Eighth Grade
Previous parts are not required to enjoy this part, not even partially...
(But, here are parts 1, 2. 3. 4. 5. and 6.) `
(But, here are parts 1, 2. 3. 4. 5. and 6.) `
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| Not breakfast at my house, then or now. Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay
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"I went to Catholic school and they basically just said don't have sex, but would never explain anything."-Khloe Kardashian
[TRIGGER WARNING: Ends a bit abruptly, author overdosed on L-Tryptophan, still passed out in an extremely comfortable recliner. Watch for Part 7b.]
Dear Gentlereaders,
Summer, 1966. I don't know who was first, who woke who, or what time it was.
It was late, everyone was asleep. It had been a very long, hot day and Dad, Mum, Marty, Mike, and your semi-humble correspondent were all sleeping the sleep of the just (or at least the sleep of the exhausted) in the midst of the chaos.
The chaos was the result of having just moved into our clearly too-small house in the Pittsburgh suburbs, the first and only one my parents (briefly) owned. Dad died in the summer of '69 and Mum sold the house in 1970 when we moved in with my big brother Ed in suburban, almost rural Philadelphia. We (mostly he actually) built an addition on the side of his house.
I spent my last year of high school in a new school and living in my sixth house.
I hated the school and the area but our house was nice...and so were the two apartments (homes #7 and #8) I lived in after moving out of the house and before moving back to the Pittsburgh area five years later and began my hippie with a job period. I lived in residences number 9 through 13 before moving briefly to Texas and living through the most intense period of my life so far (residences 14 through 17) before getting "stuck in Ohio" in 1985 (18 through 25) where I remain stuck to this day.
{Let the digressing begin! Geesh! No wonder you're so...}
For the record, I've been living in the same house, Casa de Chaos, for the last 17 years.
Anyway, we went to bed sweating and woke up freezing.
The suburbs didn't come with an instruction manual and we were unaware that due to the shortage of pavement and concrete that served as storage batteries for Summer heat back in the city the temperature in the Burbs often falls significantly at night.
In short order, blankets were secured, somehow Mum knew just where to find them, and everyone went back to bed.
On the first day of eighth grade, I walked the short distance from my house to the St. Ursula Catholic Grade School. There was only the house next door and a small empty field located between our front door and the front door of St. Ursula's.
This was a larger school than its predecessor, St. John the E., with school busses lined up out front (on the Sou'side ah Pittsburgh everyone walked to school) and a short, fat, double-chinned, pissed-off-looking nun who appeared to be in charge was barking orders at students as they stepped off the buses and entered the school. She didn't have a bullhorn but in my mind's eye, she does.
Unaware as to where I might find the eighth-grade classroom I unfortunately had to ask her as she was the only authority figure in sight. She looked at me like a prison warden evaluating a new prisoner but gave me directions that didn't include even a fake smile, much less a welcome of some sort.
Hoo-Boy. Meet Sister Gabriel, the anti-Sister Mary McGillicuddy.
At the end of the top (third) floor hall (St. John's only had one floor), there were two nuns with clipboards standing in front of two adjacent classroom doors. I approached them and asked where I might find the eighth-grade classroom and was asked my name.
They both scanned their clipboards and replied, "Hmm."
One or the other asked if somebody had registered me and I responded affirmatively. Mum was a reliable mom who always took care of business. The current me would've said something like, "Well I didn't just wander in here off the street," with a friendly smile added so as to not frighten/accidentally offend a Normie.
That me said, "Yes, sister."
I was quite nervous despite my cool, new paisley dress shirt and coordinating tie Mum had bought me from the Spiegel catalog and years away from figuring out how to hide my innate shyness behind a wry persona.
{Wry huh? I guess that's one word for it. What's "cool" about a paisley dress shirt?}
As I mentioned previously the "swingin' sixties" had started the year before and paisley prints... well, as mentioned in Wikipedia, "The 1960s proved to be a time of great revival for the paisley design in Western culture."
They huddled together to discuss the matter and one of them said, "Well, let's try him in your class first and if he doesn't work out we can always move him to mine." I found out what that meant later but I didn't have a clue at the time.
I was then ushered into Sister _______'s room and encountered a bunch of kids who had been born and raised on a different planet than the one I had, which I would also discover in short order.
{Sister _______? Was/is she in the witness protection program?}
I might as well get this out of the way up front, I cannot remember this woman's name to save my life. She didn't suffer from Crazy Nun syndrome and she didn't employ wooden ruler palm smacks or knuckle thumps to the chest or back of the head. She was a good, even-tempered teacher who was preparing us for the rigors of Catholic high school, although I didn't realize it at the time. More on that in part 7b.
I had been randomly/fortunately placed in the "smart" eighth grade, as was later explained to me by my classmates, who were unaware that it was just dumb luck on my part. They assumed I was a bit smarter and/or more of a grade grinder, like them, than the kids in the other eighth grade, where, due to my lack of scholarly efforts in first through seventh grade I should have been placed.
My fellow classmates that year (one of whom was the son of a Pepsi vice president) had been born and raised in a financially comfortable Pittsburgh suburb, suburbs (plural) actually, depending on how you define your terms. The "North Hills" area of the greater Pittsburgh metro area consists of a cluster of several different townships but when I lived there at least, it had a distinct identity of its own, including its own (now defunct) newspaper.
I had gone from a working-class inner-city neighborhood with working-class sensibilities to a middle/upper middle-class neighborhood with a veritable snap of God's fingers.
St. Ursula's served relatively prosperous Catholic families and kids (and mine) from all over the area (thus the school busses) as opposed to the multiple Catholic churches and schools that served the predominantly working-class families (like mine) of Pittsburgh's Sou'side, most of which are long gone. I refer to both Catholic churches/schools and to a lesser extent working-class families; there are prospering Millenials and Zoomers gentrifying former working-class neighborhoods all over the Burgh nowadays and rendering them too expensive for the working class to afford.
There are still Catholic schools in the Pittsburgh area of course (St. Ursula's by the way, is also gone) but they now charge tuition equivalent to what it cost to go to college "back in the day." Sales volume and product demand are apparently as important in determining the price of a spiritually based education as it is in determining a given products price in the secular sector.
{It's probably just transitory inflation.}
Probably, thank God (see what I did there) that's over and happy days are here again. Anyway, from my perspective at the time, I was now going to school with a bunch of rich kids, although I now know most of them were just the sons and daughters of members of America's (slowly evaporating) middle, middle class.
{Middle middle?}
America's been slowly devolving into two classes: those who have the resources to stay at least one step ahead of systemic inflation and those who live in fear of systemic inflation.
{The haves v. the have-nots?}
The haves v. the have somes and the have little to nones, we've discussed this before. Both of the latter groups live in fear of the other shoe dropping. But this has little to do with eighth grade, so...
{Since when would you let that stop you? But it doesn't matter anyway, the Donald's going to lead us into a new golden age. I saw it on TV so it must be true.}
[At this point a disembodied voice from off stage, with a thick Irish brogue, rings out, "From your lips to God's ears, Dana."]
So, what happened next, dear gentlereaders? A clash of classes? Dark drama? Hormone-fueled adolescent angst? Tune in next time to find out if...
{Oh please, gimme a break!}
Colonel Cranky
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