This will probably be a fairly short blog, but I thought I’d post now, since tomorrow night might be busy. The family and I are in South Bend right now for my sister’s graduation. We left the house a little past eight this morning, and arrived here in time to be allowed in the bell tower of Le Mans Hall, which is usually locked. From there, we had a great view of South Bend and were able to see not only the turnpike and the numerous chairs set up on the lawn for graduation tomorrow, but also the beautiful dome of the Notre Dame Basilica. Baccalaureate Mass was beautiful, though I confess that I spent most of the opening and closing processions trying to figure out what the different colors on the robes meant rather than prepare for Mass, or stay in prayer a while longer. I’m used to choirs of mixed voices for whatever reason, but the Belles of Saint Mary’s sounded quite marvelous without any male assistance (though I’ll admit that my dad and I did our fair share from the congregation).
My brothers and I spent a fair amount of time tossing the frisbee around on one of the lawns. We moved around a bit too, at times seeing if we could clear all the chairs set up for graduation (we didn’t always) and if we could clear the water of the lake near Le Mans Hall (which I always did and my brother didn’t…forcing me to get slightly wet and have my toes nibbled on by something in the water). If you’re not familiar with the lake of which I speak, there’s a wooden bridge going off to a small island in the middle. Tradition holds that if a young woman from Saint Mary’s crosses the bridge with a male, they will get married. My younger brother, always on the lookout for me, saw that there was a girl crossing the bridge and said, “Quick, Gabe, get on the bridge.” I didn’t though and she didn’t hear him say it. At least, I’m hoping she didn’t hear him say it. In either case, I’d rather not just randomly marry a girl I cross a bridge with. I’m hoping my future wife and I have something more substantial to the relationship than that. (Though I can easily see myself crossing a bridge with a girl I’d already picked out…hoping that the luck still held.)
For some reason, I’ve been in a really great mood the past few days. It’s not really that school is over, cause I really do love being at St. Vincent. I think it’s just the weight of the semester lifted sometime over the past few days and I’m feeling very relaxed. I’ve found myself joking around a lot more than usual and seeing humour in things. That’s really neither here nor there. I think it does indicate that I’m happy to be living back with my family again, since I do have a lot of fun with them. Perhaps one of the few complaints I have with college is that there are no children. I’ve always been around kids my entire life, until I started at St. Vincent. I still see some periodically, but not as many as in my own home. It makes it nice then to see the families in the parish that sometimes come to the student chapel for mass and to see the Towey family. And it makes it especially nice to come home!
It’s been interesting walking around the campus of Saint Mary’s today. To me, it’s just another college campus. I don’t really get any vibes from it; it doesn’t have a personality to me. It was strange to realize that my sister has as much of a relationship with this place as I have with St. Vincent. Even though it’s mainly just a bunch of buildings to me, to her and to many other girls, it has life and vivacity and is home. All these thoughts made me really miss St. Vincent. Even though St. Vincent doesn’t have some things that Saint Mary’s has, I’d still defend it endlessly, if only because, to me, it is home. And even if people from other schools can’t tell when they’re there in Latrobe, we Bearcats know how important St. Vincent is and love her dearly.
That being said, I did notice two things that St. Vincent could learn from Saint Mary’s. Firstly, families of graduating students can stay in the dorms the weekend of graduation. I’d have to ask my parents, but I assume there is some nominal fee, reasonable, but still less than hotels. They provided us with sheets, pillows, towels, and soap. It might be difficult for St. Vincent to do this the first year, and would require some investment in sheets, pillows, etc., but it would be right in line with Benedictine hospitality. It would be a chance for our families to see how we’ve lived the past four years and to feel as if they are really a part of this school that their child/sibling has come to love. And it would save a lot of driving back and forth from hotels since families would be a two-minute walk from Baccalaureate or Graduation. Secondly, more personally, the cafeteria at Saint Mary’s has a special gluten-free section for students with Celiac Disease. They currently have around 25 girls or so with the disease and so have frozen pizzas, waffles, chicken nuggets, tortillas, etc. in a separate fridge in the dining room. I don’t know of 25 diagnosed cases at St. Vincent, but I would imagine that the number is only growing and that this may be an easy, hospitable way for Parkhurst (the dining service at SVC) to handle the problem.
Well, so much for being brief. Oh well. I think I’m more loquacious when I’m in a good mood. Plus, it’s been a full day, both in activity and thought. I’ll sleep well tonight, even if I’m back in a dorm room once again.
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