#the drawing prof also made me fail the year TWICE but i know he did it just bc he likes me tbh. and i like him. sooo. wasnt too mad. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rtirman-blog · 6 years

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36. A Notre Dame Junior

I forgot to tell you about being chosen by St. Ed’s Hall to represent them in the Annual Tennis Tournament which was held before the end of the school year. Also, I think it is important to mention, I was feeling more and more a part of Notre Dame, i.e., my existence, and what I did, made a difference in the school. First an off-campus student, to a St. Edwards resident student, to a representative of St. Ed’s.

So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to return to my tennis match, as the St. Ed’s representative. My opponent was none other than Jim Van Petten, the off-campus tennis representative. As I wrote about earlier, Jim was a legend at Fenwick High School in Oak Park, Illinois and an emerging Notre Dame Legend. As for me, although not perfect, I was able to get the ball over the net. That match was a joke. Every shot I took was returned with sky high lobs. Every time I got a chance to slam the ball onto his side of the net, back it came like a Ted Williams home run. This would continue until I made the mistakes of slamming the ball into the net, hitting the ball out of bounds, or missing the ball with my most powerful swing. I’m sure, by now, you have guess the result- 6-0, 6-0! Jim is, even today, one of my best friends on earth. But we have never played tennis since then.

Now onto Dillon Hall and my junior year. My room, 104, was in the front of the building with a lot of pedestrian traffic right out the window. If there was a girl on campus, I would have spotted her in a second. Going to an all-male school may not have been smart. By my junior year, I had a daily ache in my stomach, hoping to see a girl sometime in the day. My roommate, Roy Martinello, was in no better shape. Academically, I was signed up for 15 credit hours- Organic Chemistry and Lab, Economics, Medical Ethics, Advanced Composition, and Freehand Drawing. My schedule may seem light, but I did not take to Organic, especially the lab. I can’t honestly tell you anything about Medical Ethics, but I do remember Organic. First of all, my professor, Dr. Emil Hoffman, was considered the hardest prof in the College of Science, and maybe the entire University. I took a minimum of six pages of notes at each of his lectures. Worse than Organic lectures was Organic Lab. Like every chemistry laboratory, we would go through a safety lab which required a report. This was a repeated procedure for all my chemistry labs in high school and college. The first one I ever did seemed like a waste of my time, as did every other safety lab and report.

The second session of Organic Lab was on “recrystallization”. Each student was given a compound which we were to dissolve, recrystallize, and identify. We each had a different compound to find a solvent which would dissolve it, then boil it off to recrystallize it, and then identify it…or something of that nature. About midway through the third session of the recrystallization exercise, I had finally found the solvent, recrystallized the compound, poured it the through litmus paper, and captured a large recrystallized amount of the original compound. I must tell you, there was also a large amount of the compound all over my new white lab coat, which now appeared to have been in the midst of an exploding rainbow. Mostly, it was yellow, the color of my compound. But there were splotches of red, orange, green, blue, indigo and violet. All in all, it was three boring weeks of trying to dissolve bits of my compound in every acid and base known to mankind. You would think of all the explosive things that could happen in an organic lab, something exciting would happen…but no, it was a bore. However, we did have one student start an acetone fire, which was put out quickly. Wow! One little fire in nine hours in the lab.

I had my compound drying out on fresh litmus paper. I would then calculate the percent of yield, and then turn it in to my lab instructor to measure percent and purity of yield. As my recrystallized compound lay out on my lab table drying, my lab instructor was returning our graded safety lab reports from our first lab session. My report was fairly extensive, perhaps four or five pages inserted in a binder. Instead of placing my report gently on the lab table, he held it about a foot or two above the table and let it drop flat. I screamed, “Noooooo!” as the wind created on the table top lifted and flipped over the litmus paper with my crystallized compound. Why did you do that? It took me three weeks to recrystallize it! He told me to scrape it up, and turn in whatever I was able to save. After my compound was returned to me, I did get permission to continue, with the added comment that my yield was small and had lots of impurities. Any enthusiasm I had for that lab, organic, and, for that matter, chemistry, was gone.

My job turned out to be very helpful to me. One day while working at the soda counter, I looked up to the person waiting to order, and to my surprise, I was facing Eric Smitner, my high school Latin teacher. He had taken a position at St. Mary’s College. Even though in high school it took me three years of Latin to get credit for two years, he was one of my favorite teachers at Freeport High. He was genuinely glad to see me, and praised my accomplishments of which he always knew I was capable. That brief interaction, was a needed shot in the arm. I was feeling proud.

Earlier, I told you about my boss, Jim McCaraghy (“the g is silent like p in swimming”). He was the person who played poker with Knute Rockne, every week. Jim sang my praises to the powers that be, resulting in a dining hall job with twice the hours. Early each evening, I would go down to the basement of the Dining Hall, pick up a white jacket, and got on line to pick up my supper and eat for free. Financially, that was very helpful.

The dining hall was somewhat like the dining hall at Hogwarts, where Harry Potter learned the skills of wizardry. Just like at Hogwarts, at the end of the long dining hall was an elevated area for a table of the “higher ups” overlooking the entire dining hall. Yes, the priests ate at that table. One day, while eating my supper, there was heard across the dining hall, “THERE IS NO GOD!”. Was that booming voice from the Heavens? Or from an amplifier? You bet those priests were looking hard to see who yelled that out. Suddenly, from somewhere in that hall came this, “YOU ARE WRONG, THERE ARE MANY GODS!” Much to the chagrin of the clergy, the place went up in hysterics. The culprits were never found.

My job, in the dining hall, was to clear off the tables and then help wash the dishes. I was assigned to wash the dirty glasses by dipping them into water, place them face down on spinning brushes, and then place them in a tray to be sanitized by our big washers. At my station, I had a great view of a town girl who worked in the kitchen, as well. Plenty of times, I’d be looking at her, rather than paying attention to my work. While looking at her, I would either miss the spinning brushes or hit them awkwardly. One time, I even broke a glass. Luckily, I was not hurt.

Fast forward to my advanced composition class and another legend- John Ryan. Although I am uncertain, Mr. Ryan could have been a member of the poker playing Notre Dame greats! Nonetheless, I knew I had the absolute best English teacher in the University. The class met T-R-S at 11:30 A.M. On Saturdays on which there was a home football game, we met at 8:30 A.M. Since on those Saturdays the campus was heaving with family members, girlfriends, etc., our class was open for guests to attend. About a week before one of those home game Saturdays, Mr. Ryan assigned us to write am 800- word definition. What happened to me on this assignment never happened to me before nor any time after. The greatest composition professor in Notre Dame’s history, with a classroom filled with students and parents, read an outstanding paper that defined “A Gawky Glasswasher”.

The place was in hysterics as Mr. Ryan read my paper. Actually, much of it was an explanation of the definition with which I finally ended. It went something like this: “A gawky glasswasher is a dishwasher whose job it is to put dirty glasses on spinning brushes in order to get them clean, yet keeps dirty glasses dirty by staring at pretty girl workers thus missing the spinning brushes…” When he finished reading the paper, I received a standing ovation, from students and parents. This was a special event for a someone like me whose ego needed stroking…my first, and last, A-plus English Composition paper. It probably helped raise my final grade to an 85...a solid C!

I got that same grade in Econ and Freehand Drawing. Organic and Medical Ethics, 70 and 72, respectively. In all my pre-med studies, the only science in which I got a halfway decent grade was an 84 in physics, in my sophomore year. Oh, I did get that 97 in inorganic after failing it the semester before. The challenge of college, for me, was staying and moving forward in pre-med, despite knowing I’d have a zero chance of getting into med-school.

Do you remember back in high school when I lost my cool and kicked the basketball high above the gym hitting a window. Well, that me showed up while I was cleaning tables in the dining hall. I was adept at picking up 5 glasses at a time on each hand. As I was doing that, a couple of glasses slipped out of my hand and rolled across the table…nothing broke. A supervisor, who was standing close by, suggested that I just pick up two or three glasses at a time. I took offense, and I told him he could just go f--- himself! His name was Ziggy, and he was in charge of the dining hall. I got the boot on the spot!

Within a few days, I was selling women’s shoes in the downtown store of J.C. Penney. I had to agree to work through the Christmas holiday, their busiest shopping time of the year. Since the Spring semester started about 10 days into January, I figured I could work there over Christmas followed by a ten-day vacation back home. I clocked a lot of hours at Penney’s. Part of the time, they had me working in the boy’s clothing department. I actually did okay as a salesman.

I left for home before the new year with plans to rest. As soon as I boarded the train, I felt sick. I ended up spending my entire time off sick in bed with the flu. Then back on the train to face the Spring semester of my junior year.

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