Spring 2017

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Greg and Beth Burrafato Bach share the story of their romance, including Greg's clandestine operation to post a permanent sign of his love on their rock.

Cast in Stone

Wow. I had thought one day I was going to be hunted down and arrested for my graffiti.

Instead, my wife tells me that I can volunteer to be arrested in what appears to be an NU alumni sting operation.  

I guess I'll take my chances. Call it duty to my school. My name is Greg Bach, and my wife’s name is Beth Burrafato Bach. We are the plaque people.

Although I have numerous college mischief stories to share about the late ’80s in Willard, the best part about my student life experience being a four-year dorm geek was that I met my wife in our senior year. My work-study job was to run the front desk at Willard. I was one of few seniors in the 300-person dorm, but I met and liked one of the RAs. It was our first "long-distance" relationship. She lived on the first floor, and I was in the fourth-floor single.

At graduation I had landed a job assignment in Idaho (yes, at a potato plant) and my girlfriend, Beth, had taken a job in Chicago. We did NOT know at the time we would ultimately end up together, but yeah, we sort of liked each other.

To commemorate our college love we decided to paint a rock out on the lakefill as has been tradition. It was good fun, and as the 1991 picture shows, I’d like to suggest we did a pretty stellar job.

Burrafato and Bach in 1991

Ultimately, Idaho became Missouri, and her Chicago became Indianapolis, and then the real long-distance relationship carried us into an actual marriage, living in the same place. I’m skipping a lot of details here for brevity, but we went back to the rock. It was 1993, and the rock had been taken over so we repainted. At that time it struck me that this was a primo location stone and at some point I would have to lay permanent claim to it.

My son was born in 1997, and while visiting Chicago on a weekend getaway we took him there.

Burrafato and Bach in 1998

Years later we moved to Chicago, and our daughter and son would come to know the campus as we might visit it every few years or so. They loved “the rock,” but to them, they were referring to The Rock of south campus fame, not some random rock on the lakefill that never quite seemed to be painted the way their parents described it.

Burrafato and Bach with family

I’ll skip over a bunch more details, but the gist of the story is that I wanted to do something epic for our 20-year wedding anniversary. I contracted a foundry to make something more permanent to show my love. At this point in 2013 we were living in Cincinnati. But I had a plan.

My corporate offices are in Chicago, and one week while on a business trip I asked my management team if they would allow me to plan the evening activity. They obliged, but I did not disclose to them the specific plan. I simply told them to dress for an outdoor activity and to meet me at Tommy Nevins. With the first pitcher of beer on the table I told them, “If any of us get arrested tonight, I swear to you I will pay everybody's bail. Our mission tonight is much more noble than mere civil fines or even prison time.”

I had them at “noble”, and, knowing my wife, they were game. They were not surprised when I plunked down my backpack, replete with flashlights, hammer drill and masonry bits. We made our way to campus, staking out the walkways for any possible security patrols and breaking into smaller groups so as not to be seen. It was frightening. We were technically criminals, defacing a public landmark, but the grand heist was laughable and easier than expected.

Burrafato and Bach installation

The day after the operation it rained hard. I hoped the mortar would set. I simply had to have faith it would work and that NU wouldn't come by and chisel it out. It was hard to be patient because I had no specific plans to return. Not many months later, thankfully, my son expressed an interest in applying to NU. I encouraged my wife to hurry and schedule a campus tour, hoping this would be my romantic opportunity.

Beth, an NU tour guide in her day, wanted to stay on the tour with my son but I convinced her to peel off and join me for a quick walk to our rock. She was convinced it had been too many years and that we’d never be able to find our exact stone. I told her with (too much) confidence that I knew exactly where the stone was. My heart racing, I led her to the stone.

My daughter took the shot in 2014, and at that moment it felt like a scene from the NBC show This Is Us, living in a flashback loop where she and I were both at college ourselves and our own children were witnessing the same campus from their own modern-day perspectives. 

Burrafato and Bach

That was two years ago. 

Then, one Saturday morning, a month ago, we saw your Alumni Page. Wow. I cannot describe the emotion. Should we step forward? I don't think so. I sort of like the idea of keeping it our own personal secret. It would be fun to leave it to others to ponder and, if they are so inclined, to figure out who we were. But my wife has wisdom, “This is one of those instances where we do need to come forward because it might be the type of campus story that might inspire other young lovers to put down their own roots.”

Wise woman. That is why I married her.

Greg Bach ‘91

P.S. As for the spelling of Shepard on the memorial plaque, I can say that, although my wife was a Hot-Shepardite and I’d have liked to coin the term “Shephard,” the truth is much more mundane. I had originally spelled it wrong, and the foundry gave me a final chance to correct my spelling. They did. But then spelled it with an "H". But what you going to do? The words are literally cast in stone.

Burrafato and Bach collage

Rock-Solid Relationship  

Greg said it was love at first sight. I was a little slower to the starting line.

We became friends in 1990 during the fall of our senior year and were two of maybe five seniors in Willard — all RAs — except Greg, who scored a single room because it was where his work-study job was conveniently located.  Our relationship was completely plutonic until the first hug after Christmas Break started a beautiful trajectory.

We only “dated,” as much as residential students really can, for a couple of months. I think we splurged once at JB Winberries and took a picnic to Ravinia. In May we started to talk about whether our four-month relationship could even survive postgraduation. Greg was off to Idaho for a management training position, and I would stay in Chicagoland.

In our final days at NU we felt compelled to paint a rock on the lakefill. All the while feeling sheepishly naughty, we donned all black, snuck out there with a small flashlight and our supplies, and branded our name and graduation date on a perfectly flat rock that looked directly at the Chicago skyline.

We visited “our” rock a couple of times throughout our three-year long-distance relationship — repainting it once. When new jobs found us both in Indiana we started to discuss marriage. In November 1993, Greg said that we were invited back to Chicago for one of his dear friend’s engagement celebration. We planned to visit our rock on route to the party, and I was fairly confident he’d propose to me right there on that day. I had my nails manicured in anticipation. Girls sense these things. I was wrong.

We arrived at the reception hall of this friend’s supposed engagement and checked in to a hotel (somehow a nervous sin, even though we’d traveled long distances to visit each other in the past). To my surprise, when we opened the door to our room, our closest friends greeted us with a loud “Congratulations!” I was in a state of shock. My mom and sisters were there, along with dear friends that traveled from Boston, Minnesota, California and the Chicago suburbs. They thought that Greg had popped the question, but my confusion clearly conveyed that he hadn’t. Silence deafened the room until Greg went down on one knee and asked me to become his bride and forever soulmate. In the initial moments of joy, I was also perplexed as to why it’d be that important for our best friends to be there. It was only then that Greg explained he brought our whole bridal party in for OUR engagement party.

Our wedding in February 1994 reunited many NU friends. Mark Ledogar, recently appointed NAA president, sang at our ceremony and, at the reception, Wildcats gathered on the dance floor to sing the Northwestern fight song.

Over the years we brought our young children, Parker and Peyton, to campus — to visit the dorm we met in, attend Waa-Mu and enjoy JK Sweets Cookies. We’d fly kites on the lakefill and picnic on “our” rock (careful not to let them slip into the cavernous crevices surrounding it).  Even though someone else laid claim to it, we loved that they had painted a family of stick figures with the words “The Family that Plays Together Stays Together.” 

For our 15th wedding anniversary Greg brought me back to Evanston for an overnight getaway. Facebook was new but with some stealthy research he found the current president in Willard and paid him to collaborate on a special surprise — a risky one that broke security rules — but one so exciting that Greg promised to post bail should this student be arrested. After seeing a show in Pick-Staiger and on our way back to our hotel, he suggested we walk through Willard. The president, whom I just assumed was a security monitor, said that he was not allowed to let us enter. We threw out some famous people that had lived in our rooms, like Shelly Long and Cindy Crawford, and he was in awe.  So he let us in. Greg suggested we visit the third-floor lounge. I looked at him strangely as I had NEVER even used the third-floor lounge because it was just a rundown room with tattered couches and a TV. But he told me that it’d been renovated and I just needed to see it. 

When we approached the door there was a sign that said “closed.” 

I entered to a candlelit dinner catered from Dave’s Italian Kitchen, a bottle of wine and our wedding video playing on that old TV. Suddenly, an all-male a cappella group appeared and began to sing. Greg knew how much I loved the Bare Essentials, led by the then-yet-to-be-famous Brian d’Arcy James (my kids still roll their eyes when I tell them he denied my invitation to get ice cream after a Waa-Mu rehearsal), so Greg arranged for a current group to serenade me. Needless to say, I melted.

Five years passed and we brought our high school son on an official college tour of Northwestern. It was cold and rainy, and I was in no mood to walk the campus.  Since he’d visited the campus many times, I suggested we just attend the information session and leave. But he wanted to take the tour, this time envisioning himself at NU. Selfishly, I told him to go on ahead and we’d wait for him in the student union.

I was surprised that Greg wanted to go see the rock in the inclement weather, but he insisted, and my daughter gave me that “Mom, just do this for Dad” look.  So, I did. In between the drizzle, I looked down and noticed the plaque drilled into the rock. My eyes teared up and I had so many questions. How? When? Did he have permission?

He shared that this plan was in the works for five years and explained how he convinced co-workers to execute the complicated installation.

Calmness set in, and I began to wonder if someone would put the clues together and figure out who had defaced the property.  After all, it has our graduation date, our majors, our dorms and other information about our journey postgraduation.

Which is why, just prior to recycling last winter’s publication, I was in awe when I saw “our” rock on the first page of the Alumni Life section with a request to share our love story. My heart raced. If we replied, would we be turning ourselves in? But after visiting many colleges with my son, I secretly hoped it’d become one of those sweet stories of tradition they’d tell on campus tours.

So it’s us. Beth Burrafato and Greg Bach. There. Mystery solved. And I’m proud that this plaque marks an incredibly meaningful part of our journey and is cemented into Northwestern history. What started as a Willard romance turned into a rock-solid union now spanning nearly a quarter of a century. 

Beth Burrafato Bach '91

P.S. He spelled Shepard wrong.