At home I have a copy of the April 21, 1986, issue of 'Sports Illustrated.' I'm on the cover with the blurb, 'Can Lou Do It?' I'd just arrived at Notre Dame, and with spring football underway, I was the focal point of that week's coverage.

From the ages of five to twelve, I attended the Saint Laurence O'Toole elementary school in Lawrence, a city next to Methuen, and was taught by sisters of the Catholic order of Notre Dame de Namour. I enjoyed all my subjects there. I do not remember ever learning any science, except for mathematics.

Walking at random through the streets, we came by chance upon the Cathedral of Notre Dame. I shall long remember my first impression of the scene within. The lofty gothic ceiling arched far above my head and through the stained windows the light came but dimly - it was all still, solemn and religious.

I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of, and not feeling that I had the talent... and letting it go all the way through Notre Dame and then through two years of Navy service.

Having studied at the Sorbonne, I spent my 21st birthday in Paris and celebrated with one of my professors in a cafe outside of Notre Dame.

Que les po?tes morts laissent la place aux autres. Et nous pourrions tout de m?me voir que c'est notre v?n?ration devant ce qui a ?t? d?j? fait, si beau et si valable que ce soit, qui nous p?trifie, qui nous stabilise et nous emp?che de prendre contact avec la force qui est dessous, que l'on appelle l'?nergie pensante, la force vitale, le d?terminisme des ?changes, les menstrues de la lune ou tout ce qu'on voudra.

Or l'espace est une r?alit? qui dure : nos impressions se chassent l'une l'autre, rien ne demeure dans notre esprit, et l'on ne comprendrait pas que nous puissions ressaisir le pass? s'il ne se conservait pas en effet dans le milieu mat?riel qui nous entoure. // Now space is a reality that endures: since our impressions rush by, one after another, and leave nothing behind in the mind, we can understand how we recapture the past only by understanding how it is, in effect, preserved by our physical surroundings.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?