Imagine Buffett with snow instead of sand
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- March 29, 2025
- 829
When I moved off campus for my senior year, I left a dorm that had been built in 1931 for a house that was constructed in 1892.
Had my mother known that, I doubt she’d have been pleased.
Even without that crucial bit of information, she was against my decision from the start of the negotiation process, one that lasted for much of the bicentennial summer. My line of argument was twofold; to wit, I would pay my share of the rent with what I earned working for the parks department and that it was an opportunity to broaden my horizons, to grow as a young man.
Though neither prong of my strategy proved convincing, Mom ended up relenting when it became obvious I was a lost cause.
Besides, she had two other college-age children who required a lot less debate and were far more agreeable to acquiescence, something I had known from the beginning, my ace in the hole.
Upon arriving in town that September, my first priority was to get a bike, and I found a good one, a lime-green Schwinn Varsity 10-speed, and for the bulk of the first semester, we got along just fine.
It was about a 3-mile ride from the house to the campus, a lot of it downhill, and I studiously made sure to attend most of my classes, and though there were exceptions, I kept up my GPA, making the dean’s list for the sixth straight semester, something that made Mom a little less anxious about her firstborn child.
Then the weather gods got together and decided to turn the winter of 1976-77 into the coldest, snowiest and nastiest one in decades, a season from hell so awful the school, which had been around since before the Civil War, was forced to shut down completely.
It followed, of course, that the balky basement furnace up and died.
By then what had been five of us living in the drafty, old house had grown by two more residents, and with various girlfriends coming and going, things like communal meal times and a fixed rotation of chores went circling around the toilet, heading for a final flush.
My aunt, who deserved a special diploma of her own for the way she sheltered me and gave me an escape hatch that year, gifted me her 1969 Chevy Impala for my 22nd birthday, giving my bike a rest until the spring, when everything changed and life got fun again.
I know of no place on Earth that greeted a seasonal shift more gratefully than South Bend as March melted away and April graced us with its vernal beneficence, bringing hope to those who had almost forgotten what it felt like to see the sun break through once again, fragrant breezes scattering the dark clouds like dustballs before an efficient broom, clearing the way for happiness.
Then the love gods got together and decided to turn spring into a malodorous cesspool of broken hearts and hideous betrayals, a Greek tragedy in three acts, the next more crippling than the one before — Sisyphus, Narcissus and Icarus — defining my very existence as a second-semester senior, hiding from the real world.
There was a song in the air in 1977, one you might just recall.
A single line in particular still strikes a resonant chord in my mind:
“Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame,
But I know it’s my own damn fault.”
My own personal Margaritaville was nowhere near an ocean, though Lake Michigan was pretty close, it with dunes and such, but I was in no shape for sightseeing as springtime blossomed, having to focus on one more set of final exams before graduation.
There’s no better feeling than entering a classroom for the last time, rolling up your sleeves and whispering, “Bring on the test.”
You’ve got the material down cold, inside and out, locked and loaded. You’re ready for the essay questions and those that require only a single correct answer. It’s like nothing else in the world matters other than taking what you know and letting it run free.
Just before I began my freshman year at Notre Dame, the whole family went to the Colfax Theater in downtown South Bend to watch a movie titled “The Paper Chase.” It impacted all of us.
Mom, especially, was captivated by the story of a first-year law student as he makes his way through the academic rigors of Harvard, juggling books and friendships, love and loss, never losing sight of entering what he calls “the upper echelon.”
By the time I’d settled into my own routine, she was writing a letter a week, often referring to me as the main character in the film: “Stay with it, Mr. Hart,” she’d type. “Study, study, study.”
She and I took a walk around the campus two years later when she and Dad attended Junior Parents Weekend, and I still remember the way she took my arm and said, “I can’t believe you really go to school here. How do you not just fall in love with it every day?”
It was a perfect autumn afternoon, the gold and crimson leaves crunching underfoot, guys playing football on the quad, the bell in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart tolling, marking the quarter-hour.
That was the moment she flashed on when I decided to move off campus, the distillation of her dream, and I understand her dismay.
But I also know she realized why she had to let me go.
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to find him on Facebook, where people simply come and go as they please.