Below are a few articles I chose from Johns files of his early writings that were printed in his college newspaper "The Marquette Tribune"

1976

A quiet ride back
 
Editors note: A Marquette adventurer retells this true story about his return to campus two weeks ago. The scene describes a moment in the never-ending madness that some student’s face when Mother Marquette calls. Due to the story’s legal implications, the names have been changed.
 
In high school, Fr. Seidenschwang always asked me what I did on my Christmas vacation. I never did anything interesting. Now that I’m in College no one asks me what I did. But this year I did something interesting.
It started January 11. I had just bought  '66 Barracuda, which was being delivered to my Long Island home by it’s co-owner, Jim. We met at midnight in a bar. Two pitchers later we were on the road,
We reached Smithtownm N.Y. shortly after 2 a.m. It was snowing and the streets were icy as Jim handed me a beer. We made a left turn along a guardrail when the car began to skid. I realized death was imminent if we crashed through the rail, so I tried to give Jim my beer so I could steer.
“Jim, take my beer.”
“I already have one.”
So I threw it at him. We hit the rail anyway and bounced back on the road. We skid into it again and we bounced back on the road. We slid into it again and when we bounced off the second time, we hit the car that had been following us. He stopped. We didn’t.
Normally I would have stopped. But our car was uninsured, we were drunk and Jim had a warrant out for his arrest. So when he said go, I went.
A few blocks later we found ourselves going down a hill. I stepped on the brake – and it went all the way to the floor. Jim started screaming. He said I didn’t know how to drive in the snow. I told him I could drive in the snow if I had brakes.
We ended up on someones lawn.
“Bronco,” Jim said, “we just left the scene of an accident and now we had another. We’re drunk and we have no insurance. We’re in more trouble than we’ve been in our lives. This car only weighs 2,000 pounds. There’s no reason the two of us can’t push it out of here.”
It made sense to me. So we pushed and got the ‘Cuda back on the road. It took 30 minutes.
By this time I was too nervous to hold the wheel, much less drive. So Jim took over. We figured that if we drove slowly we wouldn’t need brakes. We were wrong.
A few blocks later we were going down another hill. At the foot of the hill was a highway and a cliff. There was nowhere to turn and no way to slow down. Jim thought for a few seconds, then told me he was leaving. “What do you mean, leaving?” I said.
I looked away and told him not to. I looked back he was gone. Somehow I pulled the car into a snowbank. It hit a tree and stopped.
We spent the night at a Howard Johnson’s. In the morning we had the car towed and the brakes fixed. The police never caught us.
The law of averages, however, caught up with us on our way back to Marquette. We had just left a gas station in Williamsport, Pa. when Jim smelled something in the engine. We decided we needed oil, and pulled into a station. We had bent a rod, which in effect ruined the engine.
After several minutes of thoughtful cursing, we decided to junk the car. We got a ride to a truck stop, where I shipped my extra baggage. Jim showed Howard Hughs-like tendencies by throwing out everything he couldn’t carry.
Forty minutes later we found two truckers heading for Chicago. We finally had it made. Them my driver told me the other driver, who was carrying Jim had a problem with his gas line and couldn’t go any father.
We found ourselves in Redneck City – Toledo, Ohio. It was almost midnight and there was nothing to do until morning.
We started asking for rides, and got answers like: “Take a hike, long hair,” “You hippies are probably cattle rustlers,” and “Get out of this city,”
Discouraged, tired and cold, we even asked the waitress at the truck stop if she was going to Chicago after work. She wasn’t.
At 5:30 Friday morning we found a truckers going to Ft. Atkinson, Wis. I went with him while Jim too his “Chicago, please” sign onto the Interstate.
Once again I thought I had it made. Once again I was wrong, The driver couldn’t get his Kenworth over 40 mph, and when we reached Angola, Ind., he blew a rod in his engine.
I never even knew what a rod was two weeks before. Now I blew two of them in 24 hours.
I soon found a trucker headed for Oak Creek, Wis., which is about 10 minutes south of Milwaukee. It took us six hours to get there, and the driver had his window open the whole way.
We did learning something from our experiences: Stay out of Toledo, and don’t buy a used car from your R.A.
I can’t wait to tell Fr. Seidenschwang.

note: Dedicated to A.J. Cummings

12/10/76

Free ND Ticket awarded to best essay

by John D'Angelo
Staff Writer

In a Marquette community filled with greed, lust and money grabbers, one student has decided to give away free something most people keep until marriage - a Notre Dame ticket.

John Costello, a liberal arts sophomore, is giving away the ticket because he, like many other students will be on vacation January 16.

"A lot of my friends asked me for the ticket, and I couldn't decide who to give it to. I really wanted to make money on it but I felt bad about scalping my friends," he said.

The ticket holder said the idea for the contest came to him in a dream. "I dreamed I was standing in front of the Arena when a group of lonely men in shirt sleeves started asking me for my ticket. I told them to write an essay, and they screamed; 'But we have no pencils.' Immediately I sprang into action and scalped enough pencils to cover my loss from giving the ticket away"
The contest is being judged by a four member panel. The winning essay will be selected according to humor, originality and persuasiveness. The final entry date was last Wednesday and the winner will be notified during finals week. The judges are: Jim McCormick, liberal arts sophmore; Larry Veseley, liberal arts senior; Norman LaFond, liberal arts sophomore; and an anonymous journalism sohomore.
Costello, who is very enthusiastic about the contest, said "If this is a success, I plan to give away my roommate's stereo, my roommates television and my roommate in the future."
The following excerpts have been taken from the leading entries:
Ed Gaus: journalism sophomore: "I need this ticket because I want to open a taco stand in the Midwest. Also, as a child I was robbed of the better things in life, like good schools and air hoses."
A.J. Cummings, law enforcement sophomore: "I have to sell the ticket after I get it. I need the money. I could probably get $10 for it downtown, and that might be able to get me fuzzy dice for my car."
Cheryl Herberg, business administration junior: I need the ticket to get my brothers and sisters out of jail."