Entry 8: August 11

Oh soo nice to have a Notre Dame degree!!!

Once again, we got up early today to the boss’s shining singing of “Good Morning, Good Morning!” , probably another one of his made up songs. All the boys love the Clark wake up calls, though, in contrast to the Wiese door-banging to no avail, followed by the peeping tom act where Coach Wiese sticks his head in an open window and screams above an innocent sleeping Skipper(captain)-yours truly!!! Practice through the rain today was VERY sharp, and the anxiety is building even greater as we await the game tomorrow.

The word is that due to our results and the reputation we’ve managed to put together in town, Aberdeen’s club could be fielding some of their substitutes from the first team tomorrow.

A quick lunch, and away we go to Mr. Tom Griffin’s “house” for an afternoon ADVENTURE….???

And an adventure it was! Mr. Griffin is a Notre Dame graduate, class of ’63, who traveled to London to become a lawyer; but, somewhere along the way he got mixed up in the Scottish oil business, and now he occupies 1,000 acres of land and lives in what is known as the Menie Estate.

This marvel, I CANNOT describe. We spent the afternoon, from 2-7, roaming his house (nothing shy of a mansion – a 2,500-pound elam head on the wall accompanied about 15 deer heads in the ‘billiards room’ of the tower wing of the estate). We also hit golf balls on his mini-driving range, shot skeet over the hill (no Annie Oakley’s here!), rode four-wheelers on paths down to where his property met the beach, and went flyfishing in a stocked pond/waterfall.

Needless to say, this gentleman had plenty for us to do. An excellent meal was catered in and we ate in the Marquee – a wealthy pronoun for ‘really nice patio down by the stream’. Mr. Griffin was a very friendly man, and he wished us all the best and told us we should aspire to be great… I wonder if he aspired that sort of greatness when he was in South Bend???

Now the boys are resting, putting the feet up in preparation for the Aberdeen match tomorrow at 2. The weather has been rainy the last two days, so we’re hoping for sunshine tomorrow. We’ve made friends here on campus, as well as throughout the town, so people are going to be on the look-out for a big game tomorrow. Hopefully, we can pull off something big!

Coach’s teams that come over here every four years usually do fairly well, but none of his teams has ever managed to win the Aberdeen game. We’re going for the history books. Keep us on your mind, and watch for the result tomorrow night!

The Luck of the Irish!!!
– Greg Martin –