If I had it to do over...

I'd tell my children more of my own personal story:

• what it was like to grow up on a dead end street in midtown Memphis.
• what it was like to go to a Catholic parochial school in the fifties and early sixties.
• what it was like to go to an all male Catholic high school in the sixties.
• what it was like to come to doubt everything I'd been taught.
• how much I loved basketball and baseball.
• how I tried out for high school football but found out what football was really like the first day we wore pads.
• about the day JFK died.
• how I was a product of the 60s (although the 60s arrived in Memphis Tennessee somewhere around 1971)
• how I felt the night Martin Luther King was killed
• how I was opposed to the Vietnam War and what I did about it
• how and why I became disenchanted with the church in which I was raised
• how I went to live with a dying man during college.
• how I fell in love with their mother but once we were engaged I had second thoughts but went ahead with it anyway
• how my church tried to keep us from getting married.
• how our relationship deteriorated to the point we couldn't live with each other anymore.
• how we were both heartbroken when our first child was still born.
• about the nights each of them was born.
• how much human rights means to me.
• how much I loved watching them play volleyball, a sport I never dreamed of playing.
• how much I dreamed of a career in academia.
• how much I loved mathematics.
• just how good I was at my job.
• what it's like to live with clinical depression for twenty years.
• what it was like to stay up to watch the first steps of man on the moon. 

I think I have some emails to write.

Wes Kitchens and more important issues

Wes Kitchens is a young local man who is running for a seat in the state legislature.  

As described in the text below, he sent out a political flyer that set my teeth on edge.  I responded by writing a letter to the editor.  

This is the "more important issue" I reference in the title above.  The first amendment to our constitution assures us of a free press and the freedom of speech.  A letter to the editor takes advantage of both rights.

One of the newspapers to which I submitted the letter declined to publish it, regarding it as political in nature and, by the newspaper's "policy", allowable only as a paid political advertisement.  In my view, this paper denied me my right of free speech.

The local paper in the town where I live chose to publish it and, for that, I am grateful, despite the tone of my letter and the overarching ideology of the local paper being in stark contrast.

We must not fear to speak out.  There are those who would choose to ignore glaring falsehoods when spoken by those in power.  I choose not.

Now my letter:

To the editor:

I opened my mailbox the other day to find a flyer from Mr. Kitchens' campaign focused on the sole issue of his support of the second amendment and his "highest rating" from the NRA.

It takes a little digging, but I eventually found my way to the NRA's Political Victory Fund web site where politicians' grades can be found.  I looked up Mr. Kitchens' grade.  It was AQ ( defined as a "pro-gun candidate whose rating is based solely on the candidate's responses to the NRA-PVF Candidate Questionnaire and who does not have a voting record on Second Amendment issues").  Well, that makes sense.  Mr. Kitchens hasn't held elective office so he would have no voting record at all.  Elected officials who have voting records can receive grades of A +, B, and D, depending on the extent to which they have supported the NRA agenda of gun rights versus gun control.

Candidates (like Mr. Kitchens) can achieve a grade of A (higher than AQ) if they are a " solidly pro-gun candidate. A candidate who has supported NRA positions on key votes in elective office or a candidate with a demonstrated record of support on Second Amendment issues."

An argument can be made, therefore, that Mr. Kitchens does not have the highest grade (A+) nor does he have the second highest grade (A).  Who else thinks this earns him either a "Pinocchio" award or a "Pants on Fire" prize?

It gets better.  The flyer declares "Wes Kitchens believes you have a God-given constitutional right to keep and bear arms."  I love it when politicians string these nonsense word salads together.  Constitutional?  That's verifiable.  I believe we all have a constitutional right to keep and bear arms.  There are times that I wish we didn't.  But God-given?  That's harder.

So let me help Mr. Kitchens establish that this is a God-given right.  Maybe it has its roots in Exodus where the Lord God instructs that "You shall not kill."  Or moving forward in the Bible, it's where Jesus says that "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword."  Isaiah must have had this right in mind when he foresaw Jesus as the "Prince of Peace".  I know it must be in one of those pesky commands Jesus gives, like "Love your neighbor as yourself.  Love your enemies."  And peskiest of all, "Love one another as I have loved you."

I could not find a campaign web site for Mr. Kitchens.  I did find his Facebook page, but it shed little light on what kind of platform Mr. Kitchens is promoting.  His announcement of his intention to run contained more of that word salad:  "Fiscally conservative".  "Christian and conservative values".  "Reduce wasteful spending."

All those phrases are meant to give warm, fuzzy feelings to the electorate.  They give me heartburn, because they don't say anything about what qualifies him to run.  They don't say anything concrete about what legislation he envisions putting forth. 

Does "fiscally conservative" mean that you want to keep the state in the same financial pickle it's been in for years, because you're too terrified to suggest that we might need more revenue (i.e., taxes) to repair our infrastructure, to educate our children, to provide better healthcare for our citizens, to address mental health issues that are an insult to the phrase "Christian values"?

Mr. Kitchens is running a campaign of smoke and mirrors and some other elements that I'm too polite to mention here.

He will not have my vote.  He believes in keeping Alabama on its present track to the bottom. 

He would do better to recall the words of George Bernard Shaw often cited by  Robert Kennedy,  "Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not."  Now those are words to guide a political campaign.  We need a few good dreamers.

I know it's just primary season, but I encourage your readers to investigate Bill Jones, Democrat running for the same district 27 seat as Mr. Kitchens.  Bill has a platform; it's about a better Alabama.

Reunion 2018

We did it!  Eight of us (with spouses) gathered at the church on May 5.

We met the principal, Chris Reid, at the entrance to the gym/cafeteria at four o'clock.  I think everyone was excited to see each other.  Bert and I checked out the new tables that fold into the walls to make for a cafeteria.  One was broken, but it looked as though they worked the same way we remembered.  The gym floor had three-point arcs painted that were not part of the game back in 1963.

The stage looked pretty much the same, although I imagine half a century of kids' heels have taken its toll on the front of the stage.  I remember students would sit on the stage to watch rainy day recess basketball games.

I wouldn't mention it, but, since Carolyn Pesce Keane insisted on visiting the storage closet, the scene of her alleged trysts with Bubba Winkler, I had to get a picture.  I remember it storing folding chairs for turning the gym into an auditorium.  Does anyone recall where those stairs went?

There was a lot of talk among the ladies about recreating their stunt of filling a bathroom stall with girls, but discretion prevailed.  They did say they were discovered by the principal, Sister Grace, but never revealed their punishment.  And there must have been punishment.  There was always punishment.

We tramped up the back stairs proud that we could all do so.  There followed several debates regarding which classes took place in which of the present day classrooms.  It seems we all have different memories of those classrooms from fifty plus years ago.

Chris briefed us on the ongoing plans to close the school (and others in the Jubilee program) and reopen as charter schools.  Bert seemed to know a good deal from the Catholic High perspective.

There's a special bond when you spend eight formative years with people.  Most of us went all the way through elementary school together.  We entered school, most without the benefit of kindergarten.  We went through various Catholic initiation rites together, had the same teachers, played under the same coaches. entered puberty together. 

Here are more pictures from our visit to the school and a group picture.

Left to right:  Patricia Nowak Maffei, Al Mulrooney, Carolyn Pesce Keane, Jim Coleman, Phyllis Bernard Bethea, Bert Bailey, Judy McCarver Phillips, Jack McCormack.

And then there's this group:

These two banners, made by past graduating classes give some clue to the diversity found at the new De La Salle at Blessed Sacrament.

Next, it was time to go downstairs and see what changes have taken place in the church.  The sanctuary did not seem to me to be much changed, with the exception of the two angels on either side of the altar.

The organ/choir platform had been removed and replaced with a confessional.  The new organ was over on the side where the old confessionals had been before Penance became Reconciliation.

I sneaked into the old priests' sacristy to see if it had changed.  Less than I expected as it turns out.

Next, it was time for our dinner party at Al and Mary Mulrooney's house in Collierville.

Mary and Al had a great barbecue spread along with all the great sides you'd expect:  Cole slaw, potato salad, the works.  Add the right amount of adult beverages and we were set to go.  I wish I had taken more pictures, but I was having too much fun catching up with all these characters.

 A special shout out to my mother for being a good sport about joining us.  Not that I'm biased, but I was glad she could hear compliments like, "When she walked up I kept asking 'Which classmate is that?'"  Nobody could believe she was almost ninety-two.  Later, she told us again and again that she had such a good time.

When we graduated, I only had two siblings.  My next brother was born in August of '63, another in March of '65, and I think everyone either laughed or were struck dumb when I said that my mother was also the only pregnant chaperone at my senior prom.  My youngest sibling, a sister, was born in October of '67, as I was starting college.

 Tim Keene and Linda McCormick.







Phyllis Bernard Bethea.







Regina Coleman (IC class of '76).

The End of Elementary School -- 7th and 8th Grades

Seventh grade meant several things:  a return to a sane teacher, more basketball, serious spelling bees, and becoming one of the organists for the school choir.

Mrs. Deese was, as one of my classmates commented recently, a "sweetheart".  She was kind, but I remember us not always treating her well.  I think we reduced her to tears a couple of times.

We also returned to the old school classrooms.  Radiators for heat and no air conditioning.  We shared a folding wall with the eighth grade that was opened on special occasions, such as watching the coverage of John Glenn orbiting the earth, the first American to do so.  TVs were not common in classrooms then.

We also shared a teacher.  I'm not sure what Mrs. Deese went to the eighth grade to teach, but Sister Mary Grace, the eighth grade teacher and principal, taught us religion for one period each day.

Sister Grace recognized that we were entering into puberty and I remember more than a few lectures about how boys and girls were to act around each other.  There certainly should be no dating yet; not a problem in seventh grade but that was to come next year.  We started to hear about the metrics for when a kiss becomes a sin and especially when it becomes a mortal sin, although I believe euphemisms were involved.

It was also the year Ricky Hester explained the facts of life to me, or at least he explained what the word we now call the f-bomb meant.  I didn't believe him.  Why on earth would anyone do anything like that?

Basketball season arrived and most of the seventh grade were relegated to second string.  Our coach was Mr. Bill Dufour, a sheriff's deputy during his day job.  I don't remember us having a spectacular season, but most of us seventh graders had the chance to play from time to time.  In addition to Ronnie Chambers and Johnny Augustine, the eight grade now had another tall center, Johnny Cheek.  Cheek and Chambers would go on to play high school basketball at Catholic High.

By now, after three seasons, we were starting to recognize familiar faces on opposing teams, since we played the same Catholic schools season after season.  There was Bruce France from St Dominic, an all boys school in east Memphis, Kevin Rando and Gary Baroni, from St. Paul's in south Memphis, Bill Hartz and Rob Uhlman from Holy Rosary, also in east Memphis.  Before too long, many of us would be playing with or against each other when we entered high school.

There were two leagues in the Catholic School System.  Our league consisted of Our Lady of Sorrows (north Memphis/Frayser), BSS (mid town Memphis), St. Dominic, Holy Rosary, St. Ann in Bartlett (suburb of Memphis), and St. Paul.

The other league had St. Louis (east Memphis), St. Michael's (not so east Memphis), St. Thomas (south Memphis), and one or two others I'm sure.

Back to school, Bert Bailey and I had now replaced the previous school organists.  It would be a little too much to say they let us do what we wanted.  All the stops were set and we were not to change them.  Pedals were not to be used.  There were two keyboards, but I don't recall whether we were allowed to use both.  Sister Bernardo (remember her?) taught us the techniques that were different from those of the piano.  For example, there was no "sustain" pedal to continue the sound of a key being played.  Instead, you had to always hold one note down as you played the second note for a fluid performance.  Otherwise, it became very choppy.  There was also a pedal used to control the volume.  This was the first pedal I learned to "floor".

We learned the St. Lawrence Mass (I think that was it's name) and the Missa Brevis (short Mass).  Or at least we were supposed to learn the Missa Brevis.  It had such a fast tempo that we both struggled with it.  Sister Bernardo called for it at practice one day and was dismayed to find out that we hadn't learned it.  I remember her coming into the choir platform (no way it could be called a loft), seating herself at the organ, and playing it herself, but not before muttering "Help!" under her breath.  One of the girls gasped, mistaking it for a pejorative exclamation.  She did make it clear that at least one of us had better get cracking.

We learned all the hymns for Benediction, a special service that took place from time to time.  We learned to play Requiem masses but not the full funeral liturgy.  With its one or two extra hymns, it was reserved for Miss Vuille (remember her?), the church organist.

Most of the Catholic boys continued to serve at Mass and other services (I don't recall there being an option, really).  It should also be pointed out that we did a have few non-Catholics appear in our classes from time to time.  Ricky Hester and Ricky Lewis were a couple of these.

We were assigned to serve at funerals which, I think, required one or two more servers than usual, as well as at Benediction and the Stations of the Cross.  One of the new responsibilities, now that we were older, was that of thuriferwho was in charge of the thurible, a contraption that held a burning coal over which the priest would pour incense.  We were never permitted to swing the thurible, so our only joy to be realized was if we could light the coal so hot that the sanctuary would fill with this fragrant smoke choking everyone in the congregation and setting off asthma attacks.

When we served funerals, we would accompany the priest in his car to the cemetery for the committal ceremony.  These trips, oddly enough, could be entertaining, especially if the priest was Father Milton Guthrie who was a young priest at the time.  He would be relatively subdued on the way to the cemetery, but the return trip would involve him regaling us with jokes and funny songs.  The other two priests we served at the time were older and not as much fun.

Father Guthrie would later go one to be a leading clergy person in the Memphis civil rights movement.

In the spring, all the classes had their spelling bees in preparation for the school competition that would select one student to compete in the MidSouth Spelling Bee.  That year, I was the last one standing before Mary Ann Scruggs (I may be wrong about her name), an eighth grader, sat me down.  There's actually a sidebar here that I'll forgo having to do with whether she really won or not.  Mrs. Deese spent a lot of time after school or at lunch with me going over spelling words.  She had great hopes for me.

Spring also meant a return to baseball.  I don't remember whether I sat out the previous year because of the accident that broke my nose or because I chose not to play.  At any rate, Mr Keenan returned to coach us now that we were playing Junior ball.  I had dreams of playing first base and even talked my parents into buying me a mitt.

I wasn't that great a first baseman, but I could catch the ball when thrown to me (without it hitting my nose).  I could field about half the grounders hit to me and I could chase down pop ups.  I still couldn't hit.  I think I managed a couple of hits and walks that year, but remained at the bottom of the batting order.  My speed in running had improved as I'd grown and I'm sure basketball helped as well, so when I could get on base, I could usually steal the next base easily.

That was the summer my family took a three week vacation to the west in our Pontiac Catalina convertible.  Muskogee (before Merle Haggard made it famous), New Mexico, Grand Canyon, Phoenix, Los Angeles (saw the Dodgers play), Anaheim (of course we had to visit Disneyland), then back across a northern route that took us past the continental divide, finally past interesting Arkansas towns (Toad Suck Hollow), and back to Memphis.  I celebrated my thirteenth birthday on that trip and my sister her ninth.

It was time for our last year at Blessed Sacrament.  I had always looked forward to the eighth grade because eighth graders always looked so grown up.

We had a new choir director whose name escapes me.  She was different from Sister Bernardo.  Sister Bernardo was young and, I thought, pretty.  The new one was old and not.  Sister Bernardo had a beautiful singing voice.  The new one did not, in fact sounded like fingernails scratching on chalkboard.  Bert and I managed to make it through the year, perhaps because we may have known more about music than she did.  Let's just call her Sister Mary Old.

Religion classes still found us memorizing out of the Baltimore Catechism, but there was a renewed, almost fever pitched discourse on the perils of girls and boys together.

It is not a stretch to say Bert and I were best friends.  We did so many things together beyond music.  It was rumored that Bert was sweet on a girl named Joyce Marienchek or vice versa.  It was rumored that I was sweet on her cousin, Linda Ferrer or vice versa.  One day, Bert called to ask if I wanted to go to the movies.  I said sure.  He said Joyce and Linda would be along.  I said "What?".  I wanted to go, but wasn't sure how to broach the subject to my parents.  As it turns out, I sweated for no good reason.  They were fine with it.  They asked the usual questions:  "How are you getting there?  How are you getting home?  What time will you be home?".  So, we went.  I think we all enjoyed ourselves.  I think the movie was Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.  And that was my first date. 

That was on Saturday.  By Monday, somehow word had made its way to Sister Grace's ears.  That was the lecture to end all lectures.  At least three sets of ears were burning (Joyce was a year behind us).  There was a lot of discussion between classes:  "Who was she talking about?  What happened?".  I think we all feigned ignorance.

More importantly, basketball had returned.  Our coach was once again Butch Fier.  We had a pretty good team, although not the best by any stretch.  We were aided by a seventh grader who could really rebound, Anthony Visconte (yes, there were many Italian families in our school).  I was now scoring a good number of points each game.  I remember Sean as guard, Al as the other forward, and I guess Anthony or Al played center, perhaps switching off.  I think Bubba Marshall played some as well as Ricky Wade, Bert, Mike Lind, and perhaps others whom I don't recall.

In the middle of the season,  Sister Old, who taught us science, had us perform an experiment.  It was right out of our text, Learning about God's World.  The experiment was to demonstrate piston action.  The idea was to take a source of steam (tea kettle or chemistry flask), run a tube to a bicycle pump, and watch the steam push the handle up.  Sounds simple, yes?

To set the scene, it was winter, I was wearing a long sleeve shirt with my red letter sweater over it.  Chris Jaynes and I were to tend the chemistry flask as the Bunsen burner heated the water.  Now the stand holding the flask looked unsteady to me, so I held the flask by its rubber stopper.

It's time for a little reality check here.  No one, least of all me, least of all the teacher, realized that a bicycle pump doesn't work if it lets the air back in the tube.

Back to the experiment, the pressure in the flask built and built and built some more.  Suddenly, the top popped off drenching my right arm in steam and boiling water.  A little found its way to my face, as well.  I said something like, "Christ that's hot!".  I jerked my sweater sleeve and shirt sleeve up my arm and most of my skin came with it.

The next thing I knew, I was in the principal's office with Sister Grace applying some kind of first aid cream to my arm and calling my home.  I told her to ask for my father, because my mother had just learned she was pregnant again with her fourth child and, as usual, was sick as the proverbial dog.  I think Terry Ryan placed the call and, of course, my mother answered.  Terry asked for my dad who came to get me and took me to the ER at Baptist Memorial Hospital.  Dad got angry when he found out what had happened.  The chemical engineer in him knew exactly why the experiment was doomed from the beginning.  My arm was dressed and I received a pain shot.

That afternoon, Dad took me to my pediatrician, who took the dressing off, examined what little epidermis was left to my arm, and redressed the injury.  In the middle, he took one look at me and thought I might want to lie down -- I had almost fainted.  This would set a standard for the rest of my life:  I could watch medical people give me shots.  I could watch minor procedures.  But when the dressings were removed or the stitches were removed, I would head down for the count.

After a couple of days, I returned to school.  Sister Old apologized to me in private, but I don't think she ever realized what went wrong with the experiment.

I did get a call from my "girlfriend", Linda Ferrer.  We didn't speak; she just asked my parents how I was and when I would be back in school.  It was sweet.

When I returned to basketball after missing one game, I had a foam pad protecting my injured arm, which was still very sore.  We were about to play St. Ann's Bartlett, the absolute worst team in the league.  Because we were to play St. Paul's the following week, Coach instructed me to keep my scoring down in hopes that the St. Paul's coach would take it as a sign that I was hampered in my play.

At the St. Ann's game, we were terrible.  We couldn't score and somehow they could and only two points separated us at half time.  I took it upon myself to remove my pad and try to score more.  Eventually I scored 19 points, the most I ever scored in a game in all my playing days.  We won the game.  What a hero.  (Coincidentally, Linda played girls basketball, the old kind where there was an offense and a defense, each with its side of the court.  She made a point of letting me know that she had scored 20 points in a game.  So there, hero.)

Now, Coach had gone out of town for that game.  One of the fathers stepped in to coach.  If memory serves, it was Mr. Visconte.  At our next practice, Coach was back.  He was sitting on the stage while we warmed up with the score book in his lap.  He called me to him and dressed me down for scoring the way I did.  I tried to explain, but I think he partially blamed me for what happened next.

St. Paul, in addition to the players we knew from all the years playing them, had a seventh grader playing for them, Steve Leech.  Steve would go on to letter in four sports at Catholic High.  He was a super athlete.  He was a forward so whether we were playing zone or man to man defense, I ended up guarding him and he was assigned to guard me.  This was the game where I learned the expression "he faked my jock off."

It was a really close game.  We actually led at one point, unheard of in any game against St. Paul.  They always had a really good team.  In the end, we lost by a slim margin, two or three points.  Steve and I left the court with our arms draped over each other's shoulders.  We were both exhausted.

(Steve went on to be recruited by Memphis State University's football program.  He never achieved much success playing quarterback for them.  I'm not sure I ever knew why.  Perhaps injuries.)

I think we ended up third in the league which meant two of us would be selected to play in the inter league all star game.  Anthony and I were chosen.  High point of my "career".  Our league won by the way.

There was one day when I proved myself most adept at church stuff.  I was assigned to serve at a funeral, but Miss Vuille was unavailable to play for the choir.  There was one song (Dies Irae -- Day of Wrath) that Bert hadn't learned yet.  When the time came for that song, I left the sanctuary, scuttled along the side of the church, came in the back and played the piece before returning for the conclusion of the funeral.  I was the perfect off spring of the perfect church lady.  My mother is church lady to this day, at age 91.

I did win the school's spelling bee.  Phyllis Bernard had replaced Mary Gayle Comer as competitor in chief.  At the MidSouth spelling bee, I correctly spelled one word, but failed to spell "fuchsia" correctly.  Never had heard the word.  Have rarely used it since.

Most of the eighth grade boys took an achievement test at Christian Brothers High School to qualify for a scholarship.  I remember sitting with Sean Gillespie in the auditorium with all of the eighth grade boys from across Memphis before the test .  I was nervous and was rocking back and forth in the seat.  He asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm just nervous," I replied.

"Why are you nervous?" he pursued.

"Because I can win a scholarship.  I just don't want to screw up."

 As Jack McCormick pointed out recently, our little school (twenty-six in our graduation picture, half girls, half boys) won two scholarships.  I won a full one year scholarship and Jack won a partial.  (For my children's information, that one year scholarship covered tuition of $285, a far cry from the thousands I spent each year on their education.) 

Although I missed our graduation ceremony due to my cousin getting married in New Orleans, I was in the graduation picture.

Front row from left:  Mary Ann Lenti, Patty Murphy, Trudy Turpin, Patricia Nowak, Beth Gillum, Ann Reeve, Carolyn Pesce, Linda Ferrer, Anne Maier, Kathy Bosi, Doris Dino(?), Phyllis Bernard, and Judy McCarver.  Back row:  Chris Jaynes, Tico Capote, Walter "Bubba" Marshall, Al Mulrooney, Philip McCarthy, Jimmy Sterle, Jimmy Coleman, Terry Ryan, Michael Casper, Bert Bailey, Jack McCormick, Ricky Wade, Sean Gillespie.

All that's left to tell is my first Senior baseball season.  Our coach was Mr. Warner or Werner.  He was the first coach to pay attention to my batting problems.  He suggested I try an unorthodox batting position.  He had me practically facing the pitcher.  Only when the pitch came in did I step forward to swing.  I think he wanted me to learn to watch the ball all the way to the plate.

It worked.  I started collecting  hits.

Because Jimmy Sterle seemed to be able to get on base frequently either by hit or walk and I could bunt pretty well, Coach's strategy was to let Jimmy lead off and I would be second in the line up.  When Jimmy would get on base, I would bunt him (sacrificially) to second.  Whoever was third in the line up hopefully could drive him home.  I continued to play first base.  Others on the team were Bubba Marshall (third base), Sean (shortstop), and Frank Ragghianti (pitcher).  Frank was a year older and already in high school but could still play for our senior team.

I'm sure there are other memories that will come up this weekend, when we celebrate our 55th year reunion since graduating from elementary school.

God speed to all traveling to our reunion.

Things Get Interesting -- 5th and 6th grades

After a too brief summer, we entered the fifth grade,  Mrs. Martin's classroom.  Mrs. Martin was a portly older lay woman.  She once proudly described herself as "pleasingly plump."  Her grandson, Larry Martin, was in the class behind us.

A new "threat" was Mary Gayle Comer.  I think she'd been with us all along, but became the dominant female student in terms of academic achievement.  Until she left before the eight grade, we were always the last two standing in spelling bees.

One activity that began in the fifth grade was that of "safety patrol boy".  I don't recall if girls were involved or if they had a parallel activity.  I remember performing the role after school, but I imagine we served before school.  We were supplied with a white "dough boy" plastic hat, a white plastic safety belt, and a pole with a flag on the end.  When students needed to cross the street at the corner of Bingham and Hale, we held the flag out to stop the traffic and allow the children to cross.  Someone else may remember if we worked any of the other corners near the school.



Fifth grade began what my parents thought of as my "Emergency Room" period of my childhood.  Somehow a fellow student managed to dump me on my head on the playground.  I don't remember it bothering me that much until I was at home after school that day and became nauseous (with its inevitable result) and had a headache.  I told my mother what had happened at recess, she called our pediatrician, and, thinking I might have a concussion, he admitted me to LeBonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis.  I stayed for about three hours, with my father roaming the halls, until the doctor arrived, saw me reading a comic book, and discharged me.

There was a local afternoon children's television show called "Loony Zoo", if memory serves.  It was broadcast from the studio of the local NBC affiliate, Channel 5.  It's host was a local celebrity, Trent Wood.  Schools selected children to appear as the "Safety Patrolman of the Day" on the show.

Mrs. Martin called me to her desk one day and told me she would have recommended me but for a certain nervous habit I had which she thought would not reflect well on the school.  She told me that, if I could conquer the habit, she would recommend me another time.  I did appear later in the year.  I remember being so fascinated with the studio with all the cameras, lights, and other equipment.  If any of my classmates remember whether they were selected, I encourage them to comment to the blog or the Facebook post.

This was the first year I played basketball.  Our coach was Jim "Butch" Fier.  Others on the team from our class were Sean Gillespie and Al Mulrooney.  I'm sure there were others.  There were also sixth graders on our "Peewee" team:  Ronnie Chambers and John Augustine.  Ronnie was a guard and John was a tall rough house center.  For the fifth graders, this was their first try at organized basketball.  At the beginning of the season, we practiced in the Shelby County Building on the Memphis Fairgrounds, because Blessed Sacrament was in the process of building an addition that would bring all of the classes under the same roof and provide for a combined gymnasium, auditorium, and cafeteria (called a cafetorium).

The Shelby County Building was a large open space that combined several basketball courts where schools lacking facilities would practice.  It was also a place where after school pickup games were played.  It served as the "car show" exhibit space when the Mid South Fair was held in September each year.

I was tall for my age but not tall (or good) enough to play on the first string.  I once was selected to play for John Augustine when he was ill one weekend.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I remember falling down every time I went for a rebound but failed to get the ball.  I guess I thought it would demonstrate my effort.  Coach put Al into the line up instead of me.

I recall our weekend games were played in the gyms of either Christian Brothers High School or Catholic High School.  The gym at Catholic was impressive in size with elevated stands and the slickest basketball floor you can imagine.  Catholic, as a fund raiser I guess, opened the gym for roller skating on Saturday nights.  All of those skates wore the finish down so that our basketball shoes could get no traction.  If we had to run after the ball, when we stopped, we would keep sliding and, likely as not, the referee would call us for walking.  Ah!  Those were the days!

I remember that I received a basketball goal for Christmas that year, along with my own personal basketball.  It was a while before my dad mounted the goal directly on the front of our rundown garage.  It wasn't long before it was hanging by one screw or nail and we had to take it down.  I was always out in the driveway shooting baskets.

Before the season was over, the school had completed our addition with two new classrooms, a new kitchen, and the cafetorium.  At one end was an elevated stage for school productions.  Two basketball goals were installed, one of which was right in front of the stage and could be lifted out of the way when the stage was in use.

The cafeteria tables were, I thought, so cool.  They were stored in the walls and "unfolded" during the lunch hour, along with the benches, to provide table for meals.  It was the assignment for the older students to extend them before the meals and return them to storage at the end.  I remember boys having the assignment.  Perhaps girls were asked to clean the tables.  It was a different time.

Toward the end of the year, I went out for Peewee baseball for the first time.  Our coach was Jim Hall.  I remember scratchy wool uniforms of which I was so proud.  Others on the team I recall were Sean Gillespie, Walter "Bubba" Marshall (RIP), Jack McCormick, and Ricky Wade.

I was a terrible hitter in games.  I could manage in batting practice with the coach pitching, but for some reason, with someone of my own age pitching at me, I guess I was afraid of getting hit and was always bailing out.  I was so terrible, that I didn't even touch the ball with the bat until the end of the season when I hit a foul ball.  I considered the foul ball a victory.  I struck out every time.  I was relegated to hitting 9th and playing in right field (where balls were rarely hit with everyone batting right handed).

At one game, I actually had three balls hit to me.  I caught the first two, but let the third drop.  It allowed a winning run to score; I was mortified.

It was about this time that we played a game against St. Michael's School.  A boy named Frank Ferino was the pitcher.  He was tall and threw side-armed.  One pitch started coming at me and I ducked into it.  Unfortunately, the top of my head was not protected.  (Helmets at the time were wrap around plastic affairs that left the top of the head exposed.)  It didn't knock me out, but I learned the expression "I saw stars."  The ball bounced over the backstop.  The injury didn't take me out of the game, but I got to be on base for the first time because I was hit by a pitch.  Small victories.

During the summer, an older boy on my street bought a new catcher's mitt.  I asked to try it one Saturday afternoon.  He and I tossed the ball back and forth a few times.  I asked him to throw a pop up.  He heaved the ball in the sky.  I got under it and lifted the mitt to catch it.  I missed and the ball hit me in the nose.  There was a lot of blood and I couldn't breathe through my nose.  Our doctor met us at the Emergency Room and pronounced my nose broken.

(A subsequent x-ray revealed my sinuses crushed as well.  I recall a discussion whether to "fix" my nose, but the doctor recommended against it because "he's still growing".   I would be forty-six years old before I would have the first of three head and neck surgeries to cure me of my snoring and sleep apnea caused by this childhood injury.)

 As the next school year began, we moved into one of the new schoolrooms created in the addition to our school.  Our teacher was Sister Mary Carl.  Sister Carl was the first teacher who lost my respect and I think that of some of the rest of the class.  I'm not sure why. We did like the new classroom though.  Shiny aluminum railed chalk boards to replace the oak trimmed chalk boards.

I remember her getting into arguments with some of my classmates, angry shouting matches that usually resulted in the classmate being sent to the principal's office.

Just before Christmas, Sister Carl tried to teach us to sing "The Little Drummer Boy."  She began by writing the words on the chalk board:  "Come they told me...."  So far so good.  "Pa rum pa pum pum."  I imagine if she had tried to sing it for us first and explain that those syllables represented a drum being beaten.  But she didn't do that.  She kept on writing and the more those syllable appeared the funnier it seemed to many of us.  Soon we were laughing uncontrollably and she was turning red in the face.  Eventually, she erased the board and gave up on that project.

I guess we were studying geography when we learned about Mount Vesuvius.  I'd never heard of the volcano before, but I was excited to report to my parents about the class and the mountain blowing up.  But I pronounced it just as Sister Carl had:  Ve-su-vee'-us.  My mother's face blanched.  She said, "I think it's pronounced Ve-soo'-vi-us."  "No, Mom.  Sister said."  ("Sister said" was always a dispute ender in our family.  It became funny after awhile.)  That's was the first time that I learned a teacher could be wrong.

 It was about this time that I made another trip to the ER or doctor because of some stupid injury.  Remember those skating nights at the Catholic High gym?  One night, I was with my friends the Ryans and we started that game where you line up abreast, the inside person drops back and attempts to catch up to the outside position while the whole group continues circling the floor.  On one of my attempts, I fell and, with my hand outstretched, this guy who weighed about two hundred pounds rolled over it.  He crashed to the floor as well.  

My pinkie and ring finger were broken.  That made for a brief hiatus of piano lessons and practice.  Good news.  Bad news.

It was in grade six that all of the Catholic boys learned to be altar boys, the term we used for serving at Mass.  We had to learn all of the Latin responses for the Mass (this was before Vatican II).  We had to learn all sorts of movement and skills:  helping the priest before Mass, processing into the church before him, moving the lectionary from the Epistle side to the Gospel side, lighting candles, pouring wine and water, and holding the paten under communicants' chins so no crumbs from the wafer fell on the floor.

I remember one day when Sister had all of us in the sanctuary, going over the routine.  While she was taking two of us through the steps, the others became bored.  One of them was seated in the "priest's" chair and decided to see how high he could bounce in the air.  In retrospect, I guess I feel sorry for Sister having been saddled with such a group.

In those days, the church scheduled two masses on weekdays:  6:30 am and 8:00 am when the school attended.  You really did not want to be scheduled for 6:30.  That meant you had to get up extra early and parents would drive us to church so that we could serve.  Parents weren't that wild about 6:30 either, especially if, like my mom, she had to get two other children ready for school.  In fairness, though, my dad was really good about helping us get out the door.

At first, we were assigned with two older boys to break us into the ministry of serving at the altar.  Eventually we could be assigned on our own and, later, to supervise younger ones coming up.

I may be getting ahead of myself here, but sometime in the early '60s, Memphis experienced a couple of monster snowfalls (by Midsouth standards).  Snow was twelve or more inches deep.  Memphis was at a standstill.  Schools were closed, but I remember trying to walk in that snow to church for one of those 6:30 masses.  I was probably accompanied by Terry Ryan since we lived close together.  As luck would have it, some older boys, two of the Ragghianti brothers, were being taken to their paper route by their father.  He saw us somewhere on Hollywood Street struggling through the drifts.  He picked us up and took us to church.  It may seem cruel that we were sent by our parents to church that way, but most cars were not making it.  On foot was the only way to make it.  I guess Mr. Ragghianti had special chains on his tires or something.  There were no 4x4 SUVs then.

Sometime around the sixth grade, Ricky Hester was introduced to our class.  I think he might have been a little older than us.  He was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was one of the meanest.  I'm not sure if there was a plan to Sister Carl's seating arrangement, but at one point both Ricky and I were seated at the back of our respective rows, about two or three rows apart.  I'm not sure whether Ricky was trying to annoy Sister or just bully me, but when Sister's back was turned, he would slip off his shoes and stealthily creep over to my desk and try to kick me out with his stockinged foot, and then run back to his seat before the movement could be detected.  I couldn't complain because that would have bought me a whole new batch of trouble.  Ricky was big, strong, and always looking for trouble.

I played basketball again in the 6th grade, coached by my dad, also Jim Coleman.  We actually won a tournament that year and were glad to display our trophy for the benefit of the older junior team.  I played first string for the first time that year, along with Sean, Al, and a fourth grader named Stotz Thoda.  Stotz was a natural at basketball and baseball, even though he was two years behind us.

One final note about how we dressed at school.  Boys were expected to wear shirts with collars and no jeans and definitely no tennis shoes, although we probably called then "sneakers" at the time.  For the girls, uniforms were mandatory.  As I recall, there were two options.  The first was a uniform jumper (blue and white check) with a white blouse underneath.  The other was a uniform skirt and a white blouse.  I guess flats or saddle oxfords formed the shoe wardrobe.

In church, it was required that the girls wear something on their heads.  These could be uniform "beanies" or something that looked like a doily.  That was a church and school rule, long since abandoned.

My daughters who went to school at St. Mary's Episcopal School in Memphis would probably be surprised if not appalled.  St. Mary's had its standards but it allowed the girls to wear slacks and running shoes.  Somewhere along the line, common sense prevailed.

The Saga Continues -- grades 3 and 4

 

You know the saying about how the more things change the more they remain the same.

We were looking forward to moving to the "big school" but for some reason I don't recall, we stayed in the little building away from the main school for third grade.  (I don't know where the first and second grade went.)  Our teacher was Sister Mary Gonzaga.  She had a reputation as being particularly hard, so I entered the third grade with trepidation.  We were the only class in our building now so Sister Gonzaga taught everything.  We continued with phonics, reading, arithmetic, and, of course, religion.

I was terrified of Sister Gonzaga, although she only made me stay after school once, for talking in class.  Later I would read satire about nuns who lay in wait in doorways for a student to come flying
past and "lasso" him with her oversized rosary.  I thought of Sister Gonzaga when I read the story.
 
I believe we began to learn cursive writing in the third grade.  Many of my generation bemoan the lack of cursive instruction in schools today.  They are all female.  No male in his right mind thinks cursive is a great idea.  We lack the fine motor skills for cursive writing, especially at eight years of age.  I rarely received better than a C for my handwriting.  I don't know of any boys who did better.

This was the first year that we used pens instead of those big fat pencils.  I vaguely recall having forgotten the assignment to bring a pen to school one day until the very last minute.  My mother sent me with her Parker ball point.  Nerves had me clicking the pen in and out, in and out, so much that I broke the mechanism.  Not the best day.  Mom was thrilled.  By the time my younger siblings came Bic pens had as well. 

My love of reading continued.  I remember the first time my parents took me to the library with them to get my library card.  They always went to the library on Saturdays.  I checked out the limit on my first visit, all primer readers.  Before the afternoon was over, I had read all of them.  My parents encouraged me to set the bar a little higher next time.

This leads me to what every classroom seemed to have had in its "library":  biographies of the saints.  I read them compulsively.  I learned how Queen Elizabeth I tortured Roman Catholics to death by crushing them and how St. Lawrence was barbecued by the Romans on a large grill.  It's a miracle we didn't have nightmares or PTSD.  One saint that stands out in my mind was St. Aloysius of Gonzaga.  This is why.

One classmate who joined us for the third grade was Al Mulrooney.  Al was a little older than the rest of us.  He seemed to like Sister Gonzaga to the extent that, much later in our adult life, I had taken my young daughters to a theme park in Memphis  called Libertyland.  We were walking through the park when Al and I spotted each other.  "Jimmy!  You'll never guess who I've brought to the park.  Sister Gonzaga.  She's at the dolphin exhibit.  You've got to see her."  Of course, I had to go.  Sister Gonzaga was sitting with Al's mother watching the dolphins do their thing.  Sister Gonzaga had traded her traditional habit for a post-Vatican II habit but she still seemed the same age as when she had taught us in 1957.  She also struck me as a lot sweeter and less fearsome.  I finally realized (in my mind) why they had such a connection.  Al's full name was Edgar Aloysius Mulrooney.  Sister chose her religious name for St. Aloysius of Gonzaga.

Al has a wonderful story to tell about Sister in later years.  I'll reserve that for a later time unless he wants to share it here.

With the third grade, I was old enough to walk home from school.  Before then, car pooling parents would take us to school and pick us up.  There were two school buses that transported children who lived away from the school.  I lived six or seven blocks away and my parents decided it was time for me to transport myself.  A few of us walked together all or part of the way.

Mary Gayle Comer caught the bus on Broad Street.  Once when we walked together, she bought me a Three Musketeers candy bar at the neighborhood market.  When the boys  in class found out, they made fun of me.

Russell Caccamisi's father had a shop on Broad, so we would walk together sometimes.

Terry Ryan and his older brother Richard and younger sisters Peggy and Betty Ann lived a block further away than I did, so we walked together frequently.  Terry and I had two modes of friendship:  pals or fighting.  We were always getting into fights, then forgetting the next day why we had fought.  Sometimes I ran home to get away from him.  He was the first friend I made whose house I was permitted to visit.  As we became older, we found some ingenious ways of getting into trouble.

My parents started piano lessons for me in the third grade.  These were not taught at school; they were private lessons with Miss Margaret Vuille (pronounced Vee - lee).  Miss Margaret was a spinster, the church organist, and eventually one of my mother's best friends.  My mother always sang in the choir.  My parents believed in the value of musical training for all of their children.  Three of us persisted with piano lessons until high school.  My sister Barbara eventually became a music teacher in schools, a private music teacher, and a church organist.  Along with my friend, Bert Bailey, I played the organ for the school choir in the seventh and eighth grades.  My brother, Richard, despite having a busy radiology practice, continues to play piano at his church for some services and his daughter is the chorus director for her alma mater in Huntsville, Alabama and a music graduate of Auburn University.  Such was Miss Vuille's influence.

Fourth grade and finally we made it to the big school.  Our teacher was Sister Mary Bernardo who also was the choir director.  She had a beautiful voice and, like Sister Gemma, was a relatively young nun (at least from my 9 year old eyes).  She is also the only teacher to give me a U (Unsatisfactory) in conduct.  When I received that report card, I waited until the rest of the class left and asked her about it.  I was shocked.  I didn't recall receiving many scoldings, but I must have.  She told me I finished my work so quickly that I spent a lot of time talking to my neighbors and distracting them from their work.  When I went home that day, I went to my father's office and presented the report card to him.  I was a wreck.  I knew he was going to kill me.  But he must have realized that I'd already punished myself enough and just told me to do better.

With the fourth grade we were prepared for Confirmation.  Most if not all of us were baptized as infants.  Confirmation was the sacrament where you professed on your own behalf to be part of the Church.  A bishop came to the church and it involved a laying on of the bishop's hands.  We dressed up in our white suits (boys) and white dresses (girls) again, just as we had for First Communion. 

I find myself recalling what the church was like then, in the years prior to the Second Vatican Council and its Aggiornamento  or "bringing up to date".  Everything was black or white, every sin was either venial or mortal, every decision was between heaven and hell.  I discovered a list of venial sins on the internet.  These are the lesser sins.  I also found a list of mortal sins.  Vatican II notwithstanding, the church remains, in many ways, unable to distinguish shades of gray.  Murder is a mortal sin.  You will go to hell.  Missing Mass on Sundays is also a mortal sin.  You will go to hell.  What's wrong with this picture?

The remarkable thing is it never occurred to most of us to raise such a question.  We were instructed to take the church's teaching as gospel (pun intended) and not to question its teachings or our teachers. 

My own daughters would probably be surprised that I was confirmed at such a young age.  Even the Catholic Church recognized that a nine year old was probably not prepared for such an adult decision.  Most of my younger brothers and sisters were confirmed in their teens as were my daughters in the Episcopal Church.

Bert and I would work more intensely with Sister Bernardo when we became the school choir organists in the seventh and eighth grades.

Next we get to look forward to Mrs. Martin and Sister Mary Carl, two polar opposites as teachers go.