MANIFEST DESTINY: There is no Eerie, Indiana

After two nights in Pittsburgh in which I lamented a town I thought I had once known, Sunday night brought everything back home.  A corner bar, cheap beer, and someone yelling at me about how Derek Jeter remains overrated.¹ In towns like Pittsburgh, sport becomes the only topic of discussion.² Perhaps it’s the bars I choose to go to, but after I turned 21 and after the house parties become more sporadic, I noticed that nearly all bar-talk eventually gravitates towards sports.  Depending on the nature of the conversation, this is a blessing and a curse.  I’d love to talk about movies or recently released albums with a stranger.  But at the same time, I don’t have to listen to a liberal leaning monologue that is expounded upon by some schmuck that is blindly passionate and tragically under-informed.  I guess it just comes down to the fact that all of us heavy drinkers can completely relate to these professional athletes.  Finely tuned bodies, millions of dollars, expensive cars, giant houses, gorgeous women, cult-like followers that heap upon endless praise.  It’s like looking into a mirror.

On Monday morning I left Pittsburgh heading for South Bend, Indiana, a one night stay before I hit Chicago.  I’d driven through large chunks of the U.S. before, down South and all the way to the South West, but never through the Upper Midwest.  My understanding of places like Indiana and Nebraska was limited entirely to John Mellencamp videos and Footloose.  I was told South Bend had a nice little campus, but before I could get there I would have to make my way through the horror that is Ohio.

Living in Western PA for half a decade, I have spent some time in the state of Ohio.  Never once did anyone suggest we hang out for a while, or maybe get a hotel and stay the night.  No matter where you go in Ohio, you get out as soon as you can.  When the concert is over, when the game has ended, when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has turned off the lights and Little Richard has asked you politely (for the tenth time) to leave, you get out of Ohio.  So because of things that have happened to myself and my friends, I made a great effort to avoid stopping for anything other than gas in Ohio.  Who knows what could have happened had I stepped out of the car for more than a few minutes, but it would have been a perfect storm of booze and tragedy, I can assure you of that.

The Midwest has a whole lot of nothing.  I would learn this on my trip.  I had thought that to be a myth of sorts, a grand generalization of our sprawling country made by us costal elitists.  We know little about these states, so we assume there is very little there.  I was wrong.  There is nothing in the Midwest.  Towns are dozens of miles apart, no one seems to have any adjacent neighbors and someone is making a killing selling nothing but silos.

I chose to spend the night in South Bend, Indiana because I thought it was a longer drive from Pittsburgh to Chicago than it ended up being.  I could have made it in one shot, but the hotel room was already booked and paid for, so I made my way to Middle America’s capital of brawling Irishmen.³

My hotel was right off of I-80, surrounded by big box stores and chain restaurants.  Judging from my surroundings, I assumed I was far from Notre Dame’s campus as these types of stores are not symptomatic of “college campus.”  But when I inquired at the front desk as to if and how I could get to the campus from the hotel, I was met with furrowed brow.

“You want to get to Notre Dame’s campus from here?  Welp, I suppose you could get on the highway…let’s see…are you from around here?  Let me think of the easiest directions.  Actually, let me go get someone else to help you.”

After a few minutes of this man unsuccessfully trying to conjure a point of attack using his brain magic, I headed back to my room, hoping to find something - anything - to do for the night in what I assumed was Middle of Nowhere, Indiana.  It was barely 5:00PM, so I did a quick search on Google Maps to find something to eat and realized I was mere miles from Notre Dame’s campus.  No longer than a five minute drive.  Maybe a grand total of five traffic lights away.  This baffled me.  Not because I was unaware of how close I was to Notre Dame’s campus, but how this man - who has to live in this town - was completely unable to give me directions to the area’s single point of interest only a few miles down the road.  This man didn’t seem mentally challenged.  Then again, maybe the mentally challenged can hide it better in the Midwest.

Notre Dame’s campus was much smaller than I had assumed it would be.  The popularity of the Fightin’ Irish nationwide (most often by people who didn’t go to Notre Dame) makes the school seem a lot bigger than it really is.  The stadium, the dome, the library are all right next to each other.  Amazingly enough, these landmarks are all dwarfed by Charlie Weis’ walk-in refrigerator.

I pulled around the football stadium, through a crowd of what must have been tourists, and into a super small parking lot.  I have no idea where people must park for a Notre Dame home game.  It lacks the sprawling miles of fields and cement that surround most big-time college football stadiums.  Instead, the buildings are packed relatively close together, connected by open areas of grass and sidewalks that (when viewed from above) create symbols and characters that expose the university’s deep-seated association with the Illuminati.⁴

On the sidewalk in front of my car, a little kid was trying to shoot everyone with his finger guns while his middle-aged parents gawked in awe at an empty stadium.  I opened the door, got out, stretched my legs and “BANG! BANG!”  I grabbed my side, yelled out in agony and fell to the ground in slow motion.  The kid laughed, but as I got up, his parents were shaking their heads in disgust as they dragged the poor child away by his arms.  What have we become if we can’t simply indulge a small child’s thrill-kill fantasies?  This is not the America that I signed up for, that’s for sure.

I made my way around the stadium and towards the library adorned with the famed Touchdown Jesus.  Not knowing if or when I’d ever be back to South Bend, I had to make an attempt at what I once drunkenly claimed I would do someday.  The library was almost entirely empty on this late August evening with summer classes over and the fall semester yet to start.  I walked up to a young lady at the first desk I saw and asked her for some information about “The Jesus.”

“The Jesus,” she replied somewhat confused.

“Yes, The Jesus.  I would like to ride The Jesus,” I said.

“What do you mean ‘ride The Jesus,’” she asked as she began to look around for other employees.

“Just point me to a staircase or something that will allow me to ride The Jesus and I’ll be on my way,” I continued.

“Um, sir, I’m not sure if you realize that this is a library and…”

“Listen, I don’t want to make a big thing about this, just let me ride The Jesus in peace and everything will be all right.”

After flagging down a male employee that was bigger than I am, she finally put her foot down.  “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.  Now.  Just please get out of here.”

“This isn’t over,” I said as I made my way out of the library before the male employee could make his presence felt.

I continued to walk around campus in hopes of finding Notre Dame’s place to be.  It’s the bar that is the presumed first destination for students when they head out for the night.  It’s the place that serves the campus’ best drunk food.  Every college has them.  I for one love having a beer at these places and eating whatever food made up of three days worth of calories.  But I couldn’t find these places at Notre Dame.  Every student I talked to on campus was an incoming freshman with seemingly no understanding of campus life at their new alma mater.  They were all headed for the book store or the library.⁵ So it is my estimation that Notre Dame’s campus is full of either nerds or liars.  Or both.

By now it the sun was just starting to go down and I had seen all that I wanted to see.  In fact, I saw more than I wanted to see because I hate Notre Dame and their sports teams and those teams’ fans.  I headed back to my car in hopes of getting some food and something to drink before I went back to the hotel.  But I’m not finished with you yet, South Bend.  Not by a long shot.  Mark my words: I am going to ride your Jesus and I’m going to ride it hard.

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¹ My opinion, as a Yankees fan, is this:  He’s great, but overrated by those that love him and underrated by those that hate him.  Thus making him accurately rated.
² After pussy, and how much or how little someone is getting there of.
³ The reigning American capital is the Greater Boston Area, of course.
⁴ This may be speculation.
⁵ A return visit was not in the cards.