Preparing for “back to school” takes
up a whole season. For weeks in August and September,
I see
the young faces lit up with expectation and the stressed
parents with dazed, glassy eyes, searching through those
long lists of school supplies as they stumble through
Wal-mart and Kmart. “Back to school” is a
season that’s scary, invigorating, puzzling and
full of hope, all at the same time.
Each “back to school” season I think back
on my own Catholic education. Fourteen years of being
taught by the amazingly wonderful Sisters of Loretto,
including my first two years in college.
I loved those nuns. I especially loved the times every
summer and winter when my Dad took the whole bunch of
them for a ride in his homemade airboat. From the bank
all you could see was a blur of black habits with their
veils tied down. Heaven forbid the sheer force of wind
from the airplane propeller would suck off one of those
veils. What would have happened had I discovered at the
tender age of 10 that nuns really did have hair under
those long black veils? At least I experienced the thrill
of knowing firsthand that a nun who made you recite your
times tables over and over and constantly fingered her
rosary, was a human being who could laugh like a hyena
on your dad’s airboat on the weekend.
In the winter when the muddy Rock River froze over, Dad
converted the airboat into an iceboat by adding steel
runners clamped under the hull. On the ice, the noisy
airboat which was propelled by an actual airplane engine
and prop, blasted cold air and snow into the faces of
the nuns riding behind on sleds, toboggans and saucers.
It wasn’t too surprising those grade-school nuns
kept suggesting to me I should pray for a vocation to
the sisterhood. I think they wanted to keep my dad around
more than me, knowing what a fun guy he was.
In high school, freshman algebra would have been a curse
worse than death if it hadn’t been for Sr. LeoRita,
a plump nun who waddled like a gooney bird and had a
large, red, prominent proboscis which was the main reason
we moronic types dubbed her Sr. Leo-beak-a on the first
day of class.
Sister’s outstanding sniffer wasn’t her only
unusual characteristic. Sr. LeoRita was old. Rumor had
it she’d been trying to retire for 15 years but
teacher recruitment policy in the Catholic high schools
during the ’60s often meant hanging on to those
older nuns who worked for peanuts and the love of God.
I didn’t know just how old Sr. LeoRita was until
my folks attended the first parent teacher conference
in the fall of my freshman year. After talking with Sister
for a few minutes about my less-than-adequate algebra
grades, my father realized she had been his Latin teacher
at the same high school 25 years before. Dad even admitted
he thought she was old when he had her for Latin.
I felt sorry for Sr. LeoRita after I figured out how
old she really was, especially when Tommy Ryan, the class
clown, kept raising his hand every day to ask her if
he could go out and check to see if his locker was still
there. Sister always said, “Yes, but hurry right
back, Mr. Ryan, and don’t hang around in the hall.” Obviously
her hearing wasn’t up to snuff either.
Then there was Sr. Clarice, the bane of my grade point
average. For two years she was my Latin teacher. Sr.
Clarice was formidable, to say the least. She sported
the biggest, blackest eyebrows I’ve ever seen nestled
under the wide white brim of a religious habit veil and
she looked more like she belonged on the Mean Machine
Roller Derby Team than she did in a black habit.
Every day during Latin class I prayed with fervor and
desperation in hopes she wouldn’t call on me. Sr.
Clarice was tall and big-boned. We nicknamed her “The
Bear” because of her voracious growling sounds
when we gave the wrong answers.
“The Bear” got her exercise throwing blackboard
erasers across the room to those poor souls who closed
their eyes for more than three seconds. She was relentless.
If we couldn’t answer her questions about Rome
and Gaul and all the “quids” and “quos” of
Latin grammar she’d launch into a 15-minute tirade
about how important Latin is. She tried to scare us into
loving Latin. “You thick-headed nimble-brained
marshmallows, if you ever expect to get into college
you better learn Latin and learn to like Latin because
it’s the most important course you’ll ever
take. It will help you with the English language for
years to come.” I muttered something inappropriate
for a nun’s ears, then, as usual, spent the rest
of the semester trying to hide my body behind my Latin
textbook. I have to admit I prayed a lot that semester,
however. Prayed incessantly that “The Bear” would
never, ever, call on me.
These days Sr. LeoRita is in algebra heaven looking down
at us and laughing because she finally figured out that
Tommy Ryan’s locker was never going anywhere.
“The Bear” also passed on to her final reward,
and is no doubt trying to convince the angels and archangels
that Latin is the language of the living.
Here’s to a terrific school year, filled with amazing
teachers who will put an indelible mark on your soul
that will help make you a much smarter, better person
like Sr. LeoRita and Sr. Clarice did for me.
(Lorenz’s two latest books, “Life’s
Too Short to Fold your Underwear” and “Grab
the Extinguisher, My Birthday Cake’s on Fire,” can
be ordered at <www.guidepostsbooks.com> by or e-mail: <atyourservice@guideposts.org> or
phone: (800) 431-2344 or visit Lorenz’s Web site: <www.PatriciaLorenz.com>) |
