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A Hitchhiker's Guide

by Michael P. Berberich, '79

I made my first snowball at the age of 19. A loosely packed affair about the size of a grapefruit, it came apart in midair shortly after I launched it toward my roommate's skull as he ambled along a dozen yards ahead of me. My first snowball disintegrated like a falling star disintegrates: shooting across the heavens, bits and chunks trail behind it and then pfffft -- there's nothing.

Too bad, too, for it was a pretty good shot, one that certainly would have evened up the score for that multitude of transgressions college freshmen habitually inflict upon one another. Still enthralled by the newness of it all, I coughed a couple of times then knelt down and began scooping more snow to try again. My second attempt at snowball construction was interrupted by a frowning young woman. Standing above me, she asked, "Are you from California?"

South Bend, Indiana, was 2,200 miles away from my hometown of Sacramento, where it snows about as often as the Cubs win pennants. Somewhat taken aback by her question, I nodded and asked how she knew.

"You guys are always coughing," she said, "and besides, you guys can't make snowballs worth squat."

The incident proved to be one of the first clues that I wasn't cut out for engineering. My roommate, not to mention future travelers across bridges and citizens downriver from dams, would be safe forevermore.

In fact, of the four freshmen entering the University of Notre Dame from Sacramento in fall 1975, I was the only one to last the full four years. Two fellows quickly succumbed to the weather, astutely concluding that wintering in California's central valley offered certain advantages over spending a January or four in the great Midwest. That or perhaps the disgrace of being unable to appreciate the finer nuances of hockey was too much for them to bear. One must, of course, be willing to adapt and learn new things.

Personally I never thought hockey was all that hard to learn. But mastering the proper French as one falls down in front of the puck that split second before an opposing player smashes it at the goal took some doing. Whether the cause was the challenge of learning a foreign language or some other cultural impediment, two of my fellow Sacramentans ditched Notre Dame after their first winter, leaving only me and a rather brilliant pre-med student to enjoy the ensuing winters.

Outlasting a pre-med student, particularly one as bright as Ann Marie, was no gimme. And she didn't play hockey. Seeing as how she didn't have to learn any French, the odds were rather more in her favor than mine. But I've always had a knack for rising to the occasion whenever my back was to the igloo, and so it was that during our junior year she found herself so motivated by South Bend's winters that scarcely had the last patches of snow surrendered to the first daffodils of spring than she applied to a medical school situated on the lower Mid-Atlantic seaboard. It couldn't hurt to apply a year early, she reasoned with no small amount of encouragement and emotional support from me. The following winter, whenever a wayward Caribbean breeze meandered northward, she grabbed her gross anatomy books, walked down to the beach, spread a blanket on the sand, plopped herself right down and studied outdoors. I, on the other hand, looked out of my dormitory window and counted the icicles drooping from the sill. There were 14.

Being neither astute nor brilliant, I had almost looked forward to braving the elements of a fourth Midwestern winter. One final winter would confer upon me a certain machismo; I would be the lone survivor, the toughest of the lot. The others could have their boring, temperate winters. I would have adventure!

As my luck would have it, during that 1978-79 winter of my senior year hell actually did freeze over. Bundled up in thermals and wool, laced into new boots and imagining myself to be some 19th century mountain-man like Kit Carson or Zebulon Pike, I would proudly clomp through the snow from our house on the far side of the Saint Joseph's River to the campus some two-and-a-half miles away. I was not so enamored of Carson and Pike, however, that I was above seeking a little pity -- and a free ride. Trudging along the roadside, I would blow forth long, deliberately belabored streamers of breath and thrust out an upraised thumb as cars approached from behind.

I snared more than a few Samaritans that year, including, early one brisk evening, none other than the Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, CSC. The good padre was accompanied by one of his nieces, a classmate who no doubt informed him that I was relatively harmless, my shoulder-blade length red hair notwithstanding. This encounter marked the first time I had ever seen a college president up close.

From my usual seat in the pew closest to the exit of Sacred Heart Basilica, I had seen Father Ted only from a distance. Up close Father Ted looked every bit the part of the college president: wiry, ashen, slightly wavy hair combed straight back; a square, serious face; pitched-roof eyebrows atop attentive eyes; and an almost feline mouth.

Private adviser to Fortune 500 CEO's, foreign dignitaries and an uninterrupted line of U.S. Presidents stretching back to the antiquity before my own birth, Father Ted was a legendary name dropper. One might be discussing the never-ending problems in the Middle East or perhaps nuclear proliferation, only to have Father Hesburgh say something along the line of "Why yes, in fact just last Tuesday Anwar Sadat and I were discussing precisely that same point" or "Certainly you have a fine idea, but perhaps you might want to consider that when I met with Brezhnev last month, he said . . ."

Father Ted proved true to form. As I buckled my seatbelt, he asked where I was from. I told him, and in true Hesburghian fashion he replied that, why, yes, as a matter of fact he had been in Sacramento just last week and while there had visited Beale Air Force Base and piloted one of the Air Force's most top secret jets. Forsaking the august restraint I had always associated with him, Father Ted exuded, "That thing flies higher and faster than anything else we've got!" Obviously the man spared no lengths when it came to getting close to God. However, during our trip Father Ted kept both hands on the wheel and drove right at the speed limit. He was a good pilot, no doubt.

Another time, I hitched a ride with an adorable girl who was a student at Indiana University at South Bend. Her long, straight blond hair and quick smile did more than the car heater to warm me. I was smitten. We exchanged phone numbers. It was the first time a girl had given me her phone number since my sophomore year. That time I had gotten lucky. Leaping high over the backs of my fellows, I had snatched an undergarment tossed from the 4^th floor during a panty raid at St. Mary's, which as a few of you will recall all too well, is separated from Notre Dame by a cemetery and an interstate. Think about this for a second. Surely there is some intent, some meaning to this placement of the cemetery between Saint Mary's and Notre Dame. After all, for well over a century Notre Dame accepted only men. Indeed, what better reminder of the distinction between the temporal and the ethereal could there possibly have been than carrying a lace panty with a telephone number safety-pinned to its elastic band through a moonlit cemetery containing the relics of priests, brothers and nuns who presumably, for the most part, died as celibates?

Out of embarrassment, I never called the number in the panty. Out of great bashfulness I never called the young woman who gave me the ride. And out of good sense, I suppose, she never called me. One could easily imagine the scene. She presents me to her parents, the warm couple with the pitchfork who modeled for Grant Wood's painting "American Gothic." She says, "Mom, Dad, this is the hitchhiker I picked up last week." I would just as soon have introduced a young lady to my folks saying, "Mom, Dad, this is Petunia. You know, the girl who threw me the panties with her phone number in them." In the great order of things, there remain some things which just are not meant to be. What more certainty could one ask for as proof of the cold indifference of the cosmos?

However, the ride which left the most indelible imprint came from the South Bend taxi driver who gave me a free lift. One cold February afternoon I quickly cast aside fantasies of Zebulon Pike and determined to hitch a ride. Few cars were on the road until, from seemingly out of nowhere, a yellow cab pulled up. Not having much money, I waved the driver off. He motioned for me to approach the car. A lanky black man wearing a blue stocking cap that nearly matched my own leaned over to the passenger side of the vehicle and popped the door ajar. I pulled the door open a crack and peered in. He brought both hands to his narrow face, cupped them in front of his mouth, and blew.

"Where you goin' man?" he asked.

I told him I was sorry but that I really didn't have much money.

He responded gruffly. "I didn't ask you if you had any money. I asked you where you were going. It's cold out there. Get in." Needless to say, I got in.

"Now," he said, "where are you going?"

"Notre Dame," I answered.

He drove slowly down Angela Boulevard toward the campus without turning on the meter. My teeth chattered. For a while we said nothing -- I for not wanting to seem patronizing and for not knowing what to say, he for his own private reasons. The tire chains grated against the road; unsyncopated clanking sounds scraped and banged from beneath the fenders. As we approached Notre Dame Avenue the driver began talking. He spoke of having been in Vietnam just a few years before, and he told me how lucky I was to have avoided that trip. He spoke about how important it was to have buddies and to know you could count on people. I wondered why he was jabbering away, talking about hot, humid jungles to me, a half-frozen 22-year-old lower middle-class white boy from California's capitol. We stopped for the red light at the intersection leading to the entrance of the campus.

He gave me hard, direct, unrelenting look, a look I have never forgotten, a look I did not then know how to read. Then he said, "You go to Notre Dame. You got money. Or if you don't got money, you will soon. Some day you will buy a car of your own. A nice, big car. I just want to know that one day you will be driving your nice, big car, and you will see some guy hitchhiking, some guy who needs a ride. And you will stop and give the guy a ride."

At that moment I began to understand many things.

We turned left onto Notre Dame Avenue. The Main Building, adorned by a dome of real gold, lay directly ahead of us. In silence we approached the campus, driving past Notre Dame Cemetery on the left with its cold, snow-frocked spires and, on the right, level, snow-mantled soccer fields. The guard at the main gate never left the kiosk to ask us our business as was the usual custom. With gloved hand, he simply waved us through.

My guide drove me to the rear entrance of the South Dining Hall, where I was to pull the dinner shift as a dishwasher. I thanked him profusely, once more apologizing for being unable to pay for the ride. He stared straight ahead, saying nothing. He did not look at me. I got out. At last, just as I swung the door shut, he suddenly turned to face me again. "Take care, man" he called out, the last word muted by the slam of the door. Then he wheeled the taxi around and headed back to the front gate. He did not look back.