By D.A.
Narducci III '80
"Do not bring a car to campus." Signed by James A. Roemer, Notre
Dame dean of students. July 1975.
Bill Millman Jr. and I, classmates at Holy Cross High School
in Waterbury, Connecticut, both got accepted to Notre Dame in
the spring of 1975. In high school, we had shared real stuff,
like heated arguments about unimportant subjects, basketball and
girlfriends. Loyalty and competition marked our friendship. After
both settling on ND, we dove into planning our maiden voyage to
campus. It wasn't long before Bill proposed driving out in his
1969 MGB-GT and keeping it there for the school year. After all,
it would be the most cost-effective way to get there, and, oh,
yeah, it would be useful to have a car (you know, in case there
was an emergency or something).
In 1975, official Notre Dame policy prohibited freshmen from
having cars on campus. After much debate on whether we should
just chance it or ask permission, we did what all good, bright,
Catholic-educated young men do --- we wrote a letter requesting
an exception to the rule. Our situation was clearly special. We
believed that the responsible university authority would see that
and readily grant our request. We worked hard on the tone and
sincerity of the request, and once finished we felt confident.
It is 30 years since Bill and I wrote that letter. As is the
case for all of us, time has changed our lives. In March 2000,
Bill died after fighting a courageous 10-month battle with cancer.
Once so close, we drifted apart during our college years. After
graduation we both settled back in Connecticut. Although he was
living with his wife, Pamela, and their kids Jessica and Matthew
only 40 miles away, we had not been in touch for many years. I
didn't learn of his passing for six months. For me, the memory
of Dean Roemer's letter has triggered a rediscovery of that 1975
trip to ND and a lost friend.
Our request letter went out sometime in June. By mid-July we
had an answer. Dean Roemer's response started with congratulations
on our acceptance but quickly turned more formal, a chillier tone
reciting the University's policy regarding freshmen and cars.
Indelibly etched in my ND memory banks are those words, typed
(yes, pre-word processors) in red: "Do not bring a car to campus."
I recall thinking: Whoa; who is this Roemer guy?
We had been flatly turned down -- something neither of us was
used to. And so the real planning began. In no time the "chance-it"
approach took hold. If only we had someplace off-campus to keep
the car -- far away enough to not be "on-campus" but close enough
to be easily reached. Far enough to keep our secret safe from
new dorm buddies and classmates, yet close enough to feel like
we had "wheels."
Enter family history. My father, Dom Jr., graduated from Notre
Dame (class of 1952, BSEE), as did his brother, my uncle Donald
(class of '50, BSEE). During his time a ND, Don met and eventually
married Marjorie Ruetz, a vivacious coed from Saint Mary's College.
Fortunately for me and Bill, Aunt Marj grew up in South Bend at
the old Ruetz homestead at 1121 N. Saint Peter Street. North Saint
Peter is about a 10-minute walk from the Circle, one block west
of Notre Dame Avenue. And in 1975, Marj's folks were still living
on North Saint Peter with her brother, Father Ed.
The Ruetz family is steeped in ND tradition. Margaret and Joseph
Ruetz had seven children. All five boys attended Notre Dame: Joe
'38, Ray '43, Ed '47, Bob '50 and Tom '60. Their two daughters,
Gen and Marj, both attended Saint Mary's College. Now that truly
is a Notre Dame/Saint Mary's family!
Once I mentioned the possibility of approaching the Ruetzs about
keeping the car at their house, Bill was all over me. After another
letter and some discussions with Aunt Marj and Mr. Ruetz, we were
in. The car would be "housed" at the Ruetz residence. The lawyer-to-be
was already obvious in Bill during those days. With the Ruetz
arrangement in place, he declared that we would not be in violation
of ND policy since we would technically have our car "off-campus."
Still, we nervously plotted how to keep the MG secret.
The late August departure day finally rolled around. A 1969
MGB-GT is a relatively small car. The silver two-door, two-seater
(plus a back "bench" seat) featured a sloping glass hatch that
provided access to the cargo area. With clothes, shoes, sports
equipment, coats (our mothers were very concerned with those harsh
Midwestern winters), typewriters and stereos, the MG was filled
to the gills. It even included my portable drafting table, which
every aspiring young architect had. Having packed the MG the day
before, Bill drove from his home in Middlebury and picked me up
at my house in Naugatuck. I said my good-byes (I remember Mom
teared-up) and jumped into the MG, ready to go. The last thing
I remember was Dad being upset that the car was so packed that
the driver couldn't see out the rearview mirror.
The trip out to South Bend from western Connecticut is all highway.
Once we picked-up I-80 in eastern Pennsylvania, we stayed on it
all the way to South Bend. It's a 14-hour drive, plus or minus.
We would eventually drive straight through, but on this first
trip we stopped at some of Bill's relatives in Rittman, Ohio,
and slept in an RV overlooking a lake. We talked half the night
away, still pumped with excitement from the day on the road and
the promise of college life at our doorstep. We laughed about
our "near-death experience" with a tractor trailer that afternoon
someplace in the middle of Pennsylvania.
Being astute, energy-conscious young drivers, we decided to
apply the "drafting" maneuver we had seen professional race car
drivers use. The concept is simple -- if you closely follow the
vehicle in front of you, the draft it creates will effectively
"pull" your vehicle forward, thereby reducing your fuel consumption.
Saving gas saves money; it seemed like a good idea.
Westbound on I-80, with Bill at the wheel, cruising at 80 mph
(which feels like 110 mph in a loaded MG) we edged up closely
to a tractor-trailer. Immediately, I noticed two things: First,
we're really being pulled, and second, we're so low relative to
the back of the trailer that we can drive right under it. Just
as discomfort from our low position behind the truck was growing,
a low growling sound was followed by a sudden, frighteningly loud
thump on the hood and a blinding crash on our windshield. Not
knowing what hit us, Bill swerved to the right, bringing the car
to a screeching halt in the breakdown lane. One of the tires on
the front of the truck had shed its retread. The tumbling black
swirl had barreled right down through the middle of the trailer,
hit our hood, then the windshield and careened off the MG's roof.
Talk about frightening! Bill was convinced that the truck driver
did it on purpose because he was upset with our drafting. We paced
outside the MG along I-80, counting our good fortune and repeating
several times to each other, "Boy, that was the stupidous
idea you ever came up with." We crawled back into the MG. This
time, with me at the wheel, we drove on.
On the western side of Ohio, we stopped to gas up and did the
usual visual inspection of the car. Dad said to look at the tires
and around the outside to make sure everything was OK -- I'm not
really sure what we were supposed to be looking for, but we always
looked! This time we found something. Bill called me over to the
rear of the MG, laughing and pointing through the hatch window.
"Hey Dom, it doesn't look like your albums are enjoying the ride."
Panicked, I looked in and saw the Doobie Brothers, Chicago and
the Don McLean nested together under the hot glass like taco shells.
Unable to reach the warped albums from the inside, and with Bill
unwilling to open the hatch from outside (for fear the entire
load would explode out the MG's rear), we drove on. I protested
the rest of the way through Ohio and Indiana. It wasn't until
several months later that I was able to put the albums into an
oven at an off-campus apartment (10 minutes at 400? - I have no
idea how this worked) and get them back into usable geometries.
We made it to ND and started school. The MG stayed parked on
the road in front of the Ruetz's. One of us would go over once
every couple of weeks and start it up, just to keep it in shape.
It mostly sat idle except for occasional trips for supplies or
weekend runs over the Michigan line for refreshments. Only the
two of us would take the car out, always vigilant that we had
not been followed on our stroll down Notre Dame Avenue toward
North Saint Peter Street. After each outing, we would remove the
Connecticut license plates. I guess we were afraid that Dean Roemer
might be patrolling the streets of South Bend, looking for illegally
stored freshmen vehicles. Bill and I both had single rooms in
Fisher Hall on the South Quad. We kept the MG secret for the entire
school year. And smiles passed between us when our puzzled dorm
mates questioned how we were always able to get a case of beer
on such short notice.
We took the car home to Connecticut for Christmas 1975 and back
to "off-campus" for the spring 1976 semester. At the end of that
first year, the MG brought Bill and me home again to Connecticut.
I'm not sure what happened to the MG after that. I do remember
bringing a different car out to campus for our sophomore year
and buying a parking sticker for a student parking lot way over
by the ACC, where the old Senior Bar used to be. I would chuckle
to myself that the walk to the MG at the Ruetz's was closer.
For me, third year was spent with the architecture program in
Rome. Upon returning to campus in the fall of 1978, I once again
got a single in Fisher Hall, where Bill still roomed. Although
it was his last year, we didn't spend much time together. The
separate uniqueness of the architecture program consumed me. We
no longer played hoops at the Rock or hung together around the
dorm. A different set of friends and activities kept us apart.
In spring 1979, Bill was preparing for graduation and law school
at Georgetown; I was looking forward to my fifth year and design
thesis. We didn't know then (I think we never do), but time and
circumstance had already set us on separate paths.
Over the years, my friend Bill and I took several different
cars and made lots of trips back and forth from Connecticut to
South Bend. But none was ever as special as that first trip and
year at Notre Dame with that silver MG.
D. A. Narducci III is a practicing architect, writer and
teacher. He and ND architecture classmate Geralyn Hoerauf '80,
live in Southbury, Connecticut, with their two sons, Dom IV and
Adam. He can be reached at dnarducci@earthlink.net.
(July 2005)
