Seventh Grade
Previous parts are not required to enjoy this part, not even partially...
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| Not breakfast at my house, then or now. Image by Jo Justino from Pixabay
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"Most of us end up with no more than five or six people who remember us. Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives." -Andy Rooney
Dear Gentlereaders,
In September of 1965 "Sister Mary McGillicuddy," who changed my life just by being herself, was my seventh-grade teacher.
Long story short, Sister Mary Clifford, a.k.a. Eileen Soisson, is the nun I always think of whenever I write about/think about/am reminded of nuns, even a couple of nuns that suffered from CNS (crazy nun syndrome) to one degree or another and with whom I crossed paths thousands of years ago.
She taught seventh grade, was the principal of St. John the Evangelist grade school, and ran a convent. The school and the convent were part of a small, cramped, inner-city compound that also included a church, a church hall, and a rectory. The buildings that housed the convent and the school are still there as best I can tell from Google Maps, but the rest is gone. She was the first nun I knew who seemed to live in the same world that I did.
Well, mostly. She also clearly had a spiritual side that was lost on me back then that I can appreciate retrospectively. I was a 12-year-old adolescent semi-toxic, straight white male preoccupied with girls, the mysteries of sex (not that I was able to connect the two subjects other than in my mind at the time), rock music, TV, movies, reading fiction...and current events.
Yes, Virginia, Poppa's always been a news nerd.
{Hold up there, Sparky, I have a question. What about sports? Aren't all young men into sports?}
That's why I describe myself as semi-toxic, I've never been into sports... or hunting/fishing/etcetring for that matter. I've always been a weirdo who never felt/feels like I'm "one of the boys."
For the record, hunting in inner city Pittsburgh was, and still is, frowned upon.
I once went fishing while attending day camp in Shenley Park. Picture inner city urchins in a large, beautiful, inner city park pretending to be interacting with nature. We gathered up sticks to make fishing poles, were given a piece of string and a safety pin to complete our rig, and marched to Panther Hollow "Lake" (a shallow, man made catch basin) allegedly containing fish.
I didn't catch anything, but neither did anyone else for some reason. We didn't starve though. At lunch time every day we ate American cheese on white bread sandwiches.
But it's not as if I only sat at home when I wasn't at school watching TV or reading books and the Pittsburgh Press/Post Gazette while listening to music...and hoping for one of those infrequent occasions when I was home alone and could sneak a guilty peek at one of my dad's handful of out of date Playboys in his secret stash.
I liked swimming, skateboarding, bike riding, and wandering all over Pittsburgh, usually on foot or bike, exploring the terrain as well as no shortage of multiple cultural opportunities (shout out to the Carnegie Museums) easily and safely reachable that ranged in price from free to easily affordable...at least back then. Now not so much. I refer to both getting there on foot or on a bike as well as the price of admission.
For the record, I liked swimming so much that I used to take all the Red Cross-approved swimming lessons (from beginner to advanced) every summer so that I could get extra pool time in before the tiny, crowded 22nd Street playground pool officially opened for the day.
When it came to sports, and following or participating in same, most of my running buddies were at least mildly obsessed. I pretended to be to fit in. Peer pressure was strong and I'm embarrassed to admit I was a shy kid who didn't have the self-confidence to go my own way more often. I think part of the problem was the fact that when I was 12 my late marrying father was in his mid-fifties and behaved more like a hands-off grandfather than a dad at a time when I could've used some guidance and advice.
In his defense I was, and remain, an introverted dude who lives in his head a lot of the time and who prefers to keep himself to himself most of the time.
{What's all this got to do with seventh grade?}
You asked about sports, Dana. I (a world-class garrulous geezer) merely provided a thorough answer. That was me in seventh grade. May I proceed?
{Well! Far be it from me!}
Sister Mary Clifford, a Pittsburgh area native, according to her obituary "...was a faithful Steelers fan and had a great sense of humor.” I wish I had sought her out once my extended adolescence finally ended at about the age of 35 or so and had an adult-to-adult conversation with her even though I suspect it was unlikely she would've remembered me
Unfortunately, she's not the only person I was too clueless to appreciate in the past, took for granted in fact till I accidentally came across her obit a few years ago. Yet another folder in my Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda file.
Never having been what you might call a natural-born scholar, my favorite thing about school was an unexpected day off. I loved it when I'd stumble, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen on a cold winter morning, where Mun always had a pot of hot oatmeal waiting and KDKA 1020 AM playing on the radio, and was informed there was no school that day.
[The preceding paragraph is sponsored by Olde Frothingslosh, the pale stale ale with the foam on the bottom.]
{Say what?}
It's a Yinzer thing, you wouldn't understand.
In the seventh grade, my second favorite thing about school was unexpectedly getting out of school for a couple of hours to accompany Sister Mary when she borrowed one of the parish priest's cars to run errands that called for assistance from a schoolboy or three, usually grocery shopping for the convent.
She clearly enjoyed driving. For the record, she always took three of us, and we always sat in the back seat. In retrospect, it occurs to me we never discussed why this was the case. She was a nun, a teacher, and a principal, following her instructions was simply what one did. It never occurred to us what the reason for that rule might be. Different world.
Not only did we get out of school for a few hours, but we also got to experience an even more relaxed and kind version of the woman who taught us and ran our school. It was more like hanging out with your conservative but funny, and nice, aunt Eileen.
We would ask her questions about parish politics and gossip that weren't discussed in class. Her answers were always diplomatic and reflected the beliefs and practices of a true believer and practitioner. She would gently upbraid us (as opposed to pulling over and administering knuckle thumps) when she thought we weren't trying to at least pretend we were good Christians, an attitude she seemed to effortlessly embody.
She knew, like all right-thinking souls dating back to Aristotle, that virtue must be taught to the young, that it doesn't usually come pre-installed. Nowadays she would be called judgey by no shortage of her fellow Citizens of the Republic.
How's that workin' out for ya, America?
I remember us driving down Carson Street just prior to Christmas in the midst of a sudden, heavy, snow shower. S'tr mentioned that keeping control of the car on the slippery street car tracks was a challenge but she was obviously enjoying it. She talked about how much she loved the Christmas Season because people were so much nicer than usual. Obviously, this was a long time ago.
{God protect us, but I gotta ask, what’s a streetcar? Aren't all cars street cars? And did she ever take girls on these trips?}
{Oh, okay, like in San Francisco, right?}
Sorta/kinda. San Francisco has trolly cars that are pulled by cables under the street. Streetcars, and nowadays "light rail" cars are powered by overhead electric cables. The Burgh no longer has street cars (which were more of a local neighborhood thing, like buses). They do have a light rail system that's more about bypassing neighborhoods and with limited stops from what I understand, but I haven't lived there for quite some time.
I wonder if it's still easily possible to access the tracks to create giant pennies.
{Excuse me?}
Some older, wealthier teenagers used to put pennies on the streetcar tracks so that passing streetcars would turn them into large, warped copper disks.
{Are you going to claim that you never did?}
Technically I wasn't a teenager. I turned 13 the following summer and was living in suburbia at that point where there were no streetcars, and very few bus lines for that matter, which made getting around quite interesting for a family that didn't own a car or even had parents who could drive. When I was in seventh grade I was still buying soft penny pretzels (about as large as a fat man's swollen thumb) from street corner vendors on my way to and from school. One must prioritize when one has limited resources.
{And what about the girls, the girls never got to go?}
Nope, they were back at school learning how to sew by repairing the priest's vestments. and helping Mel, our school janitor...just kidding, I made that up. I honestly can't remember even though I didn't always get to go. I would assume they and the remaining boys were watching a movie or something.
Told ya, I was a semi-toxic young man living in a toxic man's world, like no shortage of 12-year-old male H. sapiens still are I imagine, despite the best efforts all the wild-eyed Wokies lose in the land, at least I hope so. This column isn't about the feminization of the American nation though, so I won't bring it up. I wouldn't want to trigger anyone.
Finally, as I mentioned, I wasn't always one of the boys in the backseat, but I usually was. I don't remember giving this any thought at the time. In my defense, I strongly suspect that most 12-year-old kids, and most adults for that matter, still take the zeitgeist they find themselves in for granted, and go along to get along. But, man (which, younger readers, is the same as you saying: but, dude), I don't get it.
I worked just hard enough to get by, like I always did till I graduated from high school. Shy, prone to daydreaming in class, a lazy eye, no obvious and/or unusual talents that my classmates might still remember me for. I don't get it. I hope it wasn't pity.
Colonel Cranky
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