This will be an interesting post as I’ve just returned from a very successful Poker Night. Yes, I finally won again after what was probably a year drought. Played some really good poker, made some tough but correct calls, and got lucky when I needed to. See, this positive attitude stuff is working out already. But this does mean another late night and that means another trek into the Infrequently Asked Questions vault…
Q: “Every once in a while you’ll make mention of a place called The Backer. It’s even listed in your profile. What the hell is The Backer?”
A: Ah, the Backer. There are two answers to the above question, one straightforward and the other realistic.
Answer 1: The Backer stands for The Linebacker Lounge, which has stood across from the Notre Dame campus since 1962. It’s a college bar in that it has more Notre Dame memorabilia per square inch than any other place in town and that it serves alcohol. It’s called The Backer because ND students need to save every syllable for use in more important matters, like saving the world.
Of course calling The Backer a bar is like calling the Sistine Chapel “A really nice ceiling”. It’s technically correct but it misses the entire point.
So this leads us to Answer 2: The Backer is a mystical place where almost anything can happen. Actually, if you include the parking lot then it is a place where absolutely anything can happen and I’m living proof of that one. No one would believe that story if I tried to tell it. But what makes the place is this combination of location, style, staff and clientele.
The place really was a block from my apartment, which meant that I would just saunter across the parking lot and be at the bar. And when you became a regular you were a regular. Donna, in her classic style, started to put my beer on the bar when she saw me walking through the window. Seriously, I didn’t even have to break stride when I walked into the place, there’d be a Miller Lite on the bar waiting for me. And it was important not to break stride because you were immediately going towards a group of friends who were already there. The fun thing is you never called anyone to go there, you never set up plans to meet there, it was just a given that someone would be there. This led to one of my favorite sayings about my group of friends, “We only have a couple of rules. In case of emergency, we all meet at the Backer. Also, if the sun sets in the west we all meet at the Backer. And if the day ends in a Y we all meet at the Backer.”
Like most bars, the staff is what makes it great. It wasn’t that they served us or gave us the occasional free round, it was that they truly became some of our best friends. I mean, Donna and Joey have been invited to several MBA weddings and if I could ever get my act together in that regard they’d be invited to mine. They are just some of the best people that you could ever meet.
But here is why I continually mention the place. Sure, there are stories galore to tell about my time there (and heck, we could fill a book with the stories of my last few months in the place) but what it really represents is a perfect moment in time. Just the fact that I could walk over on a Wednesday night, know that I didn’t have class until three in the afternoon the next day, and step into a bar and see that ninety percent of the people there were my friends was just awesome. It didn’t matter what we talked about or what we did, if the focus was on setting the high score on the trivia machine or reinventing myself with the help of an entire cadre of consultants, all that mattered was that you were surrounded by the coolest, smartest, funniest people you had ever known. Erik was always great at grabbing me at times and saying, “Take a mental picture EC” and I do have a great mental scrapbook from that time. But man, what I wouldn’t give to just have that experience once more.
Have a good weekend everbody. Go Illini.
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