Monday, August 6, 2018

Thoughts About Corporate Media Relations, In Real Life

“Annie Hall” is a favorite old movie.

In a favorite scene, a Columbia professor who teaches “TV, Media and Culture” stands in line in a crowded theater lobby, loudly and pompously trying to impress his date by quoting Marshall McLuhan.

The real McLuhan magically steps into the picture and shuts him up by saying, “You know nothing of my work! How you got to teach a course in anything is amazing!”

The punchline: If only real life were like that.

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Something similar happened to me recently.

Fade in to more than a year ago. Asked by Ragan Communications to talk about media relations to PR professionals, I cited a decades-old pamphlet, “The Executive’s Guide to Handling a Press Interview,” to say the basic principles of effective media relations hadn’t changed since.

Dick Martin, a legendary long-time AT&T PR executive, had published the following tips in 1977:
• Tell the truth
• Remember your audience
• Begin with your conclusions
• Be brief
• Avoid jargon
• Keep control of the interviews
• Don’t try to answer hypothetical questions
• Don’t lose your temper
• Don’t repeat negatives
Remember, local news isn’t local 
All, to me, were still valid. The last point was prescient, since it was made long before the Internet existed. It referred to local news stories that had broader impact if syndicated by AP or UPI.

Now shift scenes to this past March, when I actually met Dick Martin.

He had just keynoted the “PR Women Who Changed History” event in New York, where he eloquently spoke about the life of the late Marilyn Laurie, AT&T’s first and only female chief communications officer. You can view a video of his talk on the Museum of PR’s Facebook page.

I excitedly introduced myself afterward and told Mr. Martin that I had used his 1977 pamphlet as the basis for a presentation about the immutable principles of good media relations.

He looked at me like I was crazy.

Urbane and polite, he didn’t exactly say, “You know nothing of my work! How you got to be a spokesperson for Verizon is amazing!”

Instead, as he furtively looked for the nearest exit, he simply said, “I don’t know about that. I think a lot of things have changed about media relations since then.”

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So I thought long and hard about what to say when the Museum of PR invited me to speak to students attending a PR Summer School event last month. The topic was how to be a corporate spokesperson.

Undaunted, I used the same slide of Dick Martin’s media relations tips. Good messaging is good messaging, I said, still believing the points he made in 1977 are just as valid today.

But, I acknowledged, so much else has changed in the meantime. Coincidentally, it’s changed in the same way Marshall McLuhan predicted it would in the 1960s. “The medium is the message” referred to a world connected by technology. This, McLuhan theorized, would change the nature of what’s news, and what our relationship is to all the things that will be communicated to us.

He was right. Technology and the global village created by the Internet have changed the nature of news, and the nature of our lives.

Avoiding politics, I pointed out recent evidence of this in the world of major league baseball.


About the nature of news. A story ran on TV evening news – which has precious little time to inform viewers about important world events – about a fan claiming a ball thrown into the stands by a Chicago Cubs player. A camera caught a man grabbing the ball and giving it to a woman seated next to him after it was muffed by a young boy in the row in front of them.

Social media went into immediate witch-hunt mode. Literally millions of people viewed the video on Twitter and condemned the man. The Cubs PR team reacted with blinding speed – the speed of good PR these days being measured in mere minutes in this era of 24/7 news cycles. They posted a tweet of a Cubs player handing the boy two autographed baseballs in atonement.

Only later – after initial news reports -- was it learned that the man in the video had collected many baseballs from his seat in back of the dugout during the year… and that he’s known for giving the baseballs he collects to children sitting nearby. Earlier that same game he had given that same boy an errant foul ball.

More and more, this is now the nature of news: lacking perspective, rushing to judgement, pandering to page views.


About the nature of ourselves. Do you know what niche area of PR will be extinct in 20 years?

Media training.

Consider 24-year-old Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Josh Hader’s locker-room interview after this year’s All Star Game. As he played in the game earlier that evening, the Twittersphere surfaced racist and misogynistic tweets from his account seven years earlier.

Again, the speed with which it became a story was mind-boggling. While the game was underway, baseball PR handlers descended into the stands to advise his parents to turn their Hader-emblazoned jerseys inside-out so they wouldn’t be harassed. Meanwhile, the players themselves consulted cell phones in the dugout as they followed the saga of Hader’s seven-year-old tweets.

Immediately after the game, facing dozens of reporters and cameras in a confined space in the locker room, Hader handled the interviews expertly: he sincerely apologized, took ownership of the situation, looked everyone in the eye and answered tough questions directly. He even volunteered to attend sensitivity training and gave some context (quoting rap lyrics) for his tweets as a 17-year-old.

Media trainers would advise that this is the first rule of damage control: go ugly early. Get all bad news out quickly and begin taking steps to fix things.

Hader seemingly knew this instinctively. His demeanor on camera, at the worst moment of his life, may well have been the product of having grown up in an age where people no longer have to be “trained” how to behave on camera.

The best video training technique these days is simply to turn a cell phone camera on yourself and record. You self-correct after seeing the video.

With video now part of everyone’s everyday lives, and some people having lived this way since childhood, we have become different people because of it.

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In this new environment, I offered students three takeaways that, even in 2018, harken to basic principles of media relations that Dick Martin might still agree with.

1. Respect Journalists.

In a recent Washington Post column about “the sorry state of corporate media relations,” Steven Pearlstein writes that in many companies what is widely referred to as “earned media” now takes a back seat to “owned media.” Companies use websites, Internet search engines and social media to build their brand identities and communicate directly with stakeholders.

True enough. Owned media is a strategic marketing and sales weapon.

But earned media -- getting a story told by a third-party who has no vested interest other than uncovering the truth – can be a weapon of mass destruction.

Earned media deserves PR attention now more than ever. Building trust with reporters and helping them do their jobs can authentically enhance a brand’s value in a way that money still can’t buy. Ignoring the power of earned media can quickly ruin reputations. Look what’s happened recently to Uber, Facebook and Wells Fargo. And to the entire business of Theranos.

As the number of true journalists sadly continues to decline, every one who remains deserves an increasingly higher degree of respect.

2. Learn the Numbers.

“Follow the money” isn’t just good advice for investigative journalists; it’s also good advice for  corporate communicators.

You can differentiate yourself from many PR peers and enhance your career by taking the time and effort to learn and understand your company’s finances.

To become a strategic adviser rather than an order-taker, it’s essential to view your company from an owner’s point of view and to understand the financial issues that drive business decisions.

While most everyone values lifelong learning, often “creatives” or “word-people” avoid learning about finance.

Here’s an easy fix: study earnings release disclosures, and read 10Ks and annual reports. At the very least, ask finance colleagues about their jobs. Invite an accountant to lunch.

3. Advocate for something you love.

This is by far the most important rule for any spokesperson.

I work for Verizon. Every day, the company connects millions of people, companies and communities with powerful technology. Here’s a video of my colleagues sharing their favorite lines from Verizon’s Credo, the set of principles pictured here that describes the company's core values.

Throughout my career, I’ve been privileged and honored to have been able to work with some of the best journalists in the world.

I’ve been equally privileged and honored to have been able to do so while speaking on behalf of Verizon employees.

If, in real life, you’re not proud of the PR work you’re doing, you’re advocating for the wrong company or client. Get out. Now.

You’d be better off going home and watching a favorite old movie.

Sunday, July 29, 2018

How Springsteen Saved My Ordinary Life

The screen door slammed; Nancy's beach dress waved.

Like a vision she ran across the back porch, as a portable speaker played another Springsteen song.

The previous evening, on the occasion of the "blood moon" in suburban New Jersey, I had been hoping for a night of magic -- filled with celestial signs and wonders. But instead of red weather, whenever the full moon peeked through the rain clouds, it was ordinary and decidedly white.

On this hot, humid Saturday in late July, I had decided to go for a swim.

I was splashing like a drunken sailor, listening to my favorite music without a care, when my wife ran to my side... and started to pull the automatic cleaner from the water. It had been mindlessly scouring the bottom of our pool.

"I heard the music," she said, "so I thought you'd be in here."

She tugged frantically at a cord to bring the device to the surface. Large orange stickers attached to the cord proclaimed these words in bold white lettering: "WARNING Do Not Enter Pool When Robotic Cleaner Is In The Water."

"Didn't you see this?" she asked.

"Oh, jeeze, I'm sorry," I said. "It's electric! I could have killed myself!"

"You're welcome," she said, a little shaken.

"Of course, thank you! You saved my life!" I said, adding, "Although... since you only came out here because you heard the music... technically, Bruce Springsteen saved my life. But thank you anyway. I mean it!"

"Don't mention it," Nancy said, now smiling. "I'll put it on your tab."

This tab is real; I'm an idiot.

I may have my virtues, but I'm useless around the house. I'm a klutz, and I can't install anything that isn't software-based. No one trusts me with a hammer. My one saving grace was that I used to be pretty good at mowing the lawn, but my family unilaterally decided to hire a gardener years ago because I kept infecting myself with poison ivy.

Also years ago -- upset, with my head clouded after the worst fight I ever had with one of my then-teenaged daughters -- I decided to clean out the gutter over our front door. I retrieved the ladder from the garage, and set it up, a bit shaky, then started climbing.

When I nearly reached the top, I felt a tug from underneath.

I looked down and saw my daughter, holding the ladder steady.

She had seen me from the window of her bedroom, where we had just been arguing, and she ran down the stairs, concerned, when she saw me place the ladder against the side of the house.

We didn't say a word to each other. She just looked up at me with an expression of exasperation while I fished leaves from the gutter.

I have never felt more loved than at that moment.

Such is my charmed life in suburban New Jersey -- where I've learned, over the years, to show a little faith. There's magic even on ordinary nights.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

The Corporate Life Chose Me


Thursday evening, July 26, I'll be speaking at a Museum of PR "Summer School" event in New York (details here).

The topic is my work as a spokesperson in the changing world of corporate America (unless things change by then). Registration is free, and the event will also be streamed live on Facebook.

My Twitter Moment, see below, celebrates the hashtag #CorporateLife -- and you might think from this that I sometimes don't take my job very seriously.

On the contrary, I want to let you in on a few secrets.

First, I've worked for Verizon and pre-Verizon companies for more than 30 years. That makes me an odd duck. But I have to tell you, as I've written before, it's never felt like that. I may not have changed companies, but the company has changed several times around me.

Like father, like son. My Dad worked at a Verizon predecessor company, New York Telephone, for 33 years. Dad didn't always love his job (working in Customer Service is particularly demanding) -- but he always loved his family. If he were still with us today, he'd be very proud that I followed in his giant footsteps.

Second, I have no regrets. Verizon is a tech company that helps people communicate. Its goal is to deliver the promise of the digital world to customers, and it aspires to do so in an ethical way. Check out the Verizon Credo. I think that's pretty cool.

Third, I love my particular job -- media relations -- because I get to work directly with the best journalists in the world.

Journalists are under fire these days, and I think unfairly so. Their world -- like mine, and yours too -- is radically changing. But even on their bad days, journalists do more good in the world than most. It's been an honor and a privilege to be able to help them do their jobs.

Want to hear less about me and more what life is like in corporate PR these days? Tune in on Thursday night. I hope it will be informative -- and fun.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Postscript: Another Look Back Home

Pardon this mid-week interruption.

After posting photos and a few words about New Jersey here Sunday, I found myself in a nostalgic mood -- especially since I wound up visiting Mom in the house where I grew up in Totowa.

Here's just a glimpse of the living room there: that lamp, the doilies, all the little decorating touches Mom calls “gingerbread.”

I also posted two more photos -- both distant views of the New York City skyline -- on my Instagram accounts related to last week's adventures.

Here, for one, is a scene from the Rockefeller Lookout in Palisades Interstate Park. The one tiny boat sailing down the river is even smaller than Henry Hudson’s... but, as Hudson said when he first saw the view, “This land may be profitable to those that will adventure it!”


The other is an uncharacteristically vivid edit of a sunrise photo after a visit to Hamilton Park in Weehawken.

Editing photos heavily like this reminds me of my former Latin teacher in college. A priest, he offered this worldly advice when assigning translation homework: “Keep in mind that translations are like women. The more beautiful they are, the less true.”




Sunday, July 15, 2018

12 Images and Stories; 1 Week in New Jersey


These are the photos I took and the stories I shared about New Jersey this past week: a six-day adventure on behalf of Jersey Collective, a collaborative Instagram account that a different photographer takes over each week.

The week, for Jersey Collective, began on Monday, July 9, 2018, and I posted two images each day.

But, of course, the actual start of the week is Sunday, so I posted this photo of the Fair Lawn Bible Church on the 8th -- as part of the #NJChurchEverySunday collection I'm toying with at a Jersey-centric Instagram account. The rest of the week follows.

July 9 - Bendix Diner and Fairy Tale Forest


What better way to begin a week in New Jersey than breakfast at a diner?

Here’s the counter at the legendary Bendix Diner, which sits alone in an island at the fork of busy Route 17 North and South in Hasbrouck Heights. I had the place to myself at 6 a.m., and the gracious longtime owner Eva didn’t mind that I took photos. She’s grown pretty used to it in the Instagram era.

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Yesterday while driving up Oak Ridge Road, I saw my past flash before my eyes. So I pulled over for this: the entrance to Jersey’s iconic Fairy Tale Forest, which, according to recent news reports, will reopen later this year after seven years of restoration.

Opened in 1957 by German immigrant Paul Woehle, the Brothers Grimm theme park set behind this roadside castle and massive “wooden” shoe is a cherished childhood memory for many (myself included). Woehle’s granddaughter, Christine, is leading the restoration efforts and plans to begin the park’s reopening by launching a cleverly-named family-friendly restaurant, Fables, by the end of this summer.

July 10 - New Bridge Landing and Garret Mountain


Here’s a morning scene within walking distance from my home: No filters, just beautiful natural colors at Historic New Bridge Landing.

This is the Westervelt-Thomas Barn, built in 1889 out of timbers from an older house and a brewery. It’s not nearly as famous as the Red Mill in Clinton, but to me it’s just as photogenic.

The barn originally stood in Washington Township and was donated to the Bergen County Historical Society in 1954 and reconstructed on its current site.

It was restored as an agricultural museum in 2014, open now on special occasions and filled with agrarian artifacts and tools.

Here’s why I ❤️ New Jersey: it’s in the center of everything. Just to the north of this four-building historic park is a nature path along the Hackensack River; just to the south is a shopping mall with restaurants and a theater, across the street to the west is a commuter railroad station, and to the east is the town of Teaneck, with New York City (like Emerald City) just miles in the distance.

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A favorite place: the scenic overlook of Paterson from Garret Mountain Reservation. Just off Route 80, along the drive home from work, it was nearly 7 p.m. when I stopped by and still nearly 90 degrees. The parking lot was full, and people lingered in cars and listened to music, or ventured to the stone wall to take selfies and usies.

Down below is one of New Jersey’s great cities. It’s complicated and crowded and messy and beautiful. “The past above, the future below and the present pouring down: the roar.” (-- William Carlos Williams, “Paterson”)


July 11 - Weehawken and Jersey City


View of New York from New Jersey before sunrise at the site of Alexander Hamilton’s duel with Aaron Burr (214 years ago today). That’s the boulder where Hamilton laid his head after he was mortally wounded, covered this morning with wishing-well pennies.

This area near “death rock,” marked by the bust of Hamilton, is one of my favorite places to view the New York City skyline from New Jersey. I found it thanks to a photography meetup run by @njspots early this year. I’ve also enjoyed going to other meetups around the state, thanks to the great photographers at @blackglassgallery. (You should follow them all!) 

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View of New Jersey from New York. I wanted to show the opposite of what I posted here this morning, and this was the view late this afternoon from the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building.

That’s the Jersey City waterfront skyline on the right side of the Hudson River (with the Statue of Liberty just a speck in the middle). Jersey City (larger than Fort Wayne and Buffalo) and Newark (larger than Jersey City) are the only cities in the state among the 100 largest in America. Still, 7 of the 10 most densely populated places in the country are located in New Jersey: Guttenberg, Union City, West New York, Hoboken, Cliffside Park, East Newark and Passaic.

July 12 - Paramus and Califon


I pulled over on my morning commute to explore the footbridge linking two shopping malls on either side of Route 4 in Paramus, AKA Mallville USA.

This small North Jersey borough has more square footage of mall space per capita than anywhere else in the country (and some say, the world). Because of local Bergen County “blue laws” most of the stores are closed on Sundays – and referendums to repeal these laws always fail because, at least on Sundays, the local traffic isn’t so bad.

This image faces west. The largest of the malls, Garden State Plaza, is just up the road to the left. Our local paper, The Record, recently posed this question: “As dying malls around the country are being replaced by ‘alls’ — multi-use centers that combine housing, office space, dining and entertainment with shopping — the question facing Paramus is this: Will it remain the last holdout of shopping malls? Or will it be a national model that figures out how to make brick-and-mortar retail work into the next half of the century?”

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After work, I stopped to visit this sweet, forgiving, patient and majestic horse. He was thinner than this shadow 8 years ago, when he was rescued by my sweet, forgiving, patient and caring daughter.

Token of My Affection, or simply Token, is a 20-year-old Friesian from Holland. Once rescued, he enjoyed a great second life as a show horse before retiring from competition last year. Soon after I took this photo, he started to roll happily in the dirt.



July 13 - Basking Ridge and Wayne


This used to be a waterfall. Seriously.

It’s summer Friday, and for many this morning is just another working day in a suburban office park. There are quite a few in New Jersey. This campus used to be AT&T’s home until it was put up for sale in 2001, and the company removed its 16-ton gilt statue “Golden Boy” from outside this front entrance.

It was sold to Pharmacia, but never used — until Verizon bought it in 2005, gutted the buildings, took out the shag carpeting, and replaced an imposing black-stone waterfall feature in the front lobby with a graceful spiral staircase — right underneath that circular opening in the photo. I say “imposing” because I once tried to visit a girlfriend who was interning at AT&T, and thought to myself, “I’ll never work in corporate America.”

I was so wrong. Decades into a corporate career, I happily just purchased a coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby. Virtually all the private office space here has been converted to an open work environment with many great amenities. Still, there are days I miss having a traditional office. 

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Date Night on Friday the 13th.

My wife and “permanent date” keeps threatening to start an Instagram account so she can post photos of me with my iPhone, trying to take atmospheric “Date Night” photos. She wants to call it, “The Ugly Side of Date Night” of “The Other Side of Date Night.” 

You can see some of these tagged #DateNight images on my @foundinnj and @bvarphotos accounts.

In the meantime, as I took this photo, a great solo musician, Jay Mickens, diligently played in the background to a sparse and listless audience in the fading sun. It was suggested that someone should start a band called Atmospheric Datenight.

July 14 - Alpine and Maplewood


This is Devil’s Tower, a haunted site in the middle of an upscale neighborhood in Alpine, NJ.

I returned here on a hot Saturday morning, thinking back to my only other visit last September, a few days after my birthday. Back then, I had posted a superstitious 13 photos of the place in a shared Google folder.

The legend is, if you drive or walk backward around the tower at least three times, you see the ghost of a woman who leapt to her death there — or find yourself face-to-face with the devil.

I didn’t temp fate either last September or on this morning in July; it was already hotter than Hell. 👻

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Maplewoodstock!

Today (Bastille Day!) was the first of the free two-day music, art and food festival at Memorial Park in Maplewood.

How did I find out about this?

I came upon a child of God walking along the road, and he said friends and neighbors started the annual event in 2004 — in the spirit of Woodstock and 1,500 miles from Austin.

Just remember: We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon.

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Adieu, and thanks for checking in on my travels this past week around New Jersey, the Garden State — a land of Dover dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new.


Sunday, July 8, 2018

Hello, Jersey Collective

Please allow me to introduce myself.

I'm Bob, and this coming week I will be contributing photos to Jersey Collective, a collaborative Instagram account that a different photographer takes over each week. Every day since March 2014, guests have posted at least one photo taken in New Jersey with a cell phone camera.

Asked to supply a bio for the site, I sent this:

Bob Varettoni has lived and worked in New Jersey FOREVER (yes, he's a vampire... and also, according to his favorite coffee mug, The World's Greatest Dad). He considers the Garden State the center of the universe, with easy access to cities and farms, beaches and forests, art and commerce -- and everything in between. His Tumblr (bvar.tumblr.com) and @foundinnj IG accounts are devoted to all things Jersey. Bob takes photos using an iPhone, which he has at his side 24/7 for work (corporate PR) and play.

So I've been around for a long, long year -- and also post many an image at @bvarphotos since Instagram is my favorite (that is, "creative" and "drama-free") social media platform.

Please join me this coming week at @jerseycollective, and get a little taste of life in New Jersey in 2018.

An example of what you might find?

Just this past week, I wandered around Paterson -- one of the most underestimated and misunderstood places in America. I have sympathy for the town, and just a few images to share:





Here's a somewhat related video -- not mine, and originally posted by Chris Pedota on www.northjersey.com -- of Paterson artist Said Elatab, who is inspired by the tragedies of his past.

  

Saturday, June 30, 2018

Pictures at an Exhibition

What if nothing in our world was filtered?

In “Just Kids,” Patti Smith described being once inspired to draw a portrait of a portrait. It was one of many lines that intrigued me in the book – and you can read my review at the end of this post.

It made me wonder: Isn’t a portrait of a portrait more real than real life these days?

We live in a world of filters. Our photos are filtered; our news is filtered; our feelings are filtered.

With this in mind, I close June 2018 by posting a few photos I took at the Snite Museum of Art on the Notre Dame campus when the month began.

It seemed I had the museum to myself, as if in a recurring dream from childhood where I am the only person on earth, and I wander freely to explore amusement parks or city streets or walk along the center line of empty highways.

Here’s what I saw. No filters. Just art.






Two more, from a previous visit...


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Just KidsJust Kids by Patti Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Let me begin in the style of Patti Smith's Instagram account: This is a wonderful book.

The Audible version is quirky… read by the author, who drops her “g”s, pronounces piano as “piana,” and drawings as “drawlings.” Also, so many mentions of Arthur Rimbaud and the word Abyssinian. I found it enchanting, because it’s a world so different than my own.

I think – other than that we are both from New Jersey and she wore a shirt with my initials on it in the iconic cover photo for “Horses” – I have nothing in common with Patti Smith, or with Robert Mapplethorpe (who took the photo). But there was something universal that tugged at my heart when she read, “When I see this photo of me, I see him.”

Also, the book allowed me to time travel and be transported to New York City in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. All the passing names and images, all now mostly dead or lost.

This is not, however, a memorial to a lost generation. Long before they became Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, Robert encouraged Patti to sing, and Patti encouraged Robert to take photos. Am I a fan of their art? It doesn’t matter. The art they created is inconsequential to the act of its creation.

This is, in the end, a story about the transformational power of love.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Totowa Under Attack: An Update on the Abandoned Asylum

Abandoned buildings in the tall grass

My Mom’s town is under attack… first by Blackhawk helicopters, and now by wall-shaking explosions every weekday around noon.

It started in mid-April when, no lie, the U.S. Department of Defense conducted secret nighttime war games on the grounds of an abandoned asylum less than a mile from the house where I grew up in an otherwise quiet neighborhood in Totowa.

During a visit today, Mom described nearly daily explosions since May at the same site. The blasts have shaken her house so hard they’ve knocked framed family photos from the walls.

Welcome to life in the New Jersey suburbs.

Blame a development project now under way at the former North Jersey Development Center. The state Department of Labor is overseeing the blasting, scheduled to occur through August to remove 450,000 yards of material in preparation to build a computer center for JP Morgan bank.

In all, 35 buildings on the 188-acre site are being demolished to make way for a 257,000-square-foot data center. This is part of a larger redevelopment project that will also include 590,000 square feet for an assisted living facility, a medical office, a research and development facility, and associated parking lots.

A little over two years ago, I wrote about the history of the Development Center, and the post has attracted a steady stream of visitors since.

Here’s the way the main building looked in April 2016:


And here’s the way it looks in June 2018. Like me, just a little worse for wear:



But the backhoes are poised to do their dirty work:




It's only a matter of time.

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Reflections on God, Country, Notre Dame

With Dad on graduation day
It was my Dad’s greatest wish for me to graduate from Notre Dame. It is still, to this day, one of the greatest joys of my life to have done so… because it made him so proud.

On this Father’s Day, having recently visited my alma mater for Reunion Weekend 2018, I reflect on three of Dad’s favorite topics, in reverse order…

Notre Dame

Like Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap, Notre Dame likes to amp things up to 11.

This is engrained in the school’s DNA. After a fire destroyed the campus’ main building in 1879, Notre Dame’s founder, Holy Cross Fr. Edward Sorin, walked through the ruins, gathered students into the church next door and put the blame on himself for not dreaming big enough.

“I came here to build a great university to honor Our Lady,” he said. “But I built it too small, and She had to burn it to the ground to make the point.”

Welcome home
This is how the present-day Golden Dome was born. It is the still the centerpiece of the campus, and still gives chills to anyone turning the corner on Notre Dame Avenue to see it gleam a mile away in the distance. The sight impresses visitors, and welcomes alumni home.

But it’s a very different home than I remember. In 2018, one overheard first impression of campus was, “It’s like a golf course with a starburst of buildings.”

The comment brought to mind the image of myself, standing next to my young daughter on a visit here nearly a decade ago. She took in the sweeping expanse green fields outlined by new dorms and academic buildings of Collegiate Gothic design, distinctively colored by Sorin Brick made from lime-rich marl, a mud that lines the campus’ two lakes.

“Dad, you went to school here?” My young daughter asked, with a touch of awe Fr. Sorin would have delighted in.

“I went to school HERE?” I found myself repeating, with a touch of wonder. The entire quad she was looking at didn’t exist when I went to school at Notre Dame. I couldn’t believe it either.

By 2018, the campus had expanded even further. The new law building housed an entire courtroom, suitable for full-scale mock trials. The new performance arts center was built around not one, but seven stages. The new science building encases an entire planetarium.

A new football stadium was build around the old stadium... and then, as part of a $400 million development project, geo-thermal wells were installed beneath the parking lots and even the surrounding stadium was surrounded itself by four new, adjoining buildings, including a student center with a rock-climbing wall and a two-story ballroom overlooking the 50-yard line.

It’s as if Notre Dame cocoons itself every few years, and then explodes into something bigger and brighter.

Country

Bigger, brighter, bolder. This is, after all, Indiana, the heart of America.

The Reunion Weekend included a reception in one of the football stadium’s new concourses. It was, quite literally, an open bar the size of a football field.

It is Catholic; I renewed my marriage vows here.
Consider the scene: strobe lighting, DJs and dance floors at both entrances, a sea of people drinking heavily. Tables upon tables of free food and drink. Blue-shirted workers hustle dirty dishes and try to keep the common areas clean. At one long table, dozens of plastic cups are lined up for an epic, recently abandoned, game of beer pong.

I am approached by a member of the cleanup crew. He seems upset, and he thinks — because of my age or sports coat or skin color — that somehow I am in charge of all this.

“This is not right,” he says to me earnestly, in a thickly accented voice. “This is a Catholic college.” He pointed to the beer pong table and to trays of hardly eaten food. “Too much,” he says. “Too much beer.”

He asks me to let the other organizers know his feelings. I agree to pass his comments along, transcribing his email address from a cracked phone screen.

I consider the maids and janitors in the dorms; the people who drove the golf carts and shuttle vans to transport alumni around the sprawling campus; all the workers at the two large dining halls; the gardening, maintenance and construction crews who were working in the hot sun that day; the salespeople at the bookstore; the ushers at the arts center; the grounds crew personnel at the stadium, and the temporary help they employed to stand guard at all the entrances to the football field.

All these people — the people at the party and the people cleaning up after the party — are part of what this university has become. It reflects the heart of America today. We aren’t necessarily divided by purpose, but we are still divided by race and age and gender and economic means. Even at a Catholic college.

God

Which brings me to God. Here’s a joke I overheard not once but twice during my weekend visit regarding Fr. Ted Hesburgh, the university’s legendary president from 1962 to 1987 who passed away in 2015:

Q. What’s the difference between God and Fr. Ted?
A. God is everywhere. Fr. Ted is everywhere, except Notre Dame.

Fr. Ted traveled far and wide in pursuit of social justice missions and the greater glory of Norte Dame. He embodied the bigger-than-life spirit of Fr. Sorin.

He struck up friendships with popes and presidents. President Carter appointed him to the U.N. Conference of Science and Technology, to a commission to create the Holocaust Museum and to the Select Commssion for Immigration and Refugee Policy Reform.

In return for his services, airplane-loving Fr. Ted asked for a ride on an SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane in the world. When the president balked at letting a civilian do so, Fr. Ted barked: “I thought you were Commander-in-Chief!”

That’s how, on the last day of February 1979, Fr. Ted traveled 2,200 miles an hour in a top-secret airplane, setting a still-held record for the fastest any non-astronaut has ever flown.

Fr. Ted's library
Fr. Ted’s library, with the iconic “Touchdown Jesus” mural, was the tallest building between Detroit and Chicago when opened in 1963, filled with more than 3 million books – half of which are now archived in another location due to the changing nature of libraries.

Fr. Ted insisted on infusing his university with a diversity of thought despite, or because of, its Catholic roots… which he always took pride in. To this day, there’s a crucifix in every classroom, although at a lecture I attended in the new DeBartolo Hall, it seemed to be hidden behind tech equipment.

His leadership in social justice issues was his ultimate claim to fame. I was reminded of this while wandering through the former student center, the one without the rock-climbing wall. The LaFortune building now houses what’s purported to be the nation’s highest grossing Subway fast-food franchise. In the center hall between its two wings there’s a large, impressive black-and-white portrait of Fr. Ted linked arm-in-arm with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at a civil rights rally at Soldier Field in Chicago in 1964.

I was in LaFortune accompanied by my wife because I wanted to show her the offices of The Observer, the daily student newspaper where I had happily volunteered countless hours as an undergraduate. However, I learned that The Observer, in a metaphor for print journalism itself these days, now occupies part of the basement in the South Dining Hall.

I told my wife that Kathy, my best friend on The Observer staff, used to put laundry soap in the fountain next door to LaFortune. She just liked to watch the bubbles. But that the fountain no longer exists.

Then I tried to show my wife the hidden sculpture garden that Kathy and I once stumbled across in a remote area of campus behind Holy Cross Hall. But the sculpture garden no longer exists either.

Beyond this, around a bend, I assured my wife, there was a cemetery.

It was getting late, nearly 9 p.m., and our home for the weekend was a dorm on the other side of campus. The dorm didn’t exist when I went to school there, and the naming rights were purchased by a classmate of mine. Still, my wife humored me because, with South Bend on Eastern time, it seemed to be the land of the midnight sun, and sunset was nowhere in sight.

Fr. Ted's grave
The cemetery I explored with Kathy decades ago was still there. It was filled with small cross headstones in neat rows. Years ago, I had simply assumed they were veterans’ graves.

No, my wife said, reading the markers in 2018, these are graves of all the brothers and priests who had lived and worked at Notre Dame. They are buried in chronological order… one right after the other, with no marker more distinct than the next, speaking to the perspective of those who offered their lives to be part of the Congregation of the Holy Cross.

That made it was easy for us to find Fr. Ted Hesburgh’s grave. It was here, in a remote Indiana cemetery, marked with the same stone as all his brothers.

Everyone buried there had done his part, lived and died, to the best of his talents, for a higher purpose than individual glory.

Fr. Ted was bigger than life… just like his legacy, the Notre Dame campus, still is today. But the message I learned in my time travel to this small cemetery after so many years is that no one is bigger than death. No person is more important than another; everyone contributes to everything.

God, I believe, is the only judge of our lives. Only the passage of time reveals the true import our efforts. Our biggest heroes are buried in the most modest graves.

Dad's grave