By Brian Doyle
The coolest thing about the University of Portland story is that there isn't one - there are zillions, some of which are hilarious, like the gentlemanly land scam idea the founders had for paying for the new place, or the time the university president traded the bull that serviced local cows for a new car, and some are haunting, like the time a university president had a heart attack and died on the stage at Howard Hall, or the boy who moved into his dorm room and then dove in the river and never emerged, and some are hilarious but tense, like a new vice president forty years ago discovering that we were technically bankrupt and his first official phone call is begging to the bank, and some are sweet and nutty, like the way the women's soccer team used to wander up into the stands barefoot after a game to shake hands with every kid who wanted to shake hands and get autographs, and then there are some stories that make you shiver and pray.
Like this one.
I sat in a little chapel filled with one hundred boys upon whom unimaginable crimes and sins had been committed, boys who had endured and survived more species of pain and desolation than I could account in a year, boys who had been married to sadness for years, boys who were thrashing all day every day toward some kind of shivering peace and rebirth, and every other one of these boys was bouncing his feet, or nodding his head, or grinning widely, or snapping his fingers, because there was a University of Portland alumnus standing where the altar usually is, and he was singing and roaring, and banging away beautifully on his enormous guitar, and the wild deft musicians behind him were making a muscle of music so joyous and fast and captivating that you just could not sit still, no matter how cool you wanted to seem, or how deep inside yourself you crouched as protection against rage and pain and fire, and the boy in front of me was rocking and bouncing like he was going to launch into space, and then he burst into tears, and he cried for the rest of the hour, although he never stopped rocking and bouncing for an instant.
I watched his tears slide down his face into his suit jacket, which was hairy and too small for him, and I wondered how many tears had been wept into that jacket, but there is no way to tell.
At the end of the concert, when the band had finished with an incredible flourish and it was okay for everyone to jump up and yell, the boy shot out of his chair and jumped up and down laughing until finally everyone settled down to a dull roar and began to file out of the pews.
Then every single boy in the chapel went up to the members of the band and shook their hands and said thank you and then they lined up by barracks and walked out of the chapel rustling and humming.
I saw this. I was there. I'll never ever forget that boy.
Something hit his heart right amidships, right in the place where joy and hope were down to their last lost grains, and it was a University of Portland man who delivered that thrilling blow, and I saw it delivered, and I saw it land.
That's what the University of Portland is for, hitting kids in the heart.
It happens all the time. It happens in a zillion ways. I saw one way.
I'll never ever forget it.
Brian Doyle is the editor of
Portland Magazine. This article appeared in the Portland
Magazine
