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In 1959, I entered kindergarten at the School of Immaculate Conception. My report card says that I could say my prayers, was reverent and attentive at religion time, and told the truth. My teacher, Sister Mary Grace, was suitably named. The Pope has probably beatified her by now for staying serene and sane throughout years of teaching five year-olds. In first grade, I got A's, A-'s, and B+'s, but was absent more than a week when my tonsils were removed. It was reported that I exhibited Christ-like attitudes and habits. There were three teacher's pets that year — Theresa P., Margaret D., and me. We became best friends because we were the only three students who were always guaranteed recess. I got an A in "Catholic doctrine and practice" in second grade, as well as reading, English and science. When I received B's in handwriting and arithmetic, Sister Mary Frances put those grades in the "Unsatisfactory" column. Sister was tall, accentuated by the three-inch crown of her habit that blew off one windy winter day revealing white wrapping tape encircling her head and no wisp of hair. She resembled a mummy, and I was both horrified and amused. Sometime in first or second grade at Immaculate Conception, students were introduced to pagan babies. Pictures of African babies, who Sister said were starving for food and Catholicism, hung on the bulletin board. To exhibit Christ-like behavior, we were to bring our pennies for the nuns who were rescuing these babies by converting them to our religion. I brought my pennies religiously and sometimes gave my entire allowance. This sacrifice was actually a hedge against extended time in purgatory. In third grade, I had a dreaded lay teacher and it was a more difficult year. (It was well known that the quality of education delivered by a lay teacher was significantly lower than that of any nun.) I gained some weight that year, sported crooked bangs, and was no longer the teacher's pet. Multiplication tables were difficult for me and I sometimes cheated by using my pencil case that had a slide mechanism revealing answers to every multiplication problem below 12 x 12. One day I was so upset with myself for cheating, I shattered the pencil box and learned the darn tables, another sacrifice saving additional time in purgatory. I was still chubby in fourth grade and my teacher, Sister Mary Winifred, was strict and screamed a lot. That year I was forced to eat a tomato that I had secretly squished into my milk carton. Throwing away food was a sin because of those starving pagan babies. A nun, with first lunch detail, shook my milk carton as I approached the trashcan. During the next lunch period, I had to eat every bite of that tomato glob soaked in warm milk while the nun hovered above me. I didn't eat another tomato (not a sacrifice) for almost 30 years after that. Sister Mary Catherine taught fifth grade. That was the year that President Kennedy, our Catholic President, was killed and I got glasses. My class photo shows me with a white headband, stringy blond hair, a gap between my two slightly bucked front teeth, and stylish pearl glasses. My behavior began to decline the next year, my last year for Girl Scouts and orthopedic saddle shoes. By seventh grade, my conduct was rated, "has repeatedly violated school rules and disturbed classroom order." My hair was short and I'd ditched my retainer. I was wearing granny glasses and a training bra, from which I never graduated, and had a pair of my first loafers although they were antique green and I learned that wearing green on Thursdays meant you were a queer. This was the year of Sister Mary Prudence who was obsessed with the danger of mixing girls and boys and any outcome thereof. When I wore my blue and white seersucker shift to school, with side slits just above my knees, she approached me while I was bent over at the drinking fountain, "Agnes, don't you have a slip on under that dress?" When I told her I forgot it, she called me a slut and said I'd be pregnant before I graduated from high school. After Tommy G. gave me his ring in the ghost house at Joyland that year, Sister Prudence removed it from my hand because no boy-girl fraternization was allowed at Immaculate Conception. But once, Sister Prudence lost control of her daily battle with our adolescent interest in sex and the opposite gender. When I presented an oral report about King Henry VIII, I closed with the statement that the King had died of syphilis. I had arranged for my best friend, Brigid, to ask me, "Agnes, what is syphilis?" I said I didn't know and then asked Sister Prudence. Her plump Irish face reddened, she stammered and said that it was a lung disease like TB. I sat down smiling knowing that Sister Prudence had lied, a sin against the ninth commandment. I left Catholic school after seventh grade. Since I'd spent that year not learning much other than how to incite Sister Prudence, my parents decided that I could attend a public junior high school the following year. Brigid's parents let her leave too. We've lost touch with one another now. I've speculated about Sister Prudence. I'd like to believe that she had an affair with a priest and left the order disgraced and pregnant. As for me, I didn't have a child until age 33, more than 15 years after Sister Prudence predicted. I wasn't called a slut again until my husband screamed the word over and over again as I lay in fear of him under my son's bed the final night before I filed for divorce. He also had a Catholic education. |
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© 2001 by Trix Niernberger
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