Notre Dame Magazine invites personal essays of no more than 250 words on subjects of nostalgic interest to alumni of all ages. Selected submissions will be published in a future print edition or online at magazine.nd.edu. Please send fun, meaningful or evocative stories from your student days on the topics listed below to associate editor Michelle Cuneo at mmcdani2@nd.edu. New topics to come each issue.
COLLEGE ROAD TRIPS: Deadline May 1, 2026
FAVORITE PROFESSOR: Deadline August 3, 2026
As it was
The first Fisher Regatta occurred in 1987 — one year after I graduated. My having learned, nearly 40 years later, that Saint Mary’s Lake is the setting of a boisterous, annual one-day spectacle has not altered my memory of the lake as a tranquil and beautiful place.
My memories of other campus places remain similarly unaltered, despite my having made half a dozen trips to Notre Dame over the years. In my mind, the bookstore is still a modest building adjacent to Badin Hall, until I see that it is now in a much larger building off West Quad. As for West Quad, it doesn’t exist unless I hear an overt reference to it. The approach to Saint Mary’s College extends along a beautiful expanse of open lawn, until I see the hotels.
The Fieldhouse was demolished in 1983 during the second semester of my freshman year. Because it vanished early in my Notre Dame career, my memory of it does not distort my imagination. Rather, I correctly picture the Fieldhouse Mall, with its crisscrossing sidewalks, between the Clarke Memorial Fountain and Hesburgh Library. The memory of the Fieldhouse is unavailable to those who remember the Fisher Regatta, and vice versa. We remember Notre Dame as it was when we were there.
— John Huebl ’86
Down the drain
In 1987, I was living in a house on St. Peter Street with four housemates — two of us were Fisher Hall “refugees.” We called our house “The Drain” because of a large outflow in the floor of its basement, which was convenient for cleaning up after parties. The basement also housed a discarded clawfoot tub, which we quickly fashioned into a craft to compete in the very first Fisher Regatta. Unfortunately, none of us had engineering skills.
We lined the sides of the tub with two-by-fours, then strapped large inner tubes to each corner. We then constructed a mast bearing a flag with “The Drain” scrawled across it. We “Drainheads” — the merry crew of our DIY invention — borrowed a pickup truck and hauled the vessel to Saint Mary’s Lake.
When our heat began, we shoved our makeshift rig a good 10 to 15 feet from the shore and climbed aboard. It promptly groaned and fell apart, and the 400-pound tub sank below the waters. I believe it is still at the bottom of Saint Mary’s Lake. All crew survived, along with the Drain flag, which has been at the center of various postgraduation pranks over the years.
— Tripp Baltz ’87