our native Ontario and drive south to the exotic and unknown (at least to me) land of Ohio. Why Ohio, you might ask (and, of course I did). Well, that was because Ohio was where a small university was located; it was a school my dad thought I might consider attending. “Terrific,” I said, imagining beautiful college girls with flowing blond hair, “Let’s go!”
At some point in the conversation (perhaps when I was emptying my sock drawer into my suitcase), he mentioned that it was a Catholic university, and that sort of startled my Protestant sensibilities a bit. I think I must have given him a quizzical look (maybe I even stopped dumping socks), but after my usual two-and-a-half seconds of deep analysis I decided I couldn’t care less if the place was Zoroastrian, as long as I could have a few days off from school and take the promised road trip (and meet those girls with the flowing blond hair). Besides, I was just looking after all, not signing up for four long years. This was to be an adventure, not a commitment. And I was certainly up for an adventure.
Road Trip
So we were soon on the road — my dad, me, some carefully folded maps (these being the days before GPS), and an absurd number of my socks. Our family station wagon was firmly pointed in a southerly direction, and I was still blissfully unaware that I was falling into a trap that my dad, my mom, and probably God had set for me. I hadn’t a clue that my road trip would become more than a teenage boy’s adventure, that it would irrevocably change the path of my life. All I saw was the possibility of having fun, of meeting new people. It never dawned on me to question why my father had chosen the school we were going to from all the possible schools in the world. I never even wondered very much why a Protestant clergyman was considering entrusting his son’s education to a Catholic institution.
Religion, faith, the things of the soul, didn’t show up on my radar screen very often back then. I’m a little embarrassed to say that even my parents’ deep Christian faith didn’t mean that much to me. Like most teenagers in our contemporary culture, I lived on the shiny surface of life, unconcerned with the possibility of any depth. I believed that God existed, and I had “accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and savior” in all sincerity during my pre-teen years (well … at least with all the sincerity of which a child that age is capable), but by the time I was sixteen, He had become remote — or perhaps I had. I had no trouble believing that God might be helpful in an emergency, but I had yet to encounter many real emergencies, so I usually kept God at a distance, out of sight and out of mind, like that fire extinguisher my parents had once bought, just on the off chance that it might be needed one day.
From Toronto we went through Buffalo, Erie, and finally on to Pittsburgh. Having received my license a couple of months before, I proudly shared the driving with my dad. As far as I was concerned, I was on the cusp of manhood, and with every passing mile I was feeling more and more collegiate. My time had come. I was on the move, and life was wide open before me, as wide open as the highways on which we traveled.
The drive lasted seven rather long hours, and I spent a lot of it committing everything I saw to memory. After we crossed the border, I found myself admiring the expensive and shiny new cars that so many Americans drove. I would have one of those someday, I decided, putting such a car on the rather extensive list of things I intended to acquire as I got older. As we drove on, however, I couldn’t help but notice that not everything was shiny and new. The sleek cars were a stark contrast to the grimy industrial sections of the Rust Belt cities we were driving through. Even the odor of the air was different, I realized. As we neared our destination, it became particularly distinctive — filled with the smog of steel mills and coke plants.
We finally arrived in Steubenville, which was the name of the town in which the college we were to visit was located. As we did, the air seemed to become thick not just with smoke but also with desperation. I couldn’t avoid noticing the poverty and living conditions. It was a dramatic change for me. I had never seen things like that in Toronto. I was in foreign territory, all right, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. I vaguely considered mentioning the names of a few colleges in California to my dad. California — at least the California of my imagination — was all gleaming and new, and I was sure it would smell more like the sea than like soot.
The university itself turned out not to be the most spectacularly beautiful thing I had ever come across, but as my dad and I drove onto the campus it looked exciting to me. How could it not? It was going to be the scene of my adventure. The school, by the way, was called Franciscan University, and it was named after St. Francis of Assisi. Despite my very Protestant upbringing, I knew a little about him (who didn’t?): he was kind; he liked animals, especially the cute, cuddly ones; he had an affinity for birdbaths.
My dad and I were given a dorm room to share. We were given tours of the campus. We were given brochures and other reading material. The students in general were surprisingly kind and welcoming. They seemed to like me, and I was impressed with their obvious good taste. I saw a few crosses (different from the ones I was used to: these had a crucified Jesus hanging from them) and other Christian symbols. I noticed the chapel and thought it looked weird and not like a church is supposed to look, but that was about the only impression that the religious nature of the place made on me. I had other, more important things on my mind.
I was biding my time, you see, eager for my adventure to begin. And finally my moment came. My dad was otherwise occupied and would be for a while. Seizing the opportunity, I told him I was going for a walk and made my way up a hill past the weird chapel to the academic buildings. I tried to work up some interest in them but found I couldn’t, as they were just dull, drab, three-story brick buildings, about as boring as it was possible for anything to be.
So I continued wandering, heading toward the center of the campus, soon finding myself in the J. C. Williams Student Center. Miracle of miracles, it housed a campus pub, and almost immediately this pub started to exert some strange gravitational pull on my body and maybe even my soul. It was clear that I was in the grip of a powerful force. Resistance was futile, so I had no choice but to let myself be drawn inside. There I discovered that the miracles continued: beer was on sale for a mere fifty cents! Yes, this must be the place for me after all, I realized in a vaguely revelatory moment. My father was a very wise man, and Catholics were obviously very practical people.
Thanks to my above average height and a fake ID (which my dad didn’t know about), I soon had my first can of American beer. Every drop was indescribably terrible, but I discovered that with perseverance and quantity the taste slowly but steadily improved. I was soon having a good time — the good time I had come to Steubenville to have. Despite being only sixteen years old, I was being accepted by college students as an equal, and that filled me with pride. I was feeling happier and happier, and I was becoming louder and louder.
Then in my growing exuberance I suddenly stopped, beer in hand, transfixed by a maple leaf on an article of clothing not far away. At home, this would be a common place occurrence, but I was far from home, a universe away from Toronto. I was in Ohio, in the United States, at a school named after a Catholic saint who liked animals. Maple leafs were out of place here. As I expanded my slightly fuzzy focus, the face of a shaggy haired, unshaven young man came into view. He was older than I was but not by very much, and seeing his maple leaf T-shirt was like beholding an oasis in the desert. After all, I was an expatriate, an exile who had found a fellow countryman. I was overcome with emotion.
Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?
Slightly buzzed extrovert that I was, I jumped up to introduce myself to the only other Canadian in Ohio — the only other one for miles around, perhaps the only other one in the whole state of Ohio. Mark was his name, and he came from Montreal. Within minutes we were swapping stories from north of the border … and drinking more beer. We would be friends for life; I could feel it. Much to my amazement I learned from him that there was yet another Canadian on campus — a member of Mark’s fraternity who hailed from the Toronto area, just as I did. There were actually three of
