Wow, it’s been more than two weeks since I blogged anything?!? Not counting my November 2008-June 2009 hiatus, that has to be a record dating back to 2002, no? Anyway, sorry, I’ve been really busy, and what free time I’ve had for the Interwebs has been going toward Twitter instead.
But look! A pretty picture of Notre Dame Stadium at night! (And here’s a panorama!) This past weekend, as a 30th birthday present from the Best. Wife. Ever., I returned to Notre Dame for the first time since graduation, and attended the USC-ND night game (sitting in the USC section this time). It was a glorious weekend in all respects. And despite the perhaps slightly inflammatory t-shirt I wore to the game…
…I was otherwise on my best behavior, and more than anything else, spent the weekend (aside from tailgating and the game) soaking in Notre Dame, indeed posting so many #LoveTheeNotreDame tweets that David felt compelled to express some #PANIC and to remind me who I was rooting for. Heh. He needn’t have worried; my rooting interest was never in doubt. But I do love Notre Dame, and it was wonderful to be back, if only for a couple of days. It’s hard to express this sentiment adequately without sounding like a complete sap, but it’s a very special place, and I missed it more than I realized.
The trip “woke up the echoes” of what almost feels like a completely different life, even though it ended only 4 1/2 years ago, because upon leaving Notre Dame, I not only entered the “real world” but also promptly started having kids, such that my time under the Dome is now something akin to a distant, long-ago dream. Being back was almost like an out-of-body experience. (It also made me really, really look forward to the day — in 3 or 4 years, perhaps — when we go back for a game, not against USC, with all three girls, and do the whole “Notre Dame football weekend” thing as a family. Can’t. Wait.)
Oh, and also, I stopped in Chicago on Thursday night, crashed at Kyle Whelliston‘s place, and met the original Bally. So there was that.
So anyway, back to the Notre Dame part of my trip. As you may have heard, USC, which came in as a 9-point underdog, won the game. So that was awesome. Fight On!
Go Irish, Beat Navy! Fight On Trojans, Beat the Farm Drunken Trees!
Sounds like altogether a fine, albeit poignant, excursion. (I’ll skip mom’s Tommy Smothers riff on Poignancy. 🙂
But the big question is, did the Irish prematurely Surrender? (No, no, not at Vinegar Hill or the GPO — da Game, boss, da Game! 😉
And subsidiarily: if in declaring that Quitting is “what Notre Dame football’s about. They’re not anything like USC” Chris Galippo ‘didn’t mean to offend anyone’, what shall we suppose he DID mean to accomplish?
But irregardless: Fight On. 🙂