Chapter 34
University of Notre Dame – 1943
Never
in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that one day this old Ozark boy
would walk onto the campus of fabled Notre Dame as a student. When I alighted from the bus and walked
through the main gate under the huge leafy trees of the big quadrangle, I was
walking as if in a dream. There before
me was the gold leaf covered dome of the administration building and
surrounding the main quadrangle were traditional old dormitory and classroom
buildings. Some were of stone and some
of ivy-covered brick. In the distance to
the right I could see the football stadium that was familiar from newsreels of
triumphs of the “Fighting Irish”. (The
famous Knute Rockne had passed on and it was the era of coach Frank Leahy.)
When
I reported to the executive officer of the V-12 unit, a lieutenant commander,
he was delighted to find that I was an experienced fleet sailor. Most of my
classmates would be youngsters recruited fresh out of high schools. The Exec promptly pu me to work helping to
form the class. (It also turned out that
I was one of the older men in the class and it was no me who became known as
“Pappy” Frieze, a cognomen I would carry all the way through V-12 and
midshipman’s school until commissioning when I would become just another young
ensign.)
It
was on the morning of my second day at Notre Dame that I swore at a Naval
officer for the second, and last, time.
(The first was that young ensign who didn’t know where the master switch
was on PBY 71-P-7 starting out the “Hogan’s Goat” flight.) I came into the V-12 office to assist with
the class “Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill”.
When I appeared, the Exec’s yeoman casually said, “Hey, Frieze—too bad
about that second set of orders. Would
have liked to have those myself.”
I
stopped dean in my tracks. “What second set of orders?!”
“Geez,”
the yeoman said, “thought you knew about it.
Your orders to flight school came yesterday. The exec sent ‘em back.
“He
WHAT?!”
Sent
‘em back. He said that your orders to
V-12 too precedence even though the orders to AP flight school were dated
first.”
Without
hesitation I bolted into the exec’s office.
He was working on some papers at his desk. I do not recall my words but they spilled in
a torrent, some as purple as my face no doubt was, to the effect that I should
have had a choice in the matter. The
lieutenant commander carefully laid down his yellow pencil, leaned back in his
chair, ad heard me out. He did not speak
until I ran out of breath then his words were terse.”
“You
through, sailor?”
“Yessir—I
guess so.”
“Then
sit down!”
I
did so, clutching my white hat between my knees and knowing I had lost my
temper.
“Now
look, I will only tell you this once. If
you went to flight school, you would wind up this war nothing but a journeyman throttle
jockey. If you didn’t get your butt shot
off by a Zero—and the woods are going to be full of ex-service pilots when the
world is over.
“On
the other hand, if you can hack it in V-12—and about one out of three of you
won’t—you are going to get a fine college education in the major of your
choice—all paid for by Uncle Sam. If you
took those flight school orders instead of V-12, you would be a whole lot
dumber than I think you are! Besides,
once you get your commission you can apply for flight school as an officer if
you are bound and determined to fly. War
will likely be over by then—we hope—but I do believe it can be won without you
out there. Any questions?”
The
officer waited patiently while I fiddled with my white hat and thought about
it. I knew he was right. I suddenly flet stupid about my tirade. It would have been a dumb old country boy
mistake. I came to my feet, stood at
attention, and said simply, “Nossir!”
The
lieutenant commander smiled faintly as he picked up his pencil and turned back
to his papers. “All right, Frieze, we’ll
have men arriving all day. Get out there
and help Williams figure out the which dorm to put them in. By the way, you know that you have to revert
to apprentice seaman in the V-12 program so get that first class “crow” off
your uniforms. Carry on, seaman!”
That
evening I sat in my room in one of Notre Dame’s ivied dormitories and, with a
razor blade, took off both the first class AMM badges and two of the three
white strips on the cuff of my dress blues.
I also had to find a tailor to put the white seaman’s stripe around the
left shoulder of my blues and the blue one on my whites. It was difficult to adjust to being a “boot”
once more—especially on payday when I would drop from more than a hundred
dollars back to the apprentice seaman’s pay of twenty-one dollars a month!
Coming
as I had almost directly from the war in the Pacific and the crude living
conditions in Dallas hut C-4 on Ile Nou, Notre Dame was a dream come true. We bunked tow men to a room in the first
brick dormitory building to the left of the main campus gate. My roommate was a slender, black-haired New
Yorker named Rossi. He was a pleasant
young fellow and we explored the campus and went on liberties together.
All
the buildings were old, but they and the spacious campus grounds were
immaculately kept. Down a slope from the
main quadrangle was the grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking a
lake beyond which lay Saint Mary’s, the Catholic female equivalent of Notre
Dame.
Except
for the specialized Navy classes conducted in a new building west of the main
quadrangle, our classes were taught by either priests or lay brothers in their
black robes and crucifixes. They showed
no bias about we non-Catholics and at no time during my two stays at Notre Dame
was any effort made to convert me to Catholicism. [It is possible that the conversion had
happened the other direction 350 years before.
Rumor has it that our earliest ancestor coming to the New World, Francis
Perkins, was a part of the Gunpowder Plot in England and hence had to flee.]
The
only daily reminder we had that Notre Dame was a Catholic university was that
each class was begun by an “Our Father” recited in unison. To me, of course, it was the Lord’s Prayer
and thoroughly familiar, with one exception that embarrassed me the first
morning of classes. The “Our Father”
does not include the last line of the Lord’s Prayer, “For Thine is the Kingdom,
the Power, and the Glory forever and ever.
Ah-men.” When we got to that
point in Brother Justin’s English class, I rattled right on with the last line
loud and clear causing everyone to turn and look at me.
Mortified,
I muttered something like “I’m sorry, Brother Justin, you see I am a
Protestant.”
Brother
Justin, whose huge bulk in the black robe made him resemble Friar Tuck in the
stories about Robin Hood, simply smiled kindly and said, “You will find, Mr.
Frieze, that will not be held against you here.” Then he eyed my slender frame, patted his fat
belly, and added, “We shall get together sometime and perhaps you can pass along
your secret of girth control!”
In
actual fact, I did spend some non-class time with Brother Justin. He and many others of the staff were
quartered in an English motif grey stone building during that semester and
later when I came back to Notre Dame for midshipman’s school, I sat in the
lounge there with him and Brother Justin introduced me to the game of chess.
Our
Saturday night and weekend liberties in South Bend were not as raucous as those
in Chicago but it did not take Rossi and I long to find a favorite “watering
hole”. The South Bend of those days
centered around the LaSalle Hotel, the largest in town. It was conveniently situated downtown. A block north was a bowling alley which we
frequented. One block west was a street
having some bars and taverns.
Our
watering hole to replace the Crown Propeller Lounge in Chicago was one called “The
Music Box”. It featured a long bar
behind which was a small red-draped stage containing an organ. The organist on Friday and Saturday nights
was a pleasant elderly lady who had an extensive repertoire and was pleased at
requests, most especially when they were accompanied by a fresh drink. The first couple of evenings we spent there,
I promptly requested my favorite, “Sentimental Journey”. That lady had a memory for more than
music. From then on, like the combo at
the Crown, when she saw me come through the door she would welcome me by
swinging into that song. (No, doubt it
was the campaign bars on my blouse because, on twenty-one dollars a month, I
did not have much extra money to buy her drinks.)
Our
meager funds were another reason we frequented The Music Box. They had an ex-pug in the kitchen that cooked
the best bar chicken I ever tasted and, with a drink, it was dirt cheap. That was often our supper. Of course the fact that the Bendix Company
had a factory near South Bend that employed a lot of the “Rosie the Riveters”
during the war and some of them were regular patrons of the Music Box did
nothing to scare us away!
We
did not spend all our liberty time in bars or the bowling alley. Depending on our finances, we often took in a
movie, went to a ball game, or accepted home visit invitations form South Bend
residents willing to entertain servicemen far from home for dinner or a
picnic. (We found to our glee that
sometimes the latter would be some “Rosie the Riveter” types looking for men and
some dandy parties resulted!)
There
were also afternoon or evening USO dances.
At one of those I met a delightful little blonde tomboyish twenty-one-year-old
whose name, I regret to say, I have forgotten.
I persuaded her to give me her telephone number to let me see her
home. She was from a home similar to
mine back on the west side of Vancouver and we enjoyed each other’s company. She belonged to a girls’ softball team and I
spent a couple of Saturday afternoons watching her play. There was, however, still Shirly waiting back
in Vancouver and no real sparks flew between us so nothing ever came from that
relationship except some innocent and enjoyable companionship.
