Rough Stone Rolling

I guess everyone’s character is too complicated to be summed up in one or two adjectives. In my case, I’ve learned I have a respect for authority that’s offset by an impish streak of rebelliousness and irreverence. I want to be good, but I don’t like being told what to do.

One of my favorite LDS scriptures is D&C 58:26:

For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.

It flies in the face of all my early parochial upbringing. ‘Cause even though my parents were very permissive for their day, the school they sent me to was not. St. Philip Neri in the Bronx was an antediluvian bastion of barbarous nuns, a secret combination of ruler-wielding, pleasure-divesting windigos– and they commanded in all things. In case you thought such manifestations were Hollywoodian inventions created to magnify sympathy for child star orphans, I assure you they were very real– and so were their rulers. And I tell you this now– not one of those nuns had a guitar and sang. The New York City public school system had already enjoyed over a decade of enlightenment where corporal punishment was no longer allowed by the time I started school, but St. Philip was not a public school and children– and parents alike– still respected academic authority enough to assume if a teacher in a nun’s habit slapped a kid they were probably in their rights.

When I was in the first grade I got my first book bag, a brown faux leather briefbag with a brass clasp, of which I was very proud. It had partitions inside to keep my composition books separate from my pencil box, Crayolas, and returned papers with glued-on foil stars (either in gold, silver or bronze, depending on the grade) or red ink stamps that said “Good Job!” or “Oops– What Happened?”. When we went to school, the boys all wore navy blue blazers & pants, white shirts and ties. For whatever reason my mom decided I looked good in bow ties and, as I was a husky kid with a crew cut, I looked more like a boxing referee or someone sent to collect on a loan. The girls wore white blouses buttoned to the neck, plaid pleated skirts and blue jackets or sweaters, or they wore modest blue dresses called “gamps” (I liked a Jewish girl in my class named Audrey, my first crush that wasn’t a cousin. What she was doing in a Catholic kids penal farm is anyone’s guess).

Order was the imperative of parochial school. You walked on the right side of the hallway (and if you ran you were dead), you never cracked wise to a teacher, when the bell rang you left single file, and you never uttered a word in class unless you first raised your hand and were called on.

First grade was also when you practiced for your First Communion, so we spent time in the chapel during school learning what the eucharist was, how we went up to the altar, what we did, etc. All I remember particularly is that it was mind-numbingly dull. We also had to do our first confession before we got first communion– I mean what’s a 6-year old kid going to confess? (thick NY accent) “I hit my gamma wit’ a shovel n’ buried huh in da cella…” “Dat’s hokay, saya three-a Hail Marys.”

One day when we were in the chapel, this kid and I were kneeling next to each other, hands clasped, praying for recess to come faster, when he looked over at me, leveled his hand to the top of his head and then over to mine, and whispered, “I’m taller than you.” I put my hand to the top of my head and over to his to verify that, when my teacher snuck up in the pew behind us and slapped me on the ear. “Pay attention!” she hissed. Later that week it was cold in the chapel and I was sitting in the pew wearing my coat with the furry collar. To really get the full-on pleasure of the fur, I hunched my shoulders so it covered my ears. Again, the nun emerges from the dark, yanks my collar down and slaps me on the ear: “I’m telling your father!” Sure enough, when Dad picked me up, the battle axe scurries down the steps and sticks her face in the car window. “David misbehaved twice this week during First Communion practice!” That was the day I got my first spanking– bare-bottomed with a belt strap. I bawled my eyes out, feeling utterly betrayed, and I remember my dad looking as devastated as I felt. In retrospect, I think he thought that’s the action he was supposed to take in that situation, and it probably took him by as much surprise at it did me. For the rest of the day he tried to make up and be friends again. It was the sanctimonious gas bag in the penguin suit, she’s the one who really deserved the spanking.

Another cardinal sin I committed at St. Philip Neri was I dared enter their hallowed halls left-handed. The nuns made it clear, “The left hand is the devil’s hand. You need to learn to write with your right hand.” Seriously, a modern-day American educator responsible for impressionable young minds– and a “bride of Christ,” at that– teaching us the southpaw is a servant of Satan. Old world cultures stopped beating left-handedness out of people in the 19th century, and Bronx nuns were still whacking away with their rulers in 1965. I mean, they actually called my parents in to discuss my affliction. The only reason my left-handedness prevailed was we moved right after I started the 2nd grade and from then on I went to public school… where Satan abounds.

Incidentally, St. Philip is also where Rudy Giuliani married his first wife. So it’s got that going for it.

I wonder if my old SPN classmates look on those days fondly, or if they point back accusedly and exclaim, “You’re the reason I’m all screwed up!” I was lucky, I got sprung early. What about the kids who dealt with it all the way through the 8th grade? Those teachers may defend their actions as having the best intentions, but the meanness that grew from their benevolence still stings. Vicious verbal assaults like “stupid,” “dummy” and “useless” were liberally applied in reproofs to lip-quivering boys and girls without showing forth any increase of love afterward. Kids were stood up in front of the class and made examples, their tears only encouraging the inquisitors to find more buttons to push. We stood in the corner– one nun made us stand in the clothes closet for like an hour. It was bad enough we were led to believe the Washington and the cherry tree story, but when you did something a lot less aggregious like forget your homework, you get thrown in a closet? What did Washington’s dad do– tie Benny Franklin’s kite to the kid’s zipper?

Natural man, you can’t hold a candle to the nun.