It is really all about perspective
My wife, Wendy, and I run an Airbnb, which is like a bed and breakfast without the breakfast. Instead of breakfast, you get free air. Or at least that is what I think it means and no one has complained.
We host a variety of people, from traveling nurses to parents on their way to see their kids, to visitors from China and Poland. Most stay for a night or two, some for an entire month. It has been a blessing for Wendy and I as we have broadened our horizons, provided an inexpensive alternative for travelers, and made enough cash to pay for all our traveling.
The amazing thing to me is that about 40 percent of our visitors arrive with the intent of visiting the University of Notre Dame. It ranges from basic curiosity to a sort of hushed reverence for the place that I have lived within 10 miles of for most of my life.
As a result of my familiarity with Notre Dame, I have a sort of love-hate relationship with it. After all, they are ND, and I am not. While I respect what they do for the community, I also see the greed and elite attitude that has invaded the university in the last 30 years.
So, when a young man from Mexico City arrived at our door as an Airbnb guest, it was not all that surprising that he was interested in getting to the university as soon as possible. It was the day of the North Carolina football game and it was 2 p.m., five and half hours before kickoff.
I soon discovered he was not the usual “I need to meet my buddies and go get drunk” kind of fan.
I told him I would drive the five miles from our house to campus and drop him off because I had nothing else to do. On the way over I let him know just how inconvenient everything around Notre Dame was, how crowded everything would be, that traffic would be rerouted, that the 60-minute game took four hours, and that getting an Uber after the game at midnight would be a challenge.
I was launching into my “here is everything that is wrong with Notre Dame” when I thought better of it and asked him what he was doing.
As it turns out, this was no ordinary trip.
“I have always been a Notre Dame fan,” he said. “I lost my dad when I was 10 and my football coach kind of became a second father to me. We started watching Notre Dame on Saturday afternoons.”
“As the years went by, my coach became a friend and a mentor,” he continued. “And last year we were all set to make the trip to South Bend to fulfill his lifetime dream of seeing Notre Dame play in person. His idea was to walk all around the campus, wander through all the buildings and then go to a game. It was gonna be something special.”
But life intervened. “”COVID hit, of course,” my new friend said. “And we had to set it back a year.”
Then he paused. I knew enough to be quiet. I knew why he had traveled alone. There were no friends to see, no tailgating. Instead, my friend had carried with him a debt of honor to complete.
“My coach died In February,” he said quietly. “He never made it here. So I made it here…for him.”
A few moments later, my friend got out of the car and I pointed toward the bookstore. As I drove away, I noticed he did not go to the bookstore. Rather, he was headed for the street that led to the heart of the university. To the administration building … to the Golden Dome.
I drove away, soon to deal with the behavior of the people crossing the street, detours and the incessant “Let’s go Irish.”
Later that evening, I returned to watch the game, because, to my satisfaction, tickets were plenty and cheap. It was the first game I had been to in more than 15 years. I made it through the first half, in which the final 2:15 seemed to take hours.
“This is stupid,” I thought. “They are advertising to us on the big board, playing music that I find loud and offensive, and making the paying customer wait so the beer companies can sell their alcohol and make it sound like they are doing us a favor.”
I could not wait to get out of there. Despite having been a sports writer who covered Notre Dame through the Holtz-Davie-Willingham-Kelly years, I had had enough of sitting in the cold, being uninformed to game details, and watching spoiled 22-year-old men play a violent game that will have them in wheelchairs when they are 60.
The next morning, my friend was ready to catch the South Shore train to Chicago for his return flight and I volunteered to drive him. I started complaining about the cold, the length of the game and nearly everything else about Notre Dame when Wendy shushed me and asked our guest how he enjoyed the game.
“It was one of the best experiences ever,” he beamed. “Everyone here was so friendly, I saw the Grotto, the Basilica, the two lakes. It was just an amazing day. Then the game was fantastic. I stayed for the whole thing and even waited for the crowd to leave so I could sit in the stands by myself and just look at the empty field.”
“Wide-eyed wonderment,” I thought. “I used to be like that. I wonder where that went.”
But my wife continued. “So,” she asked, “What was your favorite moment?”
He paused. “To be honest, right after Mark dropped me off, I walked toward the Golden Dome. I was thinking about my coach, and how much he meant to me, and how this trip was really for him.”
He paused again, and cleared his throat. “When I saw the sun hit the Golden Dome, I cried. It meant that much to me.”
I drove the rest of the way to the train station in silence.
It really is all about perspective.