Green ang Gold a Memoir of South Bend by Angie Palsak

By Angie Palsak

Growing up on Beverly Place in South Bend, I was captivated by the eerie allure of Riverview Cemetery, visible from my house. The tombstones, shrouded in perpetual shade from overgrown trees, seemed to whisper secrets. Fueled by a love for Nancy Drew mysteries, I wanted to understand these secrets. I wanted to jump the fence and explore the cemetery, but as a ten-year-old girl my curiosity to wander the graveyard alone was impossible to fulfill. While my mother and sister plucked tomatoes from the tiny backyard garden, I sat on the front porch with my dad’s binoculars, scanning the graveyard for any unusual activity and carefully jotting notes in my journal.

Around that same time, my dad bought bikes for the whole family, turning the nearby cemeteries into easy destinations for our family outings. We would pedal straight down Portage Avenue to Riverview Cemetery. My mom would bring flowers and tend to her uncle’s grave and I would slip away to that dark corner of the graveyard I could see from my porch. Standing there, I would gaze back at our house, which seemed so small and distant. In those moments, I experienced a surreal self-awareness; I felt an unsettling curiosity, almost a fear, that at any moment I might see a version of myself emerge from the house, staring back at me through my dad’s binoculars.

After our Riverview visit, it was time to cross the street and head to Highland Cemetery. While walking our bikes across Portage Avenue, I imagined the ghosts of explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, and his team crossing alongside us, their canoes balanced on their shoulders, dripping water onto their fur hats.

Highland Cemetery was very different from Riverview, with well-paved roads, a duck pond, and less shade. Our path in Highland was typically the same; we always pedaled first to the Council Oak. We would park our bikes and then march over to say hello to the oldest tree in South Bend. Surrounded by graves, this three-hundred-year-old oak stood tall and mighty, a testament to the will to live. Under its limbs, I stood in awe.

Our next favorite spot was Knute Rockne’s grave. My mother was a huge Notre Dame fan and always mentioned how her father was as well. We would pause, taking a moment to look. My sister and I were intrigued by the tokens left behind: quarters, cigars, and empty little bottles. We studied it, curious, but never pocketed anything.

After visiting Knute Rockne’s grave, we would head to the mausoleum where the smooth pavement was perfect for pedaling fast and coasting. Gliding along in endless circles, I felt so light and free. I did not have to worry about any literal or metaphorical bumps in the road. Little Me didn’t realize that in only five short years her dad would teach her how to parallel park on those same roads. She certainly never would have guessed that only sixteen years after that she’d be standing by her father’s grave, in complete disbelief, after his unexpected heart attack. This is life.

Thankfully, I appreciated that time with my family and I wasn’t hesitant to talk about it at school. So, when our fifth-grade class at Marquette Elementary had a unit about local history, I spoke up about all the things I saw in the cemeteries. This gave my teacher the idea that we should go on a field trip to see these historic things. The trip was arranged, permission slips signed, and we all happily left the confines of the classroom on a beautiful fall day. My class all walked down Portage Avenue together; our own parade, hollering and waving to the cars that drove by honking at us.

When we finally arrived at Highland Cemetery, we looked at the ducks in the pond and then walked on further to pause and marvel at the Council Oak. Our teacher conducted a mini history lesson there, checking off her box for educational objective achieved. Then it was time to see Coach Rockne’s grave. Several students wore Notre Dame tee shirts to commemorate the moment. I distinctly remember someone asking, “That’s it?” expecting there to be some huge monument of the Four Horsemen. Instead, we stood quietly, staring at the simple square headstones before us. I remember feeling anxious, fearful that the trip was falling apart.

That feeling of anxiety would start to become the norm for me as I became a confused pre-teen. Life was changing all around us, marking the inevitable passage of time; the duck pond would get filled, the Council Oak would be destroyed by a tornado, and our bikes would remain in the garage, buried under dust and cobwebs.

Fast forward to 2024: I am an adult, with my own home and strong marriage; life was pretty good. I was also a newer employee at the University of Notre Dame, a member of the Development department. After a team meeting one late summer day, one co-worker arranged for us to visit Cedar Grove Cemetery for a special tour led by Associate Director Jon Adamson. I loved this idea. I felt the same excitement as I did on childhood field trips, especially knowing we’d visit the same grave my classmates and I saw forty years ago. It was not lost on me that I would be returning as a grownup, with new colleagues, to a different cemetery across town, only to stand before Knute Rockne’s grave once again. How could this be? Life repeats itself, sometimes in very strange, explainable ways.

Our tour of Cedar Grove Cemetery was very special. Jon was a fantastic guide. His knowledge of architecture as well as the personal stories of those resting there was vast and well-articulated with an engaging narrative style.

As we approached the Rockne family grave, the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming. I looked at the faces of my co-workers and, squinting my eyes, saw them as the children who stood beside me at this very same grave, but in a different place, many years before.

As Jon spoke about the reinterment, I took some photos of the gravesite to show my mom. She still lives on Beverly Place and while her husband is gone and her two girls grown, she now has two granddaughters who help her pluck the over-ripened tomatoes she can’t quite reach in her little vegetable garden. Life is a (not so) perfect circle.

Standing there before Coach Rockne’s grave I thought about these circles of life and then I focused on the color green, which was fading around me as summer was turning into fall. A lover of poetry, my mind then wandered to “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost: “Nature’s first green is gold,/Her hardest hue to hold”. I couldn’t help but to think about the difference between fifty-year-old me and ten-year-old Little Me and wonder if her spring “greenness” had faded just a bit, just as the leaves around us were changing.

While Frost beautifully speaks about how being green is such a “golden”, treasured state and reminds us to cherish it while we can, perhaps it was the fictional character Johnny Cade in S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders who sums it up best when he, alluding to Frost’s poem, tells his friend “Stay gold, Pony Boy, stay gold.”

But isn’t it hard to “stay gold”, to see the beauty in life, when you have been tackled by it a few times? How do you stay gold when your greenness has long faded?

Standing there, among my co-workers, seeing them as children, gave me the answer. To “stay gold” you have to get in touch with your Little Child, or, more specifically, the curiosity you once had as a child.

Perhaps the fountain of youth is curiosity. This is how you stay in touch with your Little Me. You become a lifelong learner. You try new things. You pull out the binoculars. You stop to gaze in awe at what is older and bigger than you. You ask questions. You use your imagination. You acknowledge synchronicity.

Every time you try something new, you are “green”. We often refer to new employees, new students, and new athletes as “being green.” We should acknowledge that this is a truly wonderful state of being, not a detriment, for it is often in this green state that we accidentally stumble across amazing things.

Modern day explorers, researchers, must remain perpetually green to be open to new discoveries. Their bravery to leave behind one path and to take another, to portage, leads to innovation. Innovation is creativity, hunger, and resilience all rolled into one.

Innovation can only happen when we are not afraid to be vulnerable, to be green, to take a chance. It is only when we act on the faith of a child that our hearts can Stay Gold.

Illustration by Angelica Fraustato at nerdybrownkid.com