Season’s Greetings, readers! Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Festivus… whichever is your celebrated holiday of choice, I wish you the happiest! I feel the need to apologize for my lack of posting in a while. The time since my last blog on the Sox championship has been in turns too slow and too hectic for writing anything on the site here, but I sit here now in the first few days of Winter Break after finals season and the excuses have run out. Speaking of finals: this title’s reference is neither to Bob Dylan’s eleven minute folk epic nor to Peter Jackson’s stunning, fire-breathing dragon with the voice of a consulting detective. No no, the desolation in question here belongs exclusively to Holy Cross’ finals season, and those are just what I’m here to tell you about.

I realize before getting into finals, I’ve passed over commemorating quite possibly my favorite day of the year – Thanksgiving! This year’s customary turkey and potato gorging were as excellent as ever and not too much happened worth mentioning out of the ordinary, with two exceptions. First, my cousin Benjamin, a freshman at the Cross this year and the firstborn of two alums, brought his friend Will Peters from Wheeler Dorm. to family dinner, since Will couldn’t make the cross-country flight to his hometown in California and was looking for some home cooking. Will’s an upcoming student blogger himself, and you can check out some of his excellent posts here: http://wrpete17.me.holycross.edu/. Second, beyond my usual gratitude for my family, friends, school, and life in general that Thanksgiving seems to bring out, everyone at the dinner table was especially thankful to have my aunt Anne Blake (nee Nicholson) be in attendance after conquering her second bought with leukemia this past year. She’s another alum of the Cross and a pretty special lady all around who’s kicked cancer’s [family blog] twice now, and we’re super thankful that she can continue to inspire us all with her strength.

Current or alum, short or tall,
Members of Sader Nation, all!

My one complaint about any Thanksgiving break is this, however: it’s a brutal tease. After an extended weekend at home relaxing and eating more food than I have the decency to admit, it was a rude return back to the mountain of work awaiting me on campus. I don’t mean to alarm any prospective students reading this – and even though the same will almost definitely hold true at whichever college you end up calling home – but finals season is nothing but torture. There was one particular 48-hour period where I existed on one meal and a combined five hours of sleep, with almost no human interaction to speak of, but at the end of the day I had 20+ pages written. I pride myself on thriving at the eleventh hour, but seriously, to all my readership… for the sake of your sanity and well-being…  eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute heroics are really not something I’d suggest trying. They stress you (and your concerned/exasperated mother) out more than is called for and make for some down-to-the-wire scenarios that’d make even MacGyver shake his head “No.”
At the end of the day, however, even such 24 hour stands can have their benefits. Stretching my legs and clearing my head after an all-nighter in Dinand Library and before heading into my Shakespeare final, I took a walk up behind the Hart Center to catch my first-ever sunrise.  As anyone who knows me is aware of, I’m more than a little fond of my shut-eye, and many’s the day where the sun’s come up and has already started coming back down again before I first see it. Last week though, over practice fields freshly covered with a layer of snow, the sun came up to a dumbstruck audience of one. I’ll admit my disappointment over the lack of “Lion King” chanting to usher in the new day, but the views more than fairly compensated for it.

                                                                                                    No words necessary.

Happy November! Soxtober has finally ended, and the droves of Octobeards grown in solidarity with it, but WHAT a way to end it all. Poetry itself couldn’t have been sweeter here. Boston-haters, find another read today – this post is an open love letter to a team of underdogs and scrappers who carried an entire city on their grass-stained backs, who brought hope back to a community that, only a short seven months ago, was in some serious need of it, all the while defining what it truly means to be BOSTON STRONG.
For some perspective: my grandfather and one of my uncles actually went from birth to death without EVER seeing the Sox win a single title, and in my short lifetime I’ve already seen three! Not only that, but I’ve also seen Boston host three Lombardi trophies under the greatest coach-quarterback duo in NFL history, a Stanley Cup, and an NBA championship, with victory parades for each. There was a little boy at the parade this last Saturday holding a sign that summed it all up pretty nicely: “11 years old. 8th parade.” It’ll be a tragedy if I live out the rest of my (hopefully) many years without ever seeing this kind of sports monopoly in Boston again, but it’s an all-too-real possibility. We’re spoiled, I say, spoiled!

Those are heavenly rays shining down from above

After the debacle at the end of the Sox’s 2011 season and the joke that was the Bobby Valentine year, I’ll admit that I was skeptical at the beginning of this year’s Spring Training. But after the Marathon bombings in April, no other team rose to the occasion as much as the Red Sox. From left-fielder Jonny Gomes actually coining the, “Boston Strong,” motto that’s defined the city this last year to David Oritz’s now famous proclamation that, “THIS IS OUR [family blog] CITY,” the Red Sox made it abundantly clear that they subscribed and belonged to the same culture that produced the heroism of those like Carlos Arredondo, the Boston Cowboy. They meant business this season, and were ready to grit and grind to get that point across. Because of this realization, the summer saw me falling in love with the team all over again, and although I had never left it, I became a proud member of Sox Nation once more.

So, I’ll admit: seeing them win it all last Wednesday was pretty special for me. After attending a game – the first I’d been to for years and years –  with a group of Holy Cross buds earlier in the season, watching Koji throw his final strike in a dorm room of a dozen fellow Crusaders brought it all full circle for me. Part of it may have been the sleep deprivation that comes from consecutive late nights after games (on a related note, I’d apologize to all my professors for the decline of interest in classes while the World Series was on except for the fact that I suspect more than a few of them may have experienced the same phenomenon). But most of it really boiled down to the fact that, perhaps more than any other season previously, we needed this. And darn if I wasn’t going to head into Boston with 2 million of my closest friends to show the team how much I appreciated that.

It just looks so good, so good, so good.

As I mentioned, when it comes to rolling rallies, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’ve learned to go where my dad points without question at these kinds of things, and this time it got me a seat on Fenway’s right-field line for the opening speeches of the parade. Now-former Mayor Tom Menino, Governor Deval Patrick, Sox TV personalities Don Orsillo and Jenny Dell, team manager John Farrell, and a slew of players all got up and said their piece, all to thunderous applause by the crowd.

Even the man, the legend, the bullpen cop was on hand for the celebrations! This man is a bona-fide national treasure, for those of you who haven’t seen the now-iconic photograph with him at its centerpiece 

Why yes –

Yes we are

The biggest applause of the day though? That was for the Marathon survivors and first responders, all given a box of honor and prominence in Fenway’s upper levels. When the greatest baseball team in the world all cheer just as loud as a thousands-strong crowd of admirers for some actual real-world heroes, you know there’s something special in the air. I was honored to have been a witness to both chapters in the city’s history, and I wore it proudly that day.

This is what it’s all about for me. Boston Strong indeed.

After the speeches were over, we high-tailed it out of the Park as Boston’s own Dropkick Murphys tore into a stadium-stomping rendition of their trademark anthem, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston,” and headed out onto the streets surrounding Fenway to catch the parade itself. My mom, dad, sister, cousin John, and I never stopped smiling all the way, and we were even able to bump into some neighbors of ours from back in my hometown of Lowell to watch the duckboats drive past with.

Dinsmore St. found itself well-represented!

.

The Laser Show…

This guy has been perhaps the scrappiest and grittiest of all the Red Sox, and it’s a mockery if his jersey isn’t emblazoned with a prominent captain’s “C’ on it come opening day 2014.

Pedroi-ah the Destroy-ah

Wall-yyyyyy!!! You need a shave, my friend

As someone who’s spent an entire summer watching the world’s most romanticized sport through the mesh netting of a mascot costume, I can only imagine how fun this must have been.

Yeah, that’s right: count ’em up, UNO DOS TRES.

And here he is – the Large Father himself, Señor Octubre, the baddest man in baseball, BIG PAPI!!! A frighteningly convincing argument could be made that this parade would never have happened in the first place if not for the – there’s no other word for it – epic performance of David Ortiz throughout this post season, most especially during the World Series. A 38 year old, 16-year veteran of the MLB overcoming a crippling Achilles injury to bat over .700 in the World Series, inspiring his team and leading by stunning example the entire journey? Come on. These things are only supposed to happen in movies! Hoist that MVP trophy high, Papi.

FEAH THE BEAHDS.

All in all then, a perfect end to a perfect season. My face feels a lot colder in Mt. St. James’ already-wintry winds without its playoff beard to offer protection, although I’m hoping No Shave November will be able to fix that. But more important than the truly Hobbit-worthy facial hair the team and its fans grew were the smiles underneath it all – and for that, I thank you Red Sox. Thank you from a loyal fan who’s had his faith rewarded yet again. You made baseball fun again, not even a year after I thought that was theoretically impossible. The Pats, Bruins, and Celtics collectively have some BIG shoes to fill this winter. Is it February yet?

Since before the time the first “Hoya!” was ever officially uttered in the name of Purple Pride, it has been a curiosity and a source of conversation for Holy Cross students, walking up Linden Lane or perhaps looking from out their window in Wheeler Dormitory at nighttime, to look up and see what appears to be a tiny candle flickering in a window just beneath the O’Kane clock tower face. Strangely, no-one seems to be able to provide an actual source for the light, and not a single student at a single meal in Kimball can ever offer a definitive answer from their own contrary experience.
This is understandable, because the 5th floor of O’Kane – on which this haunted chamber is found – is mysteriously hard to access. The stately staircase in the northwest corner of O’Kane ascends unbroken from the Public Safety offices in the basement all the way up to the entrance of the 5th floor – at which point the stairs abruptly end at a locked door. With a heavy lock that’s always barred, the door shuts out the hopes of every potential ghostbuster and truth-seeking cynic that comes its way to put the matter to bed.

Many over the generations have tried to explain the light and the source of it:
The Physics Department said, “The light is a mere bending of photon molecules around a temporal shift in the glass plane of the window”;
The English Department said, “It’s a highly layered, complex metaphor for the deep yearning of Holy Cross students to find meaning in life”;
The Philosophy Department said, “How do you know there is a light up there? What is light, even?”
The Spanish Department said, “Hay un fantasma inquieto en esa ventana.” (what this meant, I cannot pretend to say).

As far as I can tell, this last guess by the Spanish Department was the correct one. I can back up their claim on the evidence of some very good authority: that of my own two eyes! I tell you now, reader, they’ve  seen their fair share of amazing sights in their time, and although they’re a little too accustomed to the sight of their eyelids for generous amounts of time on a nightly basis, I’ve never had cause to doubt their vigilance. That is, until the night they were met with the sight of the Fenwick Phantom!!!

I had been in the English Department study room, with its shelves of old moth-bitten volumes, poring over ghost stories as part of research for a class. It was a late October evening, and a misty fog had settled on the campus that blotted out everything but the halos of light around the lampposts and the figures that would occasionally flit through them in a scene straight from the streets of Sherlock Holmes’ London. You, sitting reading at your computer screen in the broad light of day, are probably thinking to yourself at the moment, “the nut’s finally cracked on this one,” but I defy any one of you to be placed in the same environment and NOT be prepared for any kind of haunted happenings!

Despite the campus’ incredible level of safety and security, the Fenwick and O’Kane hallways became suddenly shadowy and mysterious to my story-addled mind. And it was there, in the corridors fresh out of an episode of American Horror Story, that I saw it – the ghost drifting away up the staircase!!! I say it was a ghost, because I’ve yet to meet a living person with the space above their shoulders unoccupied as this apparition’s was. The customary tenant of that region was instead wrapped tightly in a set of rags hanging from the figure’s hands; its eyes glowed brightly with a ghostly light, and he seemed to be using them as a kind of lantern to light his way (headless people in general possessing very poor eyesight). Forget “Nearly Headless;” this phantom was a card-carrying member of the Headless Hunt.

Since the fifth floor was his apparent destination, I have only to guess that this ghostly sentinel is the cause of the elusive clock tower light. How he found himself in his current predicament, and why he maintains his nightly vigil at the clock tower window, I never managed to inquire, as I ran away shrieking  lost sight of the figure and have never dared been able to see him again. I was able to learn just one more detail of O’Kane’s spectral inhabitant from my brief glimpse: the ghost was attired, from premature top to bottom, in the armor of a Knight of the Crusades, and his coat of arms was very clearly a Holy Cross. What this outfit denotes, and its possible bearing on the origins of our much-adored mascot, I won’t venture to say. Perhaps some other students, in the College’s earlier years, caught a glimpse of this selfsame spirit, and were so affected by him as to incorporate him into the school’s national identity. The real answer remains for you to discover, as you wander around the empty hallways of Fenwick and O’Kane at night, or chance to glance up at the dot of light in the windows just beneath the clock face.
The Fenwick Phantom dwells up there, and he’s waiting for you!!!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Can you see him, just there?

Hey all! I want to warn you readers, prepare yourselves: you’re about to be hit by a slew of these blog posts in the next few days. In terms of the O’Kane clock tower and the ghost living therein, I did successfully manage to make it up there and back again, and I promise you all, the stories are true. You’ll have to wait for the next post to find out more about the ghost, though not for long, I promise. He very clearly stated that he wanted his story to coincide with Halloween, festive soul that he is, and I’m never one to disappoint. For now, something a little less ghoulish, although just as paranormal for me: a day visit by my mom, dad, and sister for the annual Parents’ Weekend festivities! [cues Psycho shower scene theme]
Family weekend is always a surreal period of time where the parents of Holy Cross students get to witness firsthand how the other half lives (the other half here meaning the student body). It’s my third time around doing it, but I still don’t think I’ll ever adjust to the family partaking in Kimball cuisine. Mom left well-assured that her little Andrew gets plenty of square meals every day, Kimball Administration may have had to rethink their buffet policy by the time Dad got up from the table, and Heather was just psyched there were different toppings for the frozen yogurt.

Feel the love.

See the love!

This time was also a bit strange because it served a double purpose: as a junior in high school, my sister Heather’s beginning the college application process now, and there’s one particular institution we in the family all hold near and dear to our hearts that we’d love her to take a look at *coughs*. Since I’ve begun tour guiding this semester and know all the best spots to show off the campus (as well as a fairly good knowledge of my target audience), I gave Heath a tour around all the usual haunts, from Dinand Library to the O’Kane classrooms to the athletic facilities up behind the Hart Center. It was thankfully a gorgeous afternoon, customarily cold and windy for a late October day on Mount St. James – just the way I like it.

The family shot

Even the PRACTICE FIELDS are Holy Crosses!!

Now where have I seen this before?….

GOT IT!! I know. I couldn’t resist. I just had to.

From there we tramped on down to St. Joseph’s Chapel for Family Weekend Mass services led by Fr. Boroughs that were delivered to a PACKED audience. With an accompanying choir and instrumentation, the Holy Cross masses really never leave a single pomp un-circumstanced. Afterwards, to wrap it all up, dinner out at Uno’s in the nearby Blackstone Shops area, with the wait staff passing out pumpkins to every customer walking out after their meals (I just took mine and went, without any questions). It was a nice reprieve from the midterms of last week and the papers of this one – although, if I’m honest, academic work has taken a serious beating in terms of priorities by the Red Sox right now. They need to hurry up and win this baby if I’m to salvage any halfway decent GPA this semester. Expect to hear some more from me on the Bearded Boys of Boston within the next week or so. I’ve got my fingers and whiskers crossed….
 

Happy Fall Break, loyal readership! To those of you who don’t quite understand what that means, yes – we of a Crusader disposition enjoy both Fall AND Spring vacations to compensate for our starting a week earlier than most other colleges & universities. It always seems to come at exactly the right time in the semester; the freshmen have been away from home long enough to miss it at this point, and the other three classes reached the bottomost depths of their closets to still be considered socially acceptable. Everyone will be back on campus next week relaxed, well-fed with home cooked meals, and with enough clean laundry to last until the next trip home.
The break is well-timed for other reasons too: for those of us fortunate enough to hail from the New England area, this is peak Fall foliage season, never a thing to be missed. Holy Cross’ campus is famously picturesque, no time more-so than when the walls of ivy begin to change color, but oftentimes it’s hard to enjoy the scenery from between the pages of a textbook in the inner bowels of Dinand Library. This week is the perfect opportunity, then, to get out and take in the Fall sights!
A nature nut, I took full advantage of Columbus Day and went for a jaunt up Mount Watatic, out in the northwestern part of the state. Just consider this: drive an hour in one direction from Holy Cross, you’re in Boston; an hour in another, you’re in Hartford; an hour in another, you’re at the Atlantic Ocean; an hour in another, you’re in the mountains. The campus, and even Massachusetts in general, is an incredible central point to easily access any number of great places. If you’re someone like me who lives for daytrip adventures, this is the place to do it my friend.
In today’s day and age, great photographic evidence of these kinds of adventures is never further away than your pants pocket in the form of your smartphone (because we all know, pics or it didn’t happen), and in this case, the pictures really are worth a thousand words and more. Up high on Watatic’s summit, it felt like the entire state of Massachusetts and a good deal of New Hampshire was laid out like a Fall-colored carpet at my feet. I could actually see the Boston skyline 50 miles away ON THE DOT, as googlemaps has just informed me, so, yes, in a manner of speaking, I could actually see my house from up there!

The path up!

Sometimes, when a rock like this is in the way, you just gotta show who’s boss.

Just think of the poor guy who had to carve all this…

I spy, with my little eye, something Massachusetts

Rugged mountain men!

This schmuck in front is ruining the scenery!

An utterly fantastic Columbus Day, and the kind that can only be experienced in the Massachusetts hereabouts. It was harder than you’d believe walking away from the summit with those kinds of vistas in absolute peace and quiet. A nice step away from it all, that made me more than ready to dive back into the thick of it next week when classes start up again. Campus is about to get creepy, since Halloween is right around the corner! By the time the next blog rolls around, I’ll have been up to investigate the 5th floor of O’Kane and the ghosts said to haunt it; if I don’t report back soon, they’ve got me, please send help!!

Hey again all! A very happy Fall to everyone, it being my own personal favorite of the seasons. It’s been an unbelievably strong start to what’s shaping up to me my best (and busiest) school year to date! Classes are keeping me typically busy – Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the rest send their regards – and in addition I’ve begun tour guiding families in the Admissions Department, started an amazing internship in the Dean’s Office writing for Holy Cross Magazine, and slipped right into the role of the Holy Cross Running Club’s acting Chair. *Phew* It’s tiring just to type it! If you can forgive me, then, this will be on the shorter side of posts, just meant to keep you updated on some HC events. This one will focus on yesterday’s festivities, to be exact, as the Crusader football team took Fitton Field under the lights for Holy Cross’ once-a-year night game.

My mom, dad, and sister, all Freshman Field tailgate veterans, came down for the afternoon with POUNDS of food in the back seat. Purple Pride’s been in my mom’s side of the family for decades, and she has a book of stories from when she and her family would actually leapfrog up and down the Eastern Seaboard in the ’80s following the Crusaders to different road games; one of the face-offs at a game in Delaware set a record for the coldest temperature ever recorded on the planet, if her telling has any truth to it.

This year’s even more exciting, if anything, since now my cousin Ben has joined the population of ‘Sader Nation. The first boy of two alums (my mom’s brother and sister-in-law) has settled like a glove into Wheeler Dorm. and is making his way quite nicely through the chemistry and biology classes of the pre-med track. I’m glad to see the scientific genes went to someone in the family!

Freshman Field tailgating before kick-off. It's as fun as it looks

My sister Heather, cousin Zach, and his brother Ben, all appropriately decked out in 50 Shades of Purple, before joining...

The crowd inside!!! It was even more crowded than the picture makes it look - I dare you to find someplace else with as much school spirit and pride

Clans Cook and Nicholson, all ready to 'give another hoya and a choo-choo rah-rah'

So as I was scrolling through Facebook the other day, I saw a post from the College’s page asking alumni and current students to offer the incoming freshman class some helpful advice for the fast-approaching move-in day. Besides the immediate, knee-jerk reaction of asking them all to pronounce it properly as WOO-ster (Wor-ches-ter is the single easiest way to identify yourself as an out-of-town freshman), nothing sprang immediately to mind. For having lived it all myself only a mere short two years ago, I came up blank on any useful tips the Class of ’17 could use on their first day. Then I realized: my problem wasn’t that I couldn’t think of anything – it was that I was thinking of too much. There were pages of things I could offer to both students and parents, but if only I had some means of writing it down in readable form for them all to see- waitasecond……
As a product of 90s pop culture and as an English Major who’s been taught that when presenting an argument, the more quotes and outside sources, the better, I couldn’t just spew my advice laundry-list fashion. No, no; I’ve called in some of the greats to help me here, people. If you take any exception to what I say, take it up with them. I’m simply the humble messenger. Lots of people approach move-in with a LOT of trepidation. The list of things to go wrong seems to get longer every time you think about it. Here are a few of them, maybe spelled out for you by my friends and I. Bear with me until the end, though; it all has a fairy-tale ending, I promise. Ladies and gents, here’s Freshman Move-In day – Disney style.

Hello freshman. Yes, you, freshman. This is you. You are walking onto campus for the first time as a student. Savor this moment.

This has probably been on your radar for a while. From the grueling admissions process last year to the agonizing wait time for that acceptance letter to what’s probably been the longest summer of your life as you tick down the days on the calendar, waiting to finally join those lucky, lucky kids up on Mt. St. James… You’ve been looking forward to this.

The day has finally arrived, and you’ve darn-near packed up everything you’ve ever owned into the family car. You drive onto campus, unload it all, then discover from your cheerful RA that your room is up on the 4th floor. Do you need help with the bags?

Here’s the big moment: the first meeting with the roommates. You’ve been able to make contact via Facebook, or Twitter, or carrier pigeon, or some other preferred means of communication and have ascertained that they are, in fact, human. Possibly even normal. You never can tell, though, until you meet someone in person, so you’re a bit anxious. When you make it to the room, you discover that they’ve made it there ahead of you, and seem to have filled it already with an impressive amount of awards and/or personal miscellany. No pressure.

Lots, actually.

They’re there too, and you’re finally able to shake hands in person, as you drop the accumulated total of your life’s possessions on the floor in their suitcases. THIS is the kid you’re gonna be living with for a year? You start having second doubts immediately. Suddenly, the room-for-one occupancy of your own bedroom becomes more appealing than it ever has. Spending a whole year with a stranger(s)… Eesh.

It’s probably just nerves, you think to yourself. Nothing a good shower can’t fix. So you head down the hall to the bathroom – but waitasec. These aren’t your home bathrooms. These are dorm bathrooms, and they’re definitely gonna take some getting used to. You warn yourself, proceed with caution…

Back home, mom and dad are doing rough. The house just seems empty now. You may be their first one out of the house; you may be their favorite one (we won’t tell the siblings, don’t worry). There’s a definite you-shaped hole for them now.

Now it’s time for introductions. The rest of your classmates are all moved in now, and you figure it’s time to branch out and start making some connections. You’re nervous though: a total fish out of water, and for some reason you just have a tough time getting across. Maybe these people aren’t getting the best first impression of you?

If you’re science-minded, you stroll along to the top-notch lab facilities, and can’t help but think of the cutting edge stuff that goes down in here.

Yes, this will one day be me, you decide.

If (like me) you’re more liberal arts-minded, you instead meander into Dinand Library. SO-MANY-BOOKS – – – SO-LITTLE-TIME

Then, an upperclassman walks by. Dang, this guy looks cool. Better not act like a freshman around him, you think to yourself. Act like you know what you’re doing, follow along, and hope that one day you’ll be at this guy’s level.

Can I let you in on a secret, though? That upperclassman who seems like they have it all together? He probably didn’t become best friends with his roommate overnight (heck, they may not even have been best friends at all!). His calfs didn’t develop ex utero to climb Mt. St. James’ (seemingly never-ending) slopes, or up to his room on the 4th floor. The shared bathrooms? He had to adjust to them too, but they became routine in under a week, and he shared them with some of the friendliest people he’s known in his life. The awkward stage of, “Me Tarzan, you Jane?” I’d argue that’s half the fun of meeting new people, and faster than you think you’re both spreckenze the same language. And hey: this is college now. You’re not here to compete with anyone for anything anymore. You’ve made it now to the show, and this is 100% about you. You’ve all made it here – you’re all exceptional. Your job now is to find out to just what extent exactly, and let me promise you – exactly 0.00% of that has to do with anything other people are up to. Mess around in Yzma’s lab… Get lost in the Beast’s library. A lot of the stone cold upperclassmen retain that same sense of wonder for those resources around them; it’s just that kind of place. You’re not the first to do this, you see, and you certainly won’t be the last. Everyone’s gone through this rite of passage and come out golden on the other side, seemingly despite the odds, and if I had to place Vegas numbers on YOU, I’d bet you won’t be an exception.

So take a deep breath. Relax. Tackle this with an open mind and a positive attitude. Everything’s gonna be fantastic. From my own experience, and from the experiences I’ve seen others go through, this all ends with a happily-ever-after.

Just a quick check-in blog this time, and I can’t think of a better topic to dedicate this one to than Holy Cross’ incoming freshman class! More specifically, those incoming freshman from Northern Massachusetts’ Merrimack Valley, the region my hometown of Lowell sits right squarely in the middle of. With these two worlds colliding at a welcoming event held at St. Michael’s Church in North Andover, and after an invitation from Class of ’77 alum Martha McGuane (a personal friend of my dad’s) on behalf of Holy Cross’ Merrimack Valley Club, how could I pass up the opportunity to attend??
After Sunday services in the main church, we headed to an upstairs area for a meet-n-greet reception, with current students and alumni from as far back as the 70s and as recently as the ’12 class greeting the incoming Crusaders and their families.

Greeting the families!!

The Merrimack Valley Class of '17! From left to right: Gabrielle Grant, Allie Thiel, Nicole Annino, Jason Steranko, Cassie Kobelski, Emily Hall, & Tony Van

The Class of '17 with current students Vipsania Pimental '14, Dana McManus '16, and your humble author

And the money shot! 4 decades of 'Sader Nation on display in one frame... Not too shabby

Ironically, a day meant to get the freshman excited for move in day – now less than a month away! – probably had more of an effect on me than it did on them! Summer’s been great so far, no doubt, but as we head into the dog days and with rockers from Springsteen to the Who reminding us young working adults that, “there ain’t no killer for the summertime blues,” it’s DEFINITELY time to return to campus in my opinion. Cluing the freshman on everything they have waiting for them just made me miss it all the more, and it was a miracle I didn’t start packing my bags as soon as I got back home. I think I’ll hold out on that just a while longer, though, as long as those nice UV rays keep shining and those summertime waves keep on crashing on the beaches. And, to help fill the hole, the HC Merrimack Valley Club will be attending its annual Lowell Spinners’ game this Wednesday night. Any ‘Saders in the area, be sure to stop by… the Canaligator’s a big fan of the Purple and White! See you all there!!

Hello again loyal readers! Shamefully, I don’t even have a decent excuse for the gap between this post and its predecessor besides that I’ve been too busy out gathering material for it. Even that isn’t a water-tight alibi, however, since more than a fair share of summer ’13 thus far has been spent napping and discovering the all-consuming Pandora’s Box that is Netflix. As I hope to show here, though, not all my time has been spent watching classic Doctor Whos and past seasons of Top Gear; as thrilling as that is, that’d definitely be more on the shorter, less eventful side of these blogs. So without further ado, here’s “what I did over summer vacation,” – part I!!!

First off, I realize it’s been so long since I’ve thrown one of these together that I’ve left Holy Cross finals’ season completely undocumented. While the exams and essays lived up to their appropriately brutal reputation, they were actually overshadowed in my mind by the slew of farewells to friends (most of whom are leaving to study abroad all next year) I had to make. With my roommate headed to Palma, Spain, and two very good friends taking advantage of the excellent Classics department’s programs in Athens and Rome, it was pretty weird saying goodbye and realizing that I may or may not be able to see them again till the beginning of senior year, over a full calendar cycle away. I’m glad I’ve got a FULL plate on campus next semester to keep me distracted for sure. Everyone going abroad (you all know who you are), I wish you the best of luck, you’re gonna absolutely kill it and have the time of your lives!

Home life was a welcome reprieve afterwards, and I’ve since had more than enough time to catch up on sleep and TV shows alike (on a side note: Game of Thrones’ Red Wedding??? Holy Stark! Glad I was busy that night and had to pass up on that invitation). Going from there, then, in chronological order, I’ve:

Run two 1/2 marathons, one in Beantown for Boston’s peerless PD and the other in Woodstock,VT, for fun. The latter of these is probably among the more scenic places you could ever hope to run at, with the course running (no pun intended) alongside the Queechee River beneath Vermont’s famously green slopes.

The breathtaking gorge itself. The reason it looks so sheer is simple - it is!

A fearless adventurer wading out to the center of the gorge. If you think he's an overly reckless youth, the answer is simple - he is!

Headed into Fenway for a Sox game. The ballpark itself is actually a secondary priority to me, 19 year old I am with a respective 19 year old stomach. That meant a pre-game trip to Yawkey Way’s El Tiante’s, so named after famous 70s Sox pitcher Luis Tiant. And guess who, of all people, was there greeting hungry customers: the man, the legend himself! A quiet, humble guy, complete with his trademark footlong Cuban cigar.

Met former First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna, this year’s speakers at Middlesex Community College’s Celebrity Forum, an annual fundraiser put on by my dad Patrick and his colleagues at MCC. It was a night (blessedly) free of the politics one might have expected to accompany such distinguished guests, and all in attendance walked away with the same impression of two unbelievably charming, big-hearted, strong women who’ve inspired MILLIONS around the world.

The honorable First Lady Laura Bush and her daughter Jenna. I like to think my OWN first family cleans up pretty nice!

Last but not least, spent a fabulous few days vacationing down on Martha’s Vineyard. Some people go for jam-packed, thrill-a-minute vacation destinations, but me? The sleepy, lazy afternoons spent lying on the Vineyard’s South Beach are my idea of paradise. Late mornings, an entire book cover to cover, and daily trips to Mad Martha’s ice cream joint. Doesn’t get better, I’m telling you.

A man and his dog. The level of contentment pictured here on the part of both concerned parties is hard to overstate.

My attempt at looking deep and thoughtful. It ended with me tumbling down the hill and accumulating most of Mememsha beach in my shoes in the process.

Well, that’s about it folks. The countdown to the return to campus lies at just over 50 days, and with the summer break already roughly halfway over, I can’t wait to see what the next half brings. Till then, everyone make sure you enjoy your summer as much as possible, and more importantly, STAY COOL!!

To those of you up in arms over the speaker of this blog title’s woeful ignorance concerning one of the most sanctified objects in the history of Major League Baseball, fear not: he has since seen the light. Not everyone’s as fortunate as we in Boston are with their baseball teams, with “America’s Most Beloved Ballpark” sitting as the Mecca of their fandom. And with my good friend Harry Crimi, hailing from the Philadelphia area, wanting to experience a real-life, authentic Red Sox game IN Fenway Park before he graduated Holy Cross (and with that window of opportunity shortening significantly as he leaves over the summer to spend all next year abroad in Athens and Rome), I had an excuse to remind myself of just how lucky we are! With the majority of our friend group in tow, Juneau, AL, San. Fran, CA, Chicago, IL, Akron, OH, and the aforementioned Philly were all represented on the shuttle ride from Hogan into Boston last night to see the Green Monstah!

Fenway tickets are infamously not cheap, so we weren’t exactly sitting right behind home plate on our collective standard college student budget. The Pahk is so small and so pretty, however, there really isn’t a bad seat in the house, and we were thrilled when we finally arrived at our respective ones, directly beneath the jumbotron and looking dead ahead at home plate.

As I explained to Harry, it’s not actually a legitimate trip to Fenway unless you partake in a world-renowned Fenway Frank. The hot dogs had a high-brow patron in Harry, a third-generation Crimi worker of Cappuccio’s Meats back in Philly, but they were nonetheless met with glowing approval (all I’m saying is, for that price, they BETTER have been).

Temps were unexpectedly cold for an April night in Boston, not helped by the fact that, as high up and as close to the Mass. Pike as we were, Bean-Town’s sea-breeze was pretty constant. Our wallets were emptied at the food vendors on Fenway’s concourse in attempts to eat and drink the cold away, to no avail (let’s be serious though; there are worse things than failing in that attempt). Several innings, multiple Red Sox runs, and one bad-tempered photographer later (inside joke), we would have been frozen but for the laughs, and it was time to high-tail it out of there.

Taken during Big Papi's first home-run! You can tell which one of us is the DIE-HARD Sox fan and is actually paying attention to what's going on in the game

And the field shot!

With two hours to waste before the return shuttle to Hogan came and picked us up, and in order to pay our respects to the history that’s been unfolding in Boston over the past few weeks, we made our way from Fenway over to the Boylston St. finish line area for the marathon, the site of the recent bombings. It was a bit surreal, walking with my friends down parts of the Marathon course I had been staggering through only eleven days before in a considerable amount of pain, pointing out to everyone all the different mile-markers and particularly interesting spectator points. Walking down Boylston St. was even stranger; the last time I had been there, it was broad daylight and there were THOUSANDS of people cheering their heads off, totally unaware of what was about to unfold. At 11pm last night, under an almost-full moon, the street was as silent and somber as a church, populated by people almost all exclusively there to see the aftermath of one of the most tragic chapters in Boston’s history. “This was the second bomb site… That’s the security camera they ID’d the suspects with… That’s where my mom and sister were standing… This is how far down the chute I was before it all happened behind me” It sounds overly-dramatic, but these were the things I was relaying to my wide-eyed friends as a firsthand observer of it all. The last stop of the night was at the truly moving makeshift memorial set up on Copley Plaza. Thousands upon thousands of cards, candles, flowers and various other mementos were piled in a tribute to the victims; most impressive to me was a wall of sneakers donated by runners who had tied them all onto one of the barriers. Speaking from experience, there’s a lot of emotional investment in the shoes a marathoner trains with: those suckers have at this point carried you all through training season, over hundreds of miles in bitter colds, through good and bad days, and then were with you for the Marathon itself, taking you closer into Boston with every step. Giving those away to someone or something is a HUGE gesture, and one that certainly didn’t escape me. Goosebumps, goosebumps, goosebumps.

The site of the first explosion

A terrific night then, from start to finish, as fun as it was poignant, and totally unforgettable. I think I’m not mistaken in saying Red Sox Nation has itself a few new initiates, and that Mr. Crimi’s bucket list is one item shorter. Just further reasons (as if it needed any) why Boston remains my favorite city in the world!