 
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 56
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, July 14, 2007 - 11:01 pm: |    |
 # 3 For Kelly and Sabrina
Granddaughter and Great-Granddaughter
Sister Adelaide.
Instead of lapsing into the usual litany of sorrow that we have all experienced in recent years, I thought I
would try to accentuate the positive. I have a thousand anecdotes of pleasure that I can recall. My memory is
truly incredible regarding those early years. My mind can conjure up images of the past that are as fresh today as
they were in their own time. Many of them silly, some wistful, some romantic and some poignant.
Some of my stories may make you smile a bit. Some may remind you of your own good memories. Or,
if they just take your mind off of some of our modern day problems for a few minutes, then we will be happy
with you.
Recently, I received a message from my cousin, Bev, in Detroit. (I had written a few community letters
and sent them to all of our relatives all over the country.) Bev said she enjoyed my letters very much, so I wrote
the following to her:
“Beware of what you say! I need very little encouragement. Tossing a few kinds words my way will
start me off on a tangent.”
Yes, I love to write letters. I love the time and meditation it takes me to think of a word, then a phrase,
then a sentence, then a paragraph and finally a story.
In my school days, ego and grade markings were the motivators for my interest in 'reading, riting and
rithmetic. Especially the sixth grade at Nativity Grade School.....
While still in the fifth grade, we had been warned of the peril that faced us in the sixth grade by those
"upper class men."
A despotic and craven dyspeptic named Sister Adelaide reigned supreme. Her stern humorless image is
still fresh in my memory. Her right hand clenched around the omnipresent "green stick" with the cruelly
sharpened metal hook on the end of it. It was common knowledge that she would use that stick to grab some
luckless student by the neck and drag him into the cloak room and beat him unmercifully, for even the most
minor infraction. (Or so the upper class men told us.)
On the first Monday after Labor Day, 1939, the terror began. The trepidation we all felt manifested itself
as we trudged up the stairs to the second floor annex classroom, when little Bernie Joseph peed his pants.
Nobody laughed.
That very first week is still vivid in my mind. Sister Adelaide loomed menacingly over her all male
charges, waving that little green stick. She would emit not so subtle utterances every now and again. "You
WILL listen. You WILL learn!” Fortunately, that entire first week was devoted to our Religion class. That
began with 8 o'clock mass and lasted until 3 P.M. (I have always referred to every first week in a Catholic
School as, "Catholic Orientation Week.")
On the Friday evening of that first week I experienced a wonderful serendipity that would keep me from
going back to that hellish classroom. I got hit by a car on E. Warren and McClellan and suffered a broken leg. I
did not resume classes until Jan. 2. Then the fun began.
On that first morning back, my buddies prepped me as to what to expect. They just shook their heads and
clicked their tongues.
From the very first minute she was all over me like a dark cloud.
Religion class: "Thomas, come to the front of the class and read the inspirational story in the Junior
Catholic Messenger."
Arithmetic: "Thomas, go to the blackboard and add the following fractions."
Then English: "Thomas, go to the blackboard and diagram the compound sentence, such and such." (I
could diagram a compound/complex sentence as fast as I could write it out.)
By the end of the first month I finally realized that this dear lady was going to drag me through that class
by my tongue, if that was what it was going to take, to allow me to catch up with the rest of the class. I had
caught her trying to stifle a smile every time I did something right on a tough problem. After that first month, it
was a lark for the entire class. We would intimidate her into smiling and then laughing out loud at our antics.
The green stick with a hook? Of course there was no hook. The stick was in fact, a 'pointer.' The only
thing she ever tapped with it was her own left hand. She never laid a hand on anyone. She was an old mother
hen. But that is not what we told those incoming fifth graders!
Legends like Sister Adelaide had to be perpetuated.
So after missing the first four months of school, I managed to pass out of the sixth grade, into the awe
inspiring venue, called, the seventh grade. That is where the action began. |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 637
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, July 14, 2007 - 11:20 pm: | |
another gem! |
Hardliner
Member
Username: Hardliner
Post Number: 63
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 12:48 am: | |
today, she'd go to jail for child abuse, where she belonged in the first place. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 185
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 12:56 am: | |
Thanks Tponetom!
My mother never speaks of her catholic school days. I think she would rather purge her memory of the nightmarish nuns. It's nice to hear that they weren't all bad. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1012
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 9:36 am: | |
quote:today, she'd go to jail for child abuse, where she belonged in the first place.
Go back and practice your reading comprehension skills by re-reading the entire post. |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 641
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 9:38 am: | |
Amen, Mikeg! |
Ravine
Member
Username: Ravine
Post Number: 1121
Registered: 01-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, July 15, 2007 - 9:53 pm: | |
Tres bien!! Encore, encore!! |
Pamequus
Member
Username: Pamequus
Post Number: 124
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 10:23 am: | |
Wonderful Tp.....took me back to my days at Christ the King.... |
Tponetom
Member
Username: Tponetom
Post Number: 63
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 5:35 pm: | |
They were not all happy days. I choose to not write about them. I had three nuns that I revered and then the Christian Brothers were the best. I may get some flack back for that pronouncement. I cannot remember a bad day in four years of High School. |
Gibran
Member
Username: Gibran
Post Number: 719
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Monday, July 16, 2007 - 6:07 pm: | |
I was sitting in a bar (sounds like the beginning of a joke) with three other Catholics...
we were from Detroit, New York, San Antonio and Mexico....It was really fun to hear the Crazy nun stories.....we came to the conclusion that there must have been a boot camp for their training...It began in the 1930's and carried on to through the seventies when the original group must have retired...
We all knew the same ones ... or at least the techniques.... It was way funny ...still got the battle scars ....but what a foundation for an education....but I was cognitively challenged since I still can't tie a tie...too many clip ons... |
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