Homesick

Homesick

 

I used to laugh when my uncle said he scanned the obituaries every day to make sure he wasn’t in them.   That’s the way I feel now as I read Semnet.  I keep waiting to see my name under “Presente!”    

It’s not like us Irish Catholics weren’t bred to cultivate and welcome death; it’s just that, as it becomes closer and closer with the passage of classmates and friends, I find myself feeling increasingly homesick for something that is slipping away.

For most of us, the homes of our youth are long gone, along with our parents and their whole generation. We’ve already grieved those loses.  

Our second home, though, was the seminary, and that memory has survived through the years, aided by our alumni association and reunions. Recently though, even that memory has started to fade for me.   It started back in ’89 when the Loma Prieta earthquake doomed St. Joe’s to the wrecking ball.  

Go back to Mountain View today and try to retrace your steps up St. Joseph’s Avenue to the front circle.  Try to find the palm trees.  Try to imagine where the front steps were, or the swimming pool, or the tennis courts.  You can’t do it. The transformation is so complete that you’ll be lucky not to get arrested for loitering as you wander bewildered through an eery McMansion Westworld.  Unfortunately, there’s no Riddlemoser Avenue or Canfield Circle to remind you that this was once a different, less pretentious place.  

You’ll have better luck if you drive around to the Rancho San Antonio Preserve, the place we use to call the campus.  It’s now a jogging mecca for manic IT types wearing expensive earphones, so be careful not to get trampled while you’re wandering around reminiscing about Peanut games, track meets or Alumni Day barbecues.  The creek is still there, of course, and some of the old trees, and the old handball court might still be standing.  That was the only recognizable thing for me 20 years ago, when I could still hear Conrad Gruber grunting as he slammed into the wall chasing a shot.  The rest of the area was totally confusing.  Even though I knew where the track and the fields should be, I couldn’t be sure anymore.  

Luckily Pop’s Rock is enshrined there now, providing an historic signpost for all those spandex-clad runners who might otherwise assume this place was immaculately-conceived as a yuppie Silicon Vally playground.  Back in the ‘90s, when Tom Sheehan and I visited St. Joe’s just before the wrecking ball hit, we found the grotto totally overgrown by brush and brambles.  We had to fight our way through the undergrowth to find the statue of the Blessed Mother, cowering nervously in her ivy-covered alcove, lest she be violated by some teen vandal oblivious to her pivotal role in young men’s lives.  We carried her up the hill and delivered her to safe sanctuary at Pat Browne’s San Jose cathedral.

Luckily the earthquake didn’t affect the buildings at St. Pat’s, so we’ve still had some place to root our memories.  For almost 30 years now we’ve had reunions there, and even though the place has changed a lot – new carpets muffling the echoes of our hard black shoes on the wooden floors, cushy suites replacing our spartan cubicles, shiny Hondas and Toyotas clogging the grounds instead of rusty Schwins and Raleighs – nevertheless, it still felt like home.  

But then Murph died – both Murphs actually.  And Don Cordileone made the Sulpicians an offer they couldn’t defuse.  And more and more members of the old guard started passing away.  That’s when my homesickness kicked in.   

The seminary was the mythic land of our youth, the Shakespearean stage for all our adolescent dramas and struggles.  We became each other’s archtypes, playing whatever roles we inherited through the accidents of community.  The living reality of that whole play has been kept alive by the ongoing earthly presence of our fellow actors.  But now, one by one, those actors are leaving the stage.  The unique seminary Camelot that we experienced is passing away, never to be repeated.  Though its memory is still present, there’s now a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, a shortness of breath, when I realize that many of my old familiar colleagues are no longer available to answer my questions, share my memories, or receive the butt of my jokes.  

That’s making me sad.  But also quite grateful.

greg mcallister