St. Jude Church/School Nostalgia

[kellyroad]

Posted on Tuesday, April 01, 2008 - 12:18 pm:
Hi. I'm Jokerman's brother, Rick, SJS class of 66. Got my nickname "Duck" because, in eighth grade, I shot baskets "like a duck." The name stuck through high school at Notre Dame and Denby. Even today, some old friends still greet me as such. Although I made the football and basketball teams in eighth grade, I sucked at sports. Mostly, I was a bench-warmer. But, under the lights, in the Blue Jug Bowl game of 1965, Coach Steve Gerbe put me in for one play and I intercepted a pass. In basketball, I scored a total of two points the entire season. But it was a "swish."

In first grade, I had Sr. Madonna Marian, she was so nice. Second grade, Mrs. Zola. In third grade, I had Sr. Stella Coeli. I was an honor student with many pins to prove it.

Again, in fourth grade, I had Mrs. Zola. She couldn't believe how I changed from a "nice little Grade A student" to a "discipline problem."I got several green slips in conduct. "Richard is slipping," she wrote home to my mom. Once, she tried to grab my hair to correct me. But it was too short. So she pulled my ear. Yow!

Fourth grade was also the year I got kicked-out of cub scouts. [[Den 8, pack 420.)
We were crafting an Easter egg popsicle-stick cart in-tow by a cardboard bunny. I told the den mothers it looked like a "beer wagon." Then, I called them by their first names. That's when they called my dad to come and pick me up.

On the first day of fifth grade, I was greeted with " I've heard about you, mister. I'm going to keep my eye on you," by Sr. Marie Francis. She was a dominatrix of a nun. She was big, tall and tough. Although she had a slight lisp because of her overbite, her deep, raspy voice was like a cross between Dick Da Bruiser and Louis Nye. She wasn't going to take any "guff" from any of us. "You're all a bunch of babies. You're bold as brass. More crust than all the pie factories in the United States."

She would rap her nun ring on the window at other students playing outside of our portable classroom. It was almost as if she were flipping them the bird. It all might have been an attempt to teach us obedience to authority and conformity. And it probably worked for a while. But it might have helped to instill the very roots of the anarchistic theory that many of us espoused to in the late sixties.

In sixth grade, we were all so cool. I was fortunate, I thought, to get Mr. Fleming, the only male teacher at SJS. He addressed everyone by their last names. I thought it was pretty cool. Until, at least once a week, he'd point his number two pencil at me and say, "Pesta, I'll see you after school." During these detentions, we had to write a million sentences about how we wouldn't screw around in class anymore. Once, we had to write the definition of "time" from Webster's dictionary [[because we "wasted his.") It's about two pages long.

I got kicked-out of Mr. Eck's boys choir that year, too.

In seventh grade, I had Sr. Mary John. She was nice and politically intuitive. Very much into civics and government. We held mock elections for the 1964 presidential election. I was the committee chairman for LBJ. Michael K. was chairman for Goldwater. Just as in the real world, our team won by a landslide.

My friend Chuck T. and I got busted for smoking cigarettes in the restroom by the crying room in the church. Got reported by an eighth-grade duty girl. Sr. Leonita made us go see Fr. Ording. We thought we really in for it. But he was cool. He just made us pick up litter outside the church. We were done in five minutes.

In eighth grade, I had Sr. James Marie. She was matter-of-fact and to-the-point. Tough. Fair. Rigid. She had a deep manly voice with a slight New Jersey accent. She was a sports fan. She invited all of the football players to stand up during class and receive applause from the rest of the class. Although I sat the bench, I got to stand up. "These are real men," she'd say.

One day, there was some sort of parental event occurring after school. All the eighth graders were in the gym. Coffee was brewing in the big vats in the kitchen. Sister caught me with my hand on the spigot as half the coffee was draining out. She slapped me down in front of the entire class. I didn't cry or anything. And I said nothing.

A few minutes later, she discovered what I already knew. I didn't turn it on, I turned it off.

So she, with the utmost eloquence, commended me, in front of the whole class, for "taking it like a man" and not "ratting-out" the guilty party. My face was still red from the slap-down. That's when I felt like crying.

God bless St. Jude School.

By the way, three years later, I got kicked-out of Notre Dame High School. I graduated from Denby, graduated from Wayne State University and I've been a writer in advertising for more than 30 years. Married for 33 years. Three kids, all college graduates. One grandchild and one more on the way.

Now, I'm a conservative republican in Grosse Pointe Woods. And, at times, I attend Mass at St. Jude Church.

[[Message edited by Duck on April 01, 2008)go today [[April 1, 2008)

[kellyroad]

The above post from "Duck" IMHO really "captured" what St. Jude School was all about in the 60s. What a coincidence that the post was exactly one year ago today. Happy April Fools.