

Why, O Ming...?

2007-10-12T21:39:00.000-04:00

Back in our junior year of high school, some of my classmates and I, led by my best friend Beaks, went through what some might call a phase, though others might consider it a way of life: We started coming up with what we called "state jokes." I put that in quotation marks, because looking back, they weren't really jokes...more like anecdotes, or on a bad day, bad puns. The idea was to tell a little story that somehow incorporated a state name. Hard to explain, so here's an example: A farmer named Ming went out into his front yard and began to dig a hole. Another farmer drove by and stopped to ask him, "Why, O Ming, are you digging that hole?" Get it? After every class, we'd compare notes and see what everyone else had come up with. This actually went on for quite some time, though I don't even know if we finished all 50 states. My personal favorite was Nevada: A guy down south walks into a pet store and asks the clerk for a dog collar and chew toy. The clerk asks, "Don't you think you should get a leash with that?" And the guy responds (read this with your best Southern accent), "I don't know. Never had a dog before." When I think of the hours we spent on this, it makes me think the school year could really be much shorter.

Anyway, for whatever reason that "Why, O Ming?" joke popped into my head today as I drove from Rapid City to Cody, WY. The drive was mostly boring, then scenic towards the end when I hit the mountains. But though it was beautiful, I was really tired, and with all the winding up and down the mountain, I actually was feeling a little sick. I didn't even know it was possible to get carsick while driving! I have an interview here early tomorrow morning, then I head to Montana via Yellowstone, and I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep.

Crazy Horse and crazy llamas...

2007-10-11T23:07:00.000-04:00

The past couple of days have been really packed! A few highlights:

—On Wednesday I spent the day in Spearfish, which is a really cool town in the Black Hills. I spent the morning responding to emails and making phone calls in this great coffee shop with decent coffee for $1. Yes, $1. And I shamelessly stayed there using their internet for 3 hours.

—I talked to writer/media producer Paul Higbee at the Opera House he and his wife helped restore, which is such a beautiful old building. Paul's involved in all sorts of projects, many of which have to do with preserving SD history, so the interview helped develop my 8th grade understanding of the Black Hills area, Native American culture, the gold rush, etc. Then I went to talk to Molly Moran, who was in my class at ND (we even had a few classes together through the exclusive yacht club known as the Honors Program). Molly now works as an RN at a local hospital 2 days a week and volunteers at the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary 5 days a week. The sanctuary takes in all kinds of animals that have been rescued from abusive situation--lions and tigers bred to be pets, designer dogs that people don't want any more, leopards drugged for erotic photo shoots--that sort of thing. Part of it is like a barnyard with dogs, cats, chickens, llamas, ponies, etc., and then there was the area with the big cats, where Molly and I conducted most of the interview. It went really well, except for a few times when the lions in the background roared continuously for about 3 minutes, and we had to stand there and wait it out. Oh, those lions. One of the best parts was after the interview, as we were walking back to the parking lot, I was holding a little dog named Whitey on his leash, and he broke free and starting chasing a couple of cats around the barnyard and into the llama pen. Molly and I ran after Whitey but stopped short at the pen, and he ran after the cats for about 30 seconds before he realized he had about 12 llamas galloping on his tail. He raced out of the llama pen and I caught him next to the parking lot, sitting and looking rather subdued after his near-death experience. Llet that be a llesson to you, Whitey.

—This morning, Julia, her roommate Julie and I got up at 5:30 and drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park. Before I write anything here, a warning from Julia: "Buffalo are dangerous animals. They may look benign, but they can turn on a dime, and they'll gore you." Just wanted to get the word out on that. No bad buffalo experiences, though we had a close encounter with a wild burro, and we did see a few buffalo, along with lots of deer and antelope. Yes, this is the range! After our drive and a quick stop for bagels, I interviewed Julia (she is the ND Club president, after all...ok, plus it was just fun!) Some of you who read this blog know her, but are you aware that our Julia is not only an accomplished film and radio writer/producer, with regional Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards to her credit (the Murrow is the most prestigious award in radio), but she also hosts a call-in show for SDPR, organizes a foreign film festival in Spearfish, and is an accomplished children's book author?! I tell you this because she would never brag, but in case you didn't already believe it, Jules is amazing!

—This afternoon, I interviewed an ND dad who works at the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is a colossal rock carving here in the Black Hills. It's nowhere near finished right now, but when it's done, it will be 631 feet high, and the four heads of Mt. Rushmore could all fit into Crazy Horse's profiled head. Before going, I was sort of feeling like, what's up with people in South Dakota and carving statues out of mountains? But I have to say, the Crazy Horse Memorial has a pretty incredible story. One that I will not tell in its entirety because I need to go to bed, but you can find more info at www.crazyhorse.org. Anyway, Crazy Horse himself was quite an impressive person: He led the Native Americans at Little Big Horn, where they defeated Custer in an effort to keep the rights to the land that was promised to them by the US Government. The Govt had had a change of heart with regard to their treaties once gold was discovered in the Black Hills. When CH went to speak with white generals at a subsequent meeting, one of the soldiers mocked him, saying, "Where is your land now?" And he responded, "My land is where my people lie buried." So the statue is CH on the back of his horse pointing out over the Black Hills, where his people lie buried. I don't know how this will sound when you read it, but it was really moving at the site. AND the best part was that my interviewee hooked me up with a tour of the mountaintop, so I got to go up to the CH's arm, right under his head, with a guy named Jim, who gave me a fantastic tour, with lots of personal insights. I recorded the whole thing and got some great photos, but I'm not sure how it will end up sounding, since there was lots of wind at the top, plus I couldn't wear headphones since I had to wear a hardhat. But I did my best, and even if the tape doesn't turn out, it was an incredible experience.

I know I keep saying I'll post some photos, and I promise I will, but it's been hard since internet access is tricky, and most of my time goes into planning this trip! But really, photos soon...I hope. I'm leaving the Black Hills tomorrow for Cody, WY, then Yellowstone and Montana, and I'm looking forward to the next part of the trip, but I'm really going to miss this area, and especially Julia and Julie, who were great hosts. Seriously--they even inspired me to try a few new recipes (when I have a kitchen again), and that is no small feat. Thanks, guys!

Happy Birthday, Pete!

2007-10-09T12:57:00.000-04:00

I wanted to put this post separately so Pete would get a shout-out in the title! Yesterday was my youngest brother's 17th birthday, and I got to call and wish him well from the Badlands—I know, enough about the Badlands, but this actually has some significance. As those of you who can do math have realized, Pete is exactly 10 years younger than I am, and although it was fun having him around at first, around month 4 or 5, it got a little boring. He was in that awkward phase of infancy where you can't walk or talk, but you're not really new any more, so your older siblings get a bit tired of you.

Of course, my other brothers and I were creative, and Peteball got to be a popular sport, but that ended abruptly when my mom rather forcefully pointed out the risks to Peter's health and to ours if that continued. In short, we had hit the Doldrums of Pete. To allay this phenomenon, my dad began "Conversations with Pete" at dinner. He would prop the baby up on his lap, and we would all take turns asking him questions about his favorite things. "Pete, what's your favorite fruit?" "What's your favorite unit of measurement?" And my dad would voice the answers, always emphasizing the letter 'p': "I like peaches and pears!" "amPeres!" And of course, "what's your favorite national landmark?" "The Pete-trified Forest!" So yesterday I got to wish Peter a happy birthday from a pete-trified landscape.

The BADLANDS

2007-10-09T12:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the most amazing day! I'm going to have to bullet point to get it all in...no points for style, but I've only got 15 minutes to write this!

—On the way from Aberdeen to Pierre, I saw signs informing me that Dances With Wolves was filmed in this area...ah, DWW, if only you had taken more time to show us your wonder... And when I got out of my car to eat lunch, I found that my car was covered in a thin layer of dust--much like Kevin Costner in every movie he's ever made. Pierre itself was a little strange--a nice town, but the capitol building is what you would expect to find in New England, but looks out of place among the rolling hills of the prairie.

—I drove down to Mission to interview a recent ND grad who is doing Teach for America at a high school on the Rosebud Reservation. The scenery just kept getting more beautiful. I think this was the first day that I really felt like I had left the Midwest and was in unfamiliar territory, and it felt great. The road to Mission has lots of hills and twists and turns, and you would come over a really high hill and then plunge down with the prairie on either side and mountains in the distance. Then I drove over the White River, which was actually kind of a milky white color, and as I said out loud (yes, I talk to myself), "Wow, was that river really white?", I came to Little White River, the miniature version, which confirmed my theory.

—Along I-90 on my way to Rapid City, I stopped at the Petrified Gardens of the Badlands. One thing I like about South Dakota is that they're not shy about their attractions, so after the 60th highway sign reminding me that the Gardens have been family-owned since 1954, I decided to stop in. I paid my $5, and went into the glowing minerals room (not the official name), which contained...well, minerals glowing under a blacklight. Then I opened the back door to the garden, and to my delight, I was surrounded by...piles of petrified wood. Literally, just little piles scattered here and there. But wait, there's more: the piles were all labelled with the most delightful captions and speculations: "Pile of Petrified Wood"; "This log looks like a beaver may have chewed on it"; "Nature flattened this log." I think my favorite part was the bench sitting in the middle of the garden, inviting one to sit and relax among these piles of petrified wood, wondering in the glory of nature as the semis roll by on I-90 about 20 yards in the distance. I'll upload the photos of this today if I have time.

—THE BADLANDS: Some of you may not know this, but my senior year of college, I tried to convince my friends to go to the Badlands for Spring Break. I mean, come on, everybody goes to Mexico or South Padre, but who goes to the Badlands? Those of us who burn easily (read: pretty much everyone at Notre Dame) should have the option to go someplace that doesn't cause cancer. And when you say it right: "the BADLANDS," I think it just sounds like what Spring Break should be all about. But in the end, I was outvoted. Well, I finally got to go to the Badlands yesterday, and it was SPECTACULAR. I don't even know what else to say. As I drove throught this amazing lunaresque landscape that seems to arise out of nowhere in the middle of the prairie, I just kept looking around and thinking to myself, this is so cool, it can't get any more amazing than that. And then you'd go around another bend, and it was even more amazing. I was there just before sunset, so the deer and bighorn sheep were out grazing, and I found a little colony of prairie dogs, and just sat for awhile watching them run around and dig for whatever they're looking for and listening to them "bark"--more of a squeak, really. Too cute to be allowed. I suppose I should put a disclaimer on this blog about my obsession with nature and national parks, but I grew up in South Bend, IN, which is the "safe" capital of the U.S.: we have no indigenous poisonous species, and apart from the occasional tornado or the strong undertow in Lake Michigan, it's pretty much natural-disaster free. But it's also a bit thin on spectacular views, so when I go to a place like the Badlands, I always feel like I can't tear myself away. In conclusion, we should have gone to the Badlands for Spring Break.

—I'm staying in Rapid City with Julia, one of my oldest and dearest friends. We've known each other since we were 4 (she remembers my 5th birthday party), and we survived Trinity together, which is a lifelong bond :) Oh, and of course, Notre Dame. She's been living out here for 4 years now, so I don't get to see her often, and now I can see her in her "home away from home," as she describes South Dakota. Jules is actually the president of the ND Club of the Black Hills, so she's been helping me make contact with ND people out here, so I'm going to be busy for the next few days!

Week 2...

2007-10-07T23:19:00.000-04:00

A lot has happened in the past few days--I had a couple of interviews in Rochester on Friday, which went really well. One of the guys I talked to, Joe McBride, is originally from Butte, MT, and we spent some time talking about my route through Yellowstone and people to talk to in Montana. I walked out of his office with a map of Montana, a list of names and phone numbers, and a new pen. Not to mention some great tape, which includes a story of burning Fr. Ted in effigy over a losing football season. Well, four losing football seasons :)

On Saturday, I spent the afternoon just wandering around Minneapolis a bit. I took some photos which I'll post when I get a chance, and just enjoyed sitting in the sun by the Mississippi. And as Notre Dame was beating UCLA, I was watching Ohio State slaughter Purdue...I hate ABC! Oh, well, I fell asleep at 9:30 anyway.

This morning I left the Twin Cities for Aberdeen, SD, where I had an interview this afternoon. The scenery along the way was actually really similar to rural Indiana--it reminded me of driving Route 2, for those of you who have done that. So it was pretty, and relaxing until a huge storm came up. It was raining so hard that I couldn't see at all, so I pulled over into someone's driveway. I was tempted to ask if I could park in their barn when the hail started, but luckily it was over pretty quickly!

Tomorrow I'm going to Rapid City via Mission, where I'm interviewing a 2007 grad who is doing TFA on the Indian reservation there. I'm up to my ears in work, but I'll try to post some photos and some more interesting stories later this week...

Twin Cities

2007-10-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

I'm in the Twin Cities right now. The ND Club here has been really helpful, and they actually put me up in a hotel for the week, compliments of one of their members who owns the place. I don't love hotel living, but I think it has been good to start off, since I'm figuring out a routine for myself, insofar as it's possible to have a routine on a trip like this!

So far, so good. The drive up here was really fun, thanks in part to my new best friend Sibyl. She's the lovely British woman who sits on my dashboard and tells me how to get from Point A to Point B without ever having to look at a map. She has a very pleasant demeanor and we get along pretty well, though I've come to dread hearing her say, "recalculating," which translates to "you're going the wrong way and now I'm figuring out how to get you out of this." Fortunately, she recalculates pretty quickly. I had also forgotten how much I love driving through Chicago in heavy traffic. Seriously--it's such a rush speeding down the expressway through downtown with skyscrapers towering on both sides, six lanes of cars all weaving in and out, merging on and off, rounding curves in perfect synchronization...I'll stop there, since I know my dad is reading this.

Anyway, I've done 5 interviews in 2 days, with 3 more tomorrow and possibly another on Saturday. Yikes. It's been a lot of work, and of course a lot of fun. I won't go into too much detail here, but I have learned a lot already. Yesterday I had a great surprise with an interview I didn't think would be that interesting exceeding my expectations by far, and then today I had an interview where the person just wasn't relaxed at all, and the best stories came out as soon as the mic was off. It was good to have both of these experiences early on, because it's a reminder to me that no interview is expendable, and that not everyone's used to being interviewed, so I need to work harder to help them feel comfortable.

I had a bit of time off last night, and had a lively dinner with the father of one of my ND roommates. We ended up hanging out for a few hours, talking about everything from the Steve Bartman phenomenon to papal encyclicals. We had a great time, and it was nice to see a familiar face!

I've spent most of my time in Minneapolis so far, and I had an interview in a really beautiful old neighborhood in St. Paul this morning. Everything here feels very clean and organized, and the weather has been sunny and unseasonably warm. I'm really looking forward to exploring more on Saturday and spending some time hanging out in the city.

And right now I'm late to go drink with the young alumni of the Twin Cities. Such taxing work...

The answer to my prayers

2007-10-01T13:52:00.000-04:00

This morning I went outside to start packing my car, and I saw that one of my tires was going flat. I took it right over to the mechanic, who removed not one but two screws and patched the holes. The funny thing is that I prayed last night as I was falling asleep that if anything like that was going to happen this week, that it would happen while I was still at home. So the answer to my prayers was a flat tire. Yea!

The next time I write will be from the Twin Cities, where I'll be staying through Sunday morning. I've only been to Minneapolis once before, and that was only for about 48 hours. Looking forward to seeing more of it, and to getting on the road finally!

Getting ready...

2007-09-26T19:17:00.000-04:00

I've been scheduling and packing away (with help from my mom, thank God!) for the past few days. ETD is this Tuesday morning. I'm trying to prepare everything, but I have to accept that there are some things you just can't prepare for. But that doesn't mean I can't worry irrationally!

Tonight at dinner my parents, my 17-year-old brother Pete and I were discussing some concerns about safety while I'm out on the road. You know--snow tires, flares, warm clothes. Pete's helpful suggestion was always to keep food in the car, "because unlike the Donners, you only have yourself." Nice.

An inbox full of Texas

2007-09-23T16:20:00.000-04:00

I've gotten a few complaints that I haven't updated this blog at all...I'm still trying to make blogging part of my regular routine. Despite the claim in my profile, I'm not actually on the road yet...I'm just too lazy to change it later! Right now, I'm planning my trip around the U.S., preparing for the trip and finding people to interview and places to stay. This week the alumni regional director of TX and OK forwarded my requests to the clubs in Austin, Dallas, and Houston, three places I'll be stopping in early December, and the next morning I woke up to 25 new emails, all from people wanting to participate and offering to put me up...and they just keeep coming! I'm really impressed and honored by their generosity. Now I'm trying to respond to their emails and figuring out how to reach as many of them as possible!

Meanwhile, I'm packing and doing a few interviews here in South Bend. Last week, I spoke with Eugene Henry '54 and his lovely wife, Alice. He's a professor emeritus in Computer Science and Engineering, and he had some great stories about how he proposed to Alice, devising gadgets and stereos in his dorm room, and his days in the Notre Dame Marching Band (the oldest marching band in the country, for those of you who have never been to a ND football game). He still plays the trombone for a band of faculty and staff here at ND, and we played an impromptu game of "Name That Tune," which I failed miserably! But I learned a few new songs, and got a few tips on trombone technique. I'm not sure I'll ever use them, but it never hurts to know something!

Ok, back to email...

Starting from scratch...seriously

2007-09-18T17:14:00.000-04:00

This is my first blog post ever, and it comes on a momentous day. Today I did something I haven't done in eleven years and 2 days: I passed my Indiana drivers' test. I just moved back to Indiana from Maine, and I had to register my car and get an IN license. I walked in expecting to just get my picture taken, fill out some forms and be on my way, but it turns out that "out of staters" have to take the written test. I guess they were worried about the bad driving knowledge I may have acquired during the year that I had a Maine license. Fortunately I passed without incident, and I even learned a few things along the way. For instance, it turns out the best way to avoid getting into an accident in winter weather is to stay off the road altogether. Who knew?

Anyway, the other highlight of my day was the squirrel photo shoot I did with my friend Danica. She and I ate lunch at South Dining Hall on campus at ND, reveling in the preparedness of all the food in front of us. I love SDH for many reasons, going back to my love of the old PayCaf as a child (extra points to anyone who knows about the PayCaf!), so it was a big treat. Then we headed out on God Quad, where we lured a few squirrels with trail mix, then photographed them. It went pretty well, and we had a great time. Exhausted by all that cuteness, we went down to the lake and gave the rest of the trail mix to the ducks...turns out ducks REALLY like trail mix...I haven't been that scared by nature in awhile. I'll post the results once I've figured out how to do that!