I managed to stay in shape, just as I had in the navy, by running and lifting weights. My younger brother Francis had set up quite a little gym in my parents’ garage, and it served me well.
When I’d run, I’d run all the way to Providence High on the other side of town to work out on their fields, and when I caught wind that they had finally started a football program, I volunteered and started coaching. I loved the game as much as ever, and coaching seemed to be the only way for a twentysomething guy to stay involved. I was a terrible coach. I yelled at the kids and did all the things I would eventually realize a coach really shouldn’t do. But I had fun with it. And I pushed those kids to get faster and stronger and to play their hardest, not just at the games but at every single practice. “Give it your all! Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork!” All that stuff that was reinforced in my gut by the navy.
I was still dreaming. Dreaming big. Dreaming of Notre Dame. Especially when I’d run, when I’d work out, when I’d be alone with just my thoughts. I even had the confidence to tell other people about it. At work, someone would be talking about the game, and I’d say, “I’m gonna go to Notre Dame someday.” Guys would laugh. Chuckle. Give a little sneer, like I didn’t know what I was talking about. Occasionally they’d give me some grief about it, and there were a couple of times when that old pent-up anger got the best of me and I’d wind up in a fistfight coming out of the elevator.
I’d bring it up at home, to my dad, and he’d say the most practical things he knew to say: “Well, how’re you gonna get in if you don’t have the grades for it, Danny?” or “How you gonna pay for that? It’s a lot of rich kids go to Notre Dame.”
It’s hard not to let that kind of stuff get you down.
But then there were a couple of guys who reacted very differently to my Notre Dame dreams. A couple of buddies from work. Older guys. Guys I decided to pay attention to, for some reason, more than I ever paid attention to the naysayers.
The first was George. George was a drunk. He admitted he was a drunk. He knew he had basically given up on life, given up on any dreams he might have had when he was younger, and resigned himself to the fact that he’d work at the plant until they forced him to retire, drowning any sorrows in cans of beer in the meantime. What was amazing to me is that he seemed totally at peace with that decision. One of the ways he made peace with himself, I think, was to stay connected to dreamers like me. I’d meet George at a bar after work, or sometimes stop by his house for dinner, and he’d pepper me with questions about my travels in the navy. He was an ex-navy man himself, and we swapped a lot of navy stories whenever we hung out together. He also asked me to imagine and describe what I thought life would be like at Notre Dame once I got there.
He liked to dream right along with me, and that inspired me.
Then there was Siskel. Siskel was a stocky guy, like me, but in his fifties. Real quiet kind of guy. He was very good at his job, which I admired. And he saw that I was having a hard time with some of the other guys. So one day at lunch we struck up a conversation. I could tell he was really listening to me, not dismissing my ideas as crazy or naive. The very first time we really talked about it, he told me, “You go do your dream, Rudy. You’re young enough, you got nothing to regret.” The more we talked, the more I put the pieces of his own story together. He had been at the power plant for more than thirty years. Thirty! The thing was, he had a dream once just like me. He wanted to go to school. He wanted to become a doctor. But instead, he married young, started a family, and felt he had to work to support that family. He needed a job with security. At least, that’s what he convinced himself he needed. Next thing he knew, thirty years had gone by. And without saying too much, he made it very clear that he regretted the fact that he didn’t pursue his dream. “Go do it, Rudy!” he’d say whenever I brought up the Notre Dame idea. “Who’s stopping you? You can go to Notre Dame. Why not?”
Why not? I kept asking myself that question. Asking and asking. Was I too scared to take that risk? Maybe. Would I make a fool of myself?
Quite possibly. What if I give it a shot and I fail? That would be terrible!
It’s amazing how strong our voices can be when we’re talking ourselves out of something: I should be happy to have a good job. This life isn’t so bad, is it? I have security and safety, and I’m saving some money. I don’t need to go to Notre Dame. People lead really good lives without going to Notre Dame.
But Siskel’s words, George’s words, and that young lieutenant’s initial encouragement on that stormy sea on our journey across the Atlantic kept bouncing around my head and bringing me back to that much simpler thought of Why not? Then, one day, I finally got a glimpse of what I thought might possibly be my answer.
I had dated a couple of girls in town after I got back from the navy. One of them I didn’t even really like that much, but her father was a Notre Dame graduate and I just wanted to be around him. How’s that for dedication to my dream?
I was with the second girl, though, when an opportunity dropped right into my lap: a fellow Joliet Catholic grad who was a year behind me had two tickets to a Notre Dame football game that he couldn’t use and he asked me if I wanted them. “Are you kidding?! Yeah!” So my girlfriend and I took off in my Mustang and made the trip east on I-80 to South Bend, Indiana. I was so excited to see that stadium again. I was so pumped to step foot on that campus again, period. But as we drove into town and headed to campus, something caught my eye that completely turned me around.
I saw a sign by the side of the road for something called Holy Cross Community College. I looked over and saw a few modest little brick buildings, which I assumed were all part of that school. We were just down the street from Fatima House, where I came for that retreat my senior year of high school. It was basically right across the street from Notre Dame. What is that place? I got chills.
“You see that little school over there?” I said to my girlfriend. “I think that’s my answer to Notre Dame.”
“What are you, nuts?” she said. Like everyone else, it seemed, she was tired of hearing me talk about this Notre Dame dream of mine. I guess you can only listen to people talk about something for so long before you just don’t want to hear it anymore. We all get that feeling, right? Like, Do something about it or shut up already!
“No, I think that’s it,” I said to her. “Look at it. It’s right there! There’s gotta be a connection. What if that’s my way in?”
She didn’t get it. My mind kept racing through the whole game. What was Holy Cross? Was it part of Notre Dame? I had heard of community colleges but knew nothing about them. None of my teachers or counselors or anyone had ever suggested to me that it might be an option. This community college is right here! Practically on campus! Could it be a way in?Could I go there?
It was all I could think about, even as we stepped into that stadium, took our seats on those little wooden bleachers, and watched the Fighting Irish come out of that tunnel with Touchdown Jesus standing tall in the background.
By the time we walked back to the car, my girlfriend was mad at me ’cause I was so distant and distracted. I didn’t blame her. In my mind I was already moving on. I was thinking about what it would be like to be here, going to that little school across the street, and coming to these football games whenever I wanted—with or without her by my side.
I always imagined there would be something remarkable about the most important day of my life. Maybe we all do that. You’d think there would be a certain sense of foreboding, a feeling in the air when you get out of bed. Something to tell you, “Hey, watch out. Big accident coming today.” Or, “Pay attention, Rudy. This day’s a biggie!”
But life’s not like that. Things happen. Boom! No warning.
When I think back on it, the only thing that stood out about that Saturday as I headed into work at the power plant was that nothing stood out. Nothing. Not even the weather. The skies were gray. Overcast. Typical. Bland. That’s it.
Compared to the wee
kdays, Saturdays at the plant were kind of quiet. The demand for electricity never stops, of course, so the actual mechanisms that deliver the power were just as loud as ever: the constant whoosh of pressurized steam, the pounding metal and resounding thud of feeder chutes opening and closing in sequence as they drop their heavy loads of coal onto the conveyor belts and the powerful crunch of pulverizing rock as all that coal moved steadily through the crusher. Yet on Saturdays and Sundays, the managers and crew were somehow more relaxed. A little less urgent. That pent-up energy of waiting for the weekend was gone, and for guys stuck on the weekend shift, I guess there was a sense of resignation. A sense that the work just had to get done, period. So even in the lunchroom, where things were rowdy on a Thursday or Friday, it wasn’t. It was quiet.
I ate lunch with Siskel that day. I sat across from him and we pulled our packed sandwiches from metal lunch pails just as you’d expect guys like us to be eating from, just as we did every other day. I don’t even remember what we talked about. It simply wasn’t a standout conversation. It wasn’t one of those times that he listened to me talk about dreaming of going to Notre Dame, or when he backed me up and told me to stop talking and go do it. A month had passed since I had first laid eyes on Holy Cross, and I hadn’t really done anything about it. I had just fallen back into the same old routine of work, home, work, home, work. It wasn’t one of those times when Siskel opened up either, wishing out loud that he’d become that doctor like he knew he could have. No. Siskel didn’t really talk much anyway, unless I said something to him first. So it was just an everyday, run-of-the-mill conversation. No significance.
After lunch, we all went back to what we were doing. I was an equipment attendant at that time. It was up to me to check all the equipment, make sure everything was oiled and running right. If there was a problem, it was up to me to shut things down, if necessary, so the electrician or mechanic could get in there and fix it. There was a procedure to everything, a sequence, so no one would get hurt. And it was a big, big deal that we take things one step at a time.
Siskel was a mechanic, so we’d wind up working together often. After I’d shut something down, I’d watch him work, and I’d always bug him with questions because he was so good at what he did. I always admired his work ethic. He knew what he was doing. After all those years on the job, whatever he did, he did it well.
On this particular afternoon, after lunch was over, I was adding hydrogen to a low-pressure unit, a process that takes about twenty minutes to complete. There’s a lot of waiting around at a power plant job, and this was one of the classic cases. I stood there waiting and waiting for the unit to fill, daydreaming a little bit, when all of a sudden I got a call on my radio from the control operator.
“Rudy, C1 tunnel, got a trip. You and Siskel need to get out there and see what’s up.”
A “trip” meant the conveyor had shut down. Maybe something was jammed. Could have been anything really. But we needed to get it going again.
I was almost done adding hydrogen and couldn’t stop with the job incomplete, so I hopped on the radio right away to Siskel: “Just give me a minute. I’ll meet you out there.”
He replied in the affirmative.
A minute or so later, I had wrapped up the job and was headed out to the C1 tunnel. It was maybe three hundred yards away, but it didn’t take long to walk over there. With the turbines and furnace going, it was hot. You couldn’t hear yourself talk over the whoosh of steam in there. And yet, as I walked out, I could hear the conveyor belt running. I could hear the feeders. I could hear the crusher. It sure didn’t sound like there’d been a trip. The system wasn’t stopped at all. I remember thinking, just for a second, That’s strange. Why’s it running? And that’s when I saw him: Siskel. Motionless. Lying flat on his back on top of the conveyor, passing under the feeders and being carried toward the crusher.
I ran over as fast as I could and pulled him off. His body was limp and heavy. I radioed for help. “I’ve got a man down! Help! I need help!” I followed our training and safety procedures and started giving him mouth to mouth. Another worker, an ex-marine, ran up seconds later and started giving him chest compressions. I just kept breathing into his mouth, which was covered with blood.
I’ll never forget that taste. That smell.
I had never seen a dead body before. Ever. Here I was touching one. Smelling one. Trying to breathe life back into one. Trying to breathe life back into my friend. And that life was gone. Just gone.
I stood up. Woozy. A bunch of the other guys gathered around and we all shared that horrible feeling of knowing there was nothing we could do. My co-worker kept at it, over and over. He refused to give up. “Stop,” I finally said. “He’s gone.”
Just then, almost miraculously fast it seemed, the paramedics arrived and took over. I remember standing back in a daze and watching the whole scene unfold. Of course, everybody was trying to figure out what happened. There were about five different feeder chutes, about a foot off the belt. And from the best we could figure, Siskel must’ve come in and seen whatever the problem was right away and thought it was an easy fix. So he hopped up there to take care of it himself rather than wait for me. Taking that shortcut is probably what cost him his life. If I had been there, I would have shut the whole thing down, electrically, to avoid any chance that the system could start up unexpectedly. I would have stood by and waited until the fix was made and any men were clear before turning everything back on. That was my job. But I never had a chance to do my job. The system must have called for fuel while Siskel was up there, and the belt must’ve started with a jump. That knocked him off his feet and before he could get his bearings the belt pulled him forward. His head smashed right into the first two feeders—one, two—and broke his neck.
Now here he was. My friend. On the floor. The paramedics tried and tried, but then they stopped too. There was nothing they could do. They lifted Siskel onto a gurney and we followed them out as they wheeled him toward the ambulance. Before I knew it, the doors had closed and he was gone. I watched as the ambulance pulled away.
I stood there covered in Siskel’s blood and stared up into that gray sky. Why, God? Why? I was just talking to him. He was right there. Now he’s gone? Why, God? Why? Tell me. Tell me what to do!
It all happened so fast. Just like that, his life was over. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One minute he’s there, next minute he’s not? Why didn’t he wait for me? Why did he jump up there? Why did this happen? What was he thinking? What did he die for? What am I doing here?
That last question was the one that got me. What was I doing there? I didn’t want to work at that plant. I certainly didn’t want to die at that plant. What was I doing?
Call it whatever you want: Instinct. A gut feeling. The voice of God. Whatever it was, I heard it. I felt it. Right then. Right there.
Leave.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t anger. Okay, maybe it was a little anger. Anger at the unfairness of it all and how awful it was. But it wasn’t rage. It wasn’t irrational. It was honest. The purest, most honest feeling I’d ever had. That voice in my head, in my heart, in my soul kept telling me, “Go!”
So I did. I stood at my locker at the end of the shift and stuffed all of my things into my bag. Emptied the whole thing out.
“Rudy, what are you doing?” a couple of guys asked.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
It was more than a feeling now. I had said it out loud. It was real.
All those times Siskel had told me, “Get out of here. You don’t belong here. What good is security if you’re not happy?” And this is what it took for me to finally listen?
Go for the dream. That was the message. A message that now came loud and clear.
When I walked out the door that afternoon, that was it. I didn’t officially quit that day. I didn’t say anything to my supervisor. But I knew: I was done. I would do exactly what Siskel had been telling me to do all this time. I
would do what I knew I wanted to do, for all this time, but simply hadn’t found the courage to do on my own. Siskel’s accident somehow gave me that courage—the courage to walk away. It was the courage to not do the safe thing, the easy thing, the acceptable, “normal,” proper thing that any man with a steady, good-paying job is supposed to do. The courage to stop worrying about failing and to just get out there and try. To try! Why are so many of us afraid to even try?
When I got home that night, I didn’t tell my parents I was going to quit. I didn’t want to hear their complaints. I didn’t want to hear any second thoughts or doubts or fears about what I was doing. Instead, I started to make a plan. I had my first clue already: Holy Cross College. I knew that somehow Holy Cross would be my way in.
But how?
Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, my mind did a complete one-eighty. I stopped thinking about all those reasons why I couldn’t go to Notre Dame, and instead started focusing on how I could. I started to put a plan into motion, even though I had no idea how that plan would unfold. And for the first time in my life, that fear of the unknown didn’t seem scary at all. You know what seemed scary? Dying without trying. A lot of people have a dream, but they’re afraid to go for it, too afraid they’ll fail. Suddenly, after that fateful Saturday, all I kept thinking was, Who cares if I fail? After you’ve seen a life end that quickly, it puts it all in perspective. I wasn’t going to ask for other people’s advice now. I wasn’t going to give anyone in my life the chance to stop me from doing what I needed to do. I already had the answer I needed. God gave me that answer. My gut gave me that answer.
One day later, I hopped into my car in the morning and peeled out of the driveway without telling anyone. I pulled onto I-80 and headed east . . . toward South Bend, Indiana.
Rudy: My Story Page 8