UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

Thanks Everyone! I've been married close to 40 years so as anyone who's been married a long time knows: thick skin is a requirement! As to the "Eyewitness testimony", I was referring to those who post some incredible or hard to believe nugget of info, and when pressed on where/how they heard or know that, they respond with something as credible as: "I heard it from my neighbor's daughter's boyfriend's plumber's uncle, who happened to see/hear/get an inner locution that such and suck is happening, or happened (Do You Remember: IT'S GRUDEN!). AS to paragraphs, I will try and be better about that in the future. On my opening post I had an quick thought to say thanks and that just morphed into a long diatribe for which I beg forgiveness (Hey, I'm old and don't even like computers, so the fact that I am using one like this is quite an improvement).

After posting this yesterday, I remembered that I did attend two other ND games, One game was at the coliseum in Los Angles. Holtz was the coach and ND won 10-6. It was a glorious feeling to walk amongst the to-jam fans while they suffered another loss to ND. Don't know who was running the sound system that day, but after the game they kept playing the ND fight song - over and over, even in the bathroom. On the walk to our car, we had to walk through a gauntlet of (really) pissed off condom fans and came upon an older ND fan (65 to 75), laid out on the ground, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, with his wife trying to comfort him and stem the bleeding. Next to him on the ground was the largest usc fan I've ever seen, on his stomach with his hands handcuffed behind his back, and a cop on a horse standing next to them. The wife was repeating that they hadn't done anything, nor said anything and didn't know the guy who hit her husband. It was just that the old man was in his ND jacket and was smiling and happy. That's all it took. I was wearing an ND jacket too that day, and if I had been to that spot a few minutes earlier, that could have been me. I promised my wife, that even for free tickets or a sideline pass, we would NEVER visit that cesspool again.

The only other ND game I attended was at the Rose bowl against UCLA. We were 0 and 5 so far that season and most of the UCLA fans would laugh at us when we walked by wearing our ND apparel, with many of them chanting "0 and 6, 0 and 6" in an apparent prediction of our record after the game. There are a few fond memories of that day including that we won, but the one that stands out the most to me was what happened near the end of the game. The Irish had the ball and something happened down at the other end of the field, which I could not see, so I had no idea what was going on. The players for both teams were up by the line of scrimmage but were just standing around. I guess it might have been a TV time-out. I don't know. But all of a sudden, the Rose bowl speakers started playing the last few moments of the usc VS stanford game and the place was quiet. From what I remembered, stanford was winning and usc was driving. A few moments later that game was over and usc had lost. Then the loudspeakers announced that usc had lost and the Rose Bowl erupted in cheers! I learned that day that UCLA fans detest usc almost as much as we hate and detest usc and michigan. I was at the game with my oldest daughter and son and there are some more great memories of that day, but that's for another time,

In any event, thanks you all for the warm welcome and GO IRISH! (P.S: I didn't uses capital letters for usc, standford or michigan on purpose)