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At Darby's Place

By Brian M. Reimer '82B.A.

"So are you making the trip to Birmingham?" I asked.

"Not unless someone gets hurt in practice tomorrow. I'm not on the traveling squad," replied Jay (not his real name). He was a non-scholarship member of the Notre Dame football team.

"How have the practices been this week?"

After a pause, Jay answered, "Okay, I guess." Another pause. He looked me in the eye. "You're not going to say this on your radio show until after the game . . . ." I nodded. He trusted that I would honor his restriction. Darby's Place was that kind of place. Actually, Jay didn't need to worry. Our student radio station broadcasted over the carrier current, and only about half the campus could hear us, if they wanted to. I probably could have read Coach Devine's entire play book on the air without any worry that the information would make it to Bear Bryant, Alabama's legendary football coach.

"We're certainly up for this game, but I don't think our practices have been smooth at all." After filling me in with details, he concluded "I do expect the defense to be ready. We'll just need to score some points."

I tried to encourage him, "You'll get 'em."

"Yeah," he replied. Both of us openly ignored a recent 3-3 tie at Georgia Tech. Jay purchased a fresh cup of coffee and some chips, and then found a table in the corner to study for a test.

It was a midnight in November 1980, and I was opening up Darby's Place, located in the basement of LaFortune Student Center. I unlocked the door, fixed the first pot of coffee, opened up a box of fresh Dainty Maid donuts, checked the cash box and made sure we had all the ingredients for our "signature" toasted pizza muffins. As a final precaution, I made sure the full can of paint was still covering the drain on the floor behind the counter. Denise, who was working that morning, soon arrived to begin her shift.

The food sale operation never was the essence of Darby's Place, however. University Chaplain Father Robert Griffin, CSC, founded Darby's Place, named after his cocker spaniel, early in the 1970s to provide a second home for lonely ND students after midnight. It was a place for people to congregate, discuss any topic, and perhaps study. It also was the only place on campus where men and women could legally be together after parietals commenced.

Griff wasn't there yet. He usually dropped by around 12:30 a.m. His arrival would be announced by the sound of Darby's footsteps running down the steps and across the floor. Darby's official name was "Darbatius Secundus," as he was the second dog to bear this name. He knew there would be fresh pizza muffins on the tables and had a habit of leaping for them.

I sat down to read The Confessions of Saint Augustine. I had a paper due in two days. Darby's Place would be open until 3 a.m., and these three hours provided a great opportunity for me to catch up with schoolwork.

After 15 minutes I heard those infamous canine footsteps and went on alert. Darby outsmarted me, however, and made an end run for Jay's chips, scattering them to the floor where they presented him with a quick snack. My co-proprietor, Kevin, caught Darby red-handed and gave him a stern lecture.

"Darby! This customer paid for these potato chips, and now we have to replace them. Darby, you're eating us out of our profits! When will it end?"

For a brief, and rare, moment, Darby sat in stunned silence. His master emerged behind Kevin and complimented him. "Well done, Kevin. He understands everything you just said, and I am sure he will never do it again."

After a pause, Kevin replied, "Good." Kevin and I had taken over the food sales operations of Darby's Place during the previous school year, after the Student Union considered cutting back its funding. Before this, our junior, year began, we spent a couple days painting Darby's Place a bright white with green trim. We purchased a bright green carpet for the areas where customers would stand, and bought other new equipment. My sister, Tracy, an incoming freshman, painted Darby's Place logos on the wall and front door, in bright green and gold. The place looked brand new.

Having purchased one paint can too many, we also had a convenient barrier to block any unwelcome guests from climbing in through the drain on the floor behind the counter. If that failed, we still had Joe's old hockey stick, which he kindly donated to us before he graduated the previous May. It had a notch for every kill it had made. I don't think we ever told Griff why we had a paint can and hockey stick behind the counter. He never expressed much concern to me about the business side of things, save for once.

Griff walked around the basement of LaFortune, greeting each person there, and then took a seat with Darby at his side, setting up shop for conversation. Dawn, a Saint Mary's student who would take over for me as a co-proprietor with Kevin the next year, got up to get Griff a cup of coffee. He brought his own cigarettes.

After 15 more minutes of reading Saint Augustine, I decided to see how Denise was doing behind the counter. Kevin was helping her load some new cans of soda into the cooler when one of my sister's roommates, who had never been to Darby's before, dropped by.

"What do you have for sodas?" she asked.

Kevin pulled out two cans. "Death by heart attack," he replied as he placed a can of Coke on the counter, or "Death by cancer" as he put a can of Tab next to it.

"Very funny. I guess I'll take death by cancer."

Denise was busy toasting a pizza muffin for Tim, a writer for the student newspaper The Observer, who had a manuscript in his hand. "So you started the book?" I asked him.

He beamed. "Brian, no one has ever written a complete history of Notre Dame basketball, so there's a vacuum there. I spent some time at the archives, and have some copies of programs from our national championship team in the mid-1930s." Now I thought I had Tim tripped up. I knew the NCAA Tournament didn't exist in the 1930s. But he caught me, "Before there was an NCAA Tournament, the Helms Foundation awarded a National Championship trophy, and we won it."

I sat down with Tim and looked at his latest discoveries. Spotting Jenny, who was on the women's basketball team, I asked if his book would cover both the men's and women's squads. "Of course," he said. This decision was actually quite liberal, more so than it may seem today. This was the first season ND had offered scholarships for women's basketball, and the school was only beginning to promote it.

Another new customer came in. She eyed the board where we listed our items for sale, and asked the wrong person -- Kevin -- the wrong question -- "Can I have a Pop Tart?"

The rest of us looked away, knowing what would come next. Kevin had a habit of trying to catch new customers off guard, especially if they looked tired.

"No!!!" shouted Kevin at the top of his lungs. Our newest customer stood silent and stunned. Then an impish grin grew on Kevin's face, and he said, "Well, come to think of it, we have blueberry, cherry, vanilla, plain . . ."

Griff looked up. "Someone ordered Pop Tarts from Kevin again?" We all nodded yes.

A half-hour later, I joined what appeared to be an interesting conversation at Griff's table, that went something like this:

"Yeah, Griff. Who was it that wrote 'Life is nasty, brutish, and short'? I mean, I can study my whole childhood away, get my Notre Dame diploma, get the job of my dreams, and then 'boom,' the bomb blows. It can all be so pointless."

"John," he replied, "you're a young man. You're supposed to be idealistic and optimistic. There's no reason to think such thoughts this early in your life."

"So, what you're saying, Griff, is that I should just ignore the fact that everything can be so pointless,and just smile my life away in optimism?"

After a pause, Griff changed his approach. "Well, John, you've convinced me. If the bomb blows tomorrow, you should be happy that you spent your last days dwelling on how gloomy life can be, instead of approaching it with idealism."

John was a philosophy major and I knew the argument would continue, so I excused myself to return to Saint Augustine's letters. On the way to my table, I said hello to Mike, who drew a daily cartoon for The Observer. I suggested that he include Darby's Place in one of his cartoons some day. He just smirked. I would have no impact on that decision.

After 15 more minutes of reading, I saw Kevin, Dawn and Chuck at the table with Griff, and decided to see what was up. They were discussing our plans to present a talent show, which we would call the "Darby's Follies." Griff never seemed too keen on this idea.

"Here's my idea for a comedy skit," bragged an excited Chuck, "one of us plays a psychiatrist, the other one comes into the office and says 'Doctor, I keep having these dreams that I wake up in the morning, and find myself in Guam.'" Chuck stopped and waited for a response.

After a while, one of us asked him what the punch line would be.

"That is the punch line. Get it? 'Wake up in Guam!'"

Griff's mood turned to desperation. He invoked the name of the rector of Keenan Hall, which sponsored "The Keenan Revue" "A 'poor man's Conyers,' that's what they'll call me. Not Father Griffin, no longer Griff, but the 'poor man's Conyers.' If this Folly of an idea makes it to the stage, just be sure that I'm in New York . . . and don't name it after Darby! He's my dog. I own the naming rights." We soon dropped the idea.

I returned again to reading. At about 2 a.m., Darby's Place started to thin out. Griff finished a one-on-one conversation with a student that seemed too serious to interrupt. He then prepared to leave. As the 1970s were moving into the 1980s, fewer students were staying at Darby's into the wee hours of the morning. When Griff opened Darby's Place in the early 1970s, it was open until 4 a.m. By the time Kevin and I started working there in 1980, it was deserted during the last hour, so we cut the closing time back to back to 3 a.m. Griff, himself, often would leave by 2 a.m. because people were finished talking with him by then. I always sensed that this change in student habits saddened him.

Before he went back to his room in Keenan, however, Griff dropped by my table. For the only time in the two years I worked with him, he was very serious about business.

"Brian, you have the movie for Thanksgiving, don't you?"

"Sure, Griff, I was able to get Oliver from the movie rental company. And I signed out the Student Union's projector for the weekend. We're showing it on Thursday, Friday and Saturday."

"Good. Oliver went over well a couple years ago. You are advertising it, right?"

"I'm printing up enough notices for every dorm, and for the dining halls."

"You make sure they get posted."

"I promise, Griff. The Observer will mention the movie showings in its last issue before Thanksgiving, too."

"Good." He turned away. "Have a good night Brian."

"Night, Griff."

Griff knew that the Notre Dame campus could be a lonely place over Thanksgiving weekend. He insisted that Darby's Place sponsor a family-oriented movie for the students who could not make it home over the short vacation. For all the times Griff chided me over taking the business side of Darby's Place too seriously, the Thanksgiving movie showings had to go off without a hitch.

After all, there were lonely students out there who needed a second home for the holiday weekend.

* * *

©Brian M. Reimer

Notre Dame Magazine Online, Summer 2002