Good memories help me through the night.
As the first days at boarding school rolled by, I began to adjust. Life was different, very different than the life I had lived at my home. True, my teachers were very European in their ideas of discipline, food, work, values and spirituality, but they were gentle people, not lost in a world of mystic abstraction. They were nothing like some much later perverts who would bring scandal to the Church because they entrusted the supervision of the lives of young people to deeply troubled clerics, priest and nuns.
Yes, these good nuns censored our letters. I never understood why that was necessary, but I don’t believe, for a minute, that they did it to snoop in an unhealthy way. They were not operating a destructive cult out to attract young people in the turmoil of adolescence to serve their own diabolical self-interests. I was not a troubled kid, starved for love and laughter. Life here was uplifting and nurturing. These nuns did everything to build up our self-esteem, to give wonderful meaning to our lives, to set an example of what it means to live in a community of people who serve the Lord and others with love, joy, peace and generous amount of good humor and laughter.
They did not exploit me by making me work slavishly to earn my keep. They were not primarily in this school business to increase their revenues or for other selfish interests. They were truly filling a service for which they received little remuneration for themselves. They were generous in sharing what they had. A case in point, Mother Marie must have deducted from reading the letters I received from my mom that my family had never fully recovered from the “Great Depression”. This helped her understand me more fully. It was always a heart-wrenching chore when I was forced to ask my parents for money. Circumstances obliged me to do that only once, thanks to the generosity of Mother Marie.
Our freshman class had formed a club, mainly to learn how to conduct meetings according to parliamentary procedures. Monthly dues amounted to one paltry dime but I didn’t have even that small sum. I dreaded writing home but yet I knew I had to pay my share. Mother Marie saved the day when she called me into her office one day to give me five dollars. She told me this small fortune was what I had earned over and above my keep for my first month in school. She didn’t really fool me. I knew that I had not worked that hard but I accepted this gift with tears of gratitude in my eyes. Oh, how I admired that good nun.
So I was happy and getting adjusted to being away from home. Nonetheless, I missed my family especially at night in the quiet of the dormitory after lights-out. I would lie awake and wonder just what they were doing at home. It would be impossible not to miss my brothers, Gene and Harold, just two and four years older than me. Oh, those two brothers were a caution. Gene, especially was the one at home who put life into everyday living. He really knew how to have fun, though at times he went a little too far. On this particular sleepless night, I recalled many wonderful memories of Gene and his escapades.
There was that summer when Gene concocted an unusual way to entertain himself. He framed in a large hole he had dug at the edge of our garden. Over it, he hinged a door covered with a layer of sod. He called this his "Purple Pocket". He would lure my little sister, Mildred or me into it and then quickly close the door on us. He sat on the top of the door until we begged for mercy or until we agreed to do one of his chores for him.
Then there were memories connected to the Hemple family who lived next door just to the east of our garden. They were a strange family with their own church located on the west side of our house. They had a son, Bill, (Also known as “Mohawk”.) and a retarded daughter, Emma, who looked to be about twenty years old. She was extremely heavy. She often sat on her swing just across the fence near our garden. Gene loved to sneak into his Purple Pocket. Once inside, he would raise the door just a tiny crack and call out in his weirdest voice: "Emma, Emma". She would look all around in bewilderment trying to see who was calling her. Gene loved this game and it kept Emma amused as well.
Mohawk would visit us sometimes. Mom invariably offered him coffee even though the boys had begged her not to do this. When Bill drank coffee, it was always with loud, juicy slurps that sent the boys out of the kitchen, holding their sides to keep from howling from laughter. Mom had a great sense of humor. She enjoyed playing jokes on those two pranksters.
Gene really did have a good heart but there were so many streaks of mischief in it too. This was evident on a late Sunday morning after we had just returned from Mass.
Gene, Mildred and I were standing in our living room looking out the window that faced the road. There we saw the Hemple family passing our house to go their private little church to the west. Emma was among them, looking heavier than ever, moving along with lumbering steps, trying to keep up with the rest of the family.
Gene said, “I really don’t wish any harm to Emma, but it sure would be funny to see her fall. It would take the whole family to get her up again.” Just as he finished that sentence, Emma tumbled ungraciously to the ground in a massive heap. She began crying and struggling to get back up. The whole family was trying to get her on her feet. Gene began to repent as he thought his evil thoughts had somehow tripped Emma on her way to worship. He ran out the door and offered to help them console Emma and get her to the church on time. It was evident to Mildred and me that Gene really had a good heart. He could be quite gallant at times.
One day Dad returned from one of his long jobs on road construction. He had purchased a surprise for us children. We were delighted with this uncharacteristic gesture from Dad who was away from home more often than not. He had the surprise in a big cardboard box. When we were finally allowed to look in, we saw two cuddly, snow-white, rabbits. Dad made us promise to take good care of them. Mom was very relieved when she found out that they were both females.
Gene and Fritz took over most of their care. They built a fence around the door of our back shed. Ordinarily, Gene and Fritz kept their promise by tending to the needs of the rabbits. However, they had other interests that were not always aimed at nurturing rabbits or siblings.
Gene had a great interest in electricity. He had acquired a battery. He loved to hook it up to a doorknob to shock whomever happened to want entrance. At other times, these brothers would hook up a small electric fan that must have had a “short” in it. They would sprinkle water or spit on it and then spray anyone they could lure into its shocking path. Each drop had become charged with electricity. As the victims were pelted with hundreds of tiny shocks, the boys were highly amused. I think they just wanted to know what would happen when “spit hits the fan.”
The rabbits did not escape participation in these experiments. The boys hooked up the wires from the battery, stuck the ends in carrots and fed the carrots to the rabbits. They loved to watch the hungry animals leap into the air as they began to nibble on their low-voltage meal. There was no humane society around or those two would have been in big trouble.
To say that Gene and Harold, created a name for themselves was literally true. They were always in so much mischief that the neighbors named them after the "Katzenjammer Kids" that is, Hans and Fritz. The nickname, Fritz stuck to Harold through his lifetime but Hans never became a lasting title for Gene.
“The Katzenjammer Kids” was a popular comic strip of this era. In this comic strip, Hans and Fritz were twins and equal combatants in the battle against any form of authority. They rebelled against Mama, der Captain (their stand-in father) and der Inspector (the dreaded representative of the school authorities). Each episode portrayed the adventures of those two impish boys. My brothers were well named for them.
Recalling these happy memories helped me through the hard times. They also gave me incentive to think like Hans and Fritz. I began to plot how I could outwit the nuns. I wanted to receive uncensored news from home and from my childhood sweetheart, Dick Taylor.
Next: Foiling Censorship