I’m back from a long weekend at the old stomping grounds in South Bend. Friday night I missed Frank Jackson’s appearance at the Literary Café in order to plow through a Golden Domer at the new and improved CJ’s Pub. For those of you who don’t know what the Domer is let me enlighten you. The Golden Domer is a 20oz handmade burger, injected with CJ’s special sauce and spiced with a bit of Lawry’s. It is then smothered with white American cheese, bacon, mushrooms, tomato, onion and lettuce and served with a large pile of criss-cut fries. My buddy Jeremy took a few snaps with his camera phone, and as soon as he emails them to me, I’ll post ’em here.
Saturday dawned and Jeremy made some breakfast burritos with delicious sausage from Tipton, KS for me and his wife Christy and his baby girl Katie. We then walked to campus, which looks a lot different than it did even a year ago. They’ve been building buildings super fast. We grabbed the necessary steak sandwich from my old Knights of Columbus council’s steak sale and caught the end of Knute Rockne All American [starring Ronald Reagan as The Gipper]. We visited the Grotto, watched the team walk from the Basilica to the stadium, and then went to the JACC where I made a stop by my home away from home while I was in college, the fencing gym. Coach DeCicco was there, and he definitely didn’t know me from Adam, but that isn’t surprising, considering how long he’s been emeritus.
Once we got to the stadium, I grabbed a hot dog and coke as we watched the teams warm up. Then I watched us beat on BYU. After the game and the walk home we got a meat-lovers pizza from Pizza Hut and watched the blithely violent Boondock Saints. Sunday dawned and after Mass we went to Bibler’s and I had my sausage and eggs, hash browns, pancakes and oatmeal before hitting the road back to Cleveland. If I had only stayed a few more days I could have gone to Macri’s, Elia’s, the Mishawaka Brewing Company, and Bruno’s. Alas, I’m cubefarming it again.