A group of us staff members were sitting at a table outside the
Huddle one day when, loud enough so everyone could hear, Kerry,
our editor-in-chief, asked me how long campus tours normally last.
An hour and a half, I said, knowing what was coming next.
"Tell them how long yours lasted."
A short pause. "Two and a half."
Kerry was referring to my Plimptonesque turn a few days earlier
as a tour guide for the Eck Visitors Center. I thought it would
be fun to lead a group of visitors around campus because I've
always enjoyed showing off Notre Dame to friends and relatives
when they visit. After seven years working for and writing about
this place, I know much more about it than about my own alma mater.
But I often go overboard on things, and my tour would prove no
exception.
There are two campus tours. The admissions office offers one
for prospective students and their parents that leaves from the
Dome. They said no to my request to play tour guide. Which left
me with the Visitors Center.
The then-director acquiesced but on one condition: I had to
take along one of her regular tour guides, a student. I agreed
but couldn't help feeling like a girl whose mom insists her older
sister come along to the mall to make sure she doesn't get her
ears pierced. Especially after I found out that my chaperone,
Mark Coomes, was a seminarian-to-be.
The 10 people registered for my 1 o'clock tour consisted of
couples from Des Moines, Iowa; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and upstate
New York. They were joined by three Texans and a South Bender
they were visiting.
We left the center on time, me facing my flock as I walked backward
and projected enthusiastically about the new bookstore on our
left, "twice as large as the old one." We walked across the South
Quad and stopped in Reckers, the all-night eatery behind the South
Dining Hall that I explained was named for Clement Recker, the
first student to enroll at Notre Dame. In the new Coleman-Morse
building, I expounded on how the mechanism in the fountain's giant
rotating granite ball worked.
I was ad-libing the whole time and feeling pretty good about
myself. Look at me, first-time tour guide, gliding seamlessly
from trivia to geography to history. My self-congratulations
didn't last long. As we were leaving Coleman-Morse, the Texas-South
Bend quartet abruptly dropped out. Am I that boring? I
thought.
It turned out one of them, a man in a wheelchair, wasn't feeling
well. At least that's the information Mark relayed, but he could
have been trying out being pastoral on me.
From Coleman-Morse, I showed the group the Rock's gothic vaulted
entrance chamber. We took in the nifty lake view of Saint Mary's
Lake from the Lyons arch. I explained about Notre Dame's full
name being Notre Dame du Lac. We then walked over to the Log Chapel
and Old College. Mark had a key to Old College because he'd been
living there since his arrival on campus two years earlier. He
led us through the cramped interior, which was a treat for me
because I'd never been inside what is Notre Dame's oldest building.
It's hard to believe 17 guys live in this tiny building, which
includes a cozy community kitchen and an almost kindergarten-scale
chapel. Mark pointed out a sign on the wall by the narrow stairway
that his parents had sent him. Modeled after a more famous sign
by a stairway on the other side of campus, it read, "Pray Like
a Champion Today."
After a stop at the Grotto we entered the Main Building. On
the ground floor I explained how this was actually the third Main
Building. Some bystanders thought I was giving a tour of the building
and asked if they could join. I said sure, and we all trouped
upstairs to the first floor.
As I started to explain the history of the Columbus murals,
I had a minor panic attack. I was telling about all the people
in the paintings being modeled on University employees at the
time but couldn't remember the name of the president who had been
Gregori's model for Columbus. I imagined making a wrong guess
just as Monk came walking down the hall. ("Who is this idiot,
and why is he leading a tour?!") Instead I said I couldn't remember
for sure. Thinking fast, Mark looked up the answer (Rev. Thomas
Walsh) in one of the brochures in the stand in the hallway while
I pointed out the Kermit the Frog, belly dancer, fishing lure
and bowling pin playfully painted into the "fringes" by the mural
restorers.
Later, at a stop outside the library, one tourist pointed to
something I'd never seen on campus before: a squirrel drowning
in the reflecting pool. It had fallen in and couldn't climb up
over the lip. Mark raced to help but before he got there the rodent
clambered out on his own.
Back at the Eck complex, the visitors center director made the
predictable joke about preparing to send out a search party. She
then asked Mark how I'd done.
Well, he said. He told her that of the 22-page script they make
the tour guides learn, I'd probably covered 90 percent of the
material, along with lots of material not in the script. He didn't
volunteer what percentage he thought I'd invented.
The remaining six tourists all shook my hand and thanked me,
which was gratifying. At the beginning of the outing I'd introduced
myself and told them about my regular job. I said they were therefore
in for either best tour they could get or the worst.
All I can say with any degree of certainty is it was the longest.
* * *
Ed Cohen is an associate editor of Notre Dame Magazine
