The repercussion for me having a theological bent as a youthful youngster was not any reproach from my nuns, but instead their encouragement, which was slightly worse.
I liked thinking and talking about this other world they had a bead on.
But this innocent proclivity turned out to be a topic in a parent-teacher conference, which my mother recounted to me.
- Sister says you ask a lot of questions in Religion class.
Now, if I say anything to my mother at this point, rather than just raising my eyebrows, I am making a tactical mistake. Not a serious one, just slight, but I try to do my best around my mother, who is skilled in debate.
- In a good way, Sister told me. Not being disrespectful. The opposite. Paying attention. Thinking about things.
- Yes, I say.
This is a good stalling response, lacking anything stronger.
- She says she thinks you might have a calling. Do you know what that means?
- No, I say.
- It means a vocation. That's a bigger word, that means the same thing. A calling comes from God to us. To some of us. Special people, who God wants and needs to do his work. It comes to nuns and priests. It's how they know they should become nuns and priests, in the first place. God calls them.
- How does He call them?, I ask.
- Well, in different ways, my mother says. - I guess. It never happened to me, of course, so I don't exactly know. But Sister does, of course. And she is wondering. If you feel anything you would like to talk about.
- Well, I say. - I don't want to be a priest, if that's what you mean.
- That's okay, my mother says. - But can you tell me why you feel that?
- Well. They don't do anything all day, do they?
- Of course they do, don't be silly. They take care of the parish and the people. They pray. They perform the sacraments.
- I guess. But they don't go anywhere to work, like Dad. They stay in the rectory and live together there. I wouldn't like that. I would want - like here, to be married and have kids and eat dinner together.
My mother seemed to relax a little. Maybe because of the way we were talking as much as for what we were saying. Well, maybe both. In those days it was considered pretty reputable, even prestigious, for a son to become a priest. But that was changing, and I think my mother was among the changed.
- Well, she said. - I hope I haven't worried you or made you nervous talking like this. I do it because I care about you. So does Sister.
- Okay.
- So what is it you would like to be when you grow up? Have you ever thought about that?
- A baseball player, I said.
- That's good, she said. I know you like baseball.
- And an airplane pilot.
- Both, she said.
- Baseball players have to have a job for the winter, I said.
I wasn't really a uniform type of person, so it is sheer conicidence that my two jobs of choice involved uniforms. At least they were snazzy. I wasn't stupid enough to mention to my mother how opposed I was to the dingey, same clothes on the priests, day in and out. I wish I had taken the chance, though, to make her laugh.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
The Church and the Child
Catholic school was a thing apart from everything else, and set you apart from your (non-Catholic) neighbors once you started.
Not in an inimical way. More an inevitable one. After all, Catholicism would teach you that this entire world and existence are just a blip, nothing, a test for you to pass to reach the real, eternal world of God's kingdom. So, naturally, you started thinking differently from the people who went to public school and didn't learn this.
You were set apart in looks, in a uniform. For boys, white shirt, navy blue pants, navy blue tie. For girls, white blouse, navy blue jumper with school insignia.
You were dressed better than public school kids, or for that matter, most adults. So you felt special and like you should be achieving something.
Religion was the foremost subject. All the loose ends, or actually starts, of things you had learned from your parents would be formalized.
It was tough, because you had to not only learn it, but believe it. That's a lot of requirement for a 6-year old.
Your religious instruction even set you apart from your prior self. As a child, baptised, you were free of sin, and even of the possibility of it, until age 7.
Age 7 loomed like a call to the military. Until age 7, they said, a child was incapable of understanding the nature of sin, thus of committing it. Then, at 7, bam. You were considered responsible for your words and deeds - conscripted into the army of the guilty, or inevitably, eventually so. The religious training you began in first grade, at 6 or 7, prepared you for your guilt.
I sort of looked forward to the instruction, because I sure had questions.
I thought the free pass until age 7 was kind of a hoax, because I sure knew when I did wrong, but I wasn't about to divest myself of any amnesty I could get. I wasn't afraid of God's anger over it; I figured it was a present He pretty much dropped in my lap, and We'd probably laugh over it some day. So I never mentioned it to Sister.
But, one of the first days of school, I brought up a related issue that had to do with even a little more liberty that I thought I, and my first grade compatriots, deserved.
I knew that we would prepare for the sacrament of Confession next year, in second grade. My question was, how could we be considered guilty of sin if we didn't have the opportunity to repent?
Sister Anna St. James? Say I see candy on a shelf and I take it. Then you tell me I'm not allowed to - but you don't let me put it back? Am I supposed to go to jail for that?
She gave me a good answer. She said that if I knew I was stealing, I was stealing, and the opportunity to put it back didn't make it not at least trying to steal, which is wrong in itself. As far as not being able to confess it, she said, you can't officially yet, as in a sacrament, but you can certainly explain yourself to God in prayer, and acknowledge your sin and ask to be forgiven. See how that goes.
Sister Anna St. James was a sport, I found, and I felt free to ask poignant questions like this as they occurred to me, and even less poignant ones, such as the part in the Bible when they talk about being unworthy to tie the laces of Christ's shoes. He wore shoes?, I asked. Not sandals? She actually laughed at this and she said, Stephen, if you are going to be so technical about things, I am going to have to be the same way grading your tests, because the Bible says you will reap what you sow, do you understand that?
The Bible is supposed to be perfect, I said.
Yes, she said, it is in its way. If you have ears to hear, Jesus says. There is such a thing as listening too closely and then the fault is really yours, you know. Now be quiet and let me teach.
I never knew, until years later, that nuns had a reputation for toughness, that they were supposedly uncaring, authoritarian, even sadistic. That was a huge surprise. To me they were as open and nice as family. I meant it when I said Sister.
Not in an inimical way. More an inevitable one. After all, Catholicism would teach you that this entire world and existence are just a blip, nothing, a test for you to pass to reach the real, eternal world of God's kingdom. So, naturally, you started thinking differently from the people who went to public school and didn't learn this.
You were set apart in looks, in a uniform. For boys, white shirt, navy blue pants, navy blue tie. For girls, white blouse, navy blue jumper with school insignia.
You were dressed better than public school kids, or for that matter, most adults. So you felt special and like you should be achieving something.
Religion was the foremost subject. All the loose ends, or actually starts, of things you had learned from your parents would be formalized.
It was tough, because you had to not only learn it, but believe it. That's a lot of requirement for a 6-year old.
Your religious instruction even set you apart from your prior self. As a child, baptised, you were free of sin, and even of the possibility of it, until age 7.
Age 7 loomed like a call to the military. Until age 7, they said, a child was incapable of understanding the nature of sin, thus of committing it. Then, at 7, bam. You were considered responsible for your words and deeds - conscripted into the army of the guilty, or inevitably, eventually so. The religious training you began in first grade, at 6 or 7, prepared you for your guilt.
I sort of looked forward to the instruction, because I sure had questions.
I thought the free pass until age 7 was kind of a hoax, because I sure knew when I did wrong, but I wasn't about to divest myself of any amnesty I could get. I wasn't afraid of God's anger over it; I figured it was a present He pretty much dropped in my lap, and We'd probably laugh over it some day. So I never mentioned it to Sister.
But, one of the first days of school, I brought up a related issue that had to do with even a little more liberty that I thought I, and my first grade compatriots, deserved.
I knew that we would prepare for the sacrament of Confession next year, in second grade. My question was, how could we be considered guilty of sin if we didn't have the opportunity to repent?
Sister Anna St. James? Say I see candy on a shelf and I take it. Then you tell me I'm not allowed to - but you don't let me put it back? Am I supposed to go to jail for that?
She gave me a good answer. She said that if I knew I was stealing, I was stealing, and the opportunity to put it back didn't make it not at least trying to steal, which is wrong in itself. As far as not being able to confess it, she said, you can't officially yet, as in a sacrament, but you can certainly explain yourself to God in prayer, and acknowledge your sin and ask to be forgiven. See how that goes.
Sister Anna St. James was a sport, I found, and I felt free to ask poignant questions like this as they occurred to me, and even less poignant ones, such as the part in the Bible when they talk about being unworthy to tie the laces of Christ's shoes. He wore shoes?, I asked. Not sandals? She actually laughed at this and she said, Stephen, if you are going to be so technical about things, I am going to have to be the same way grading your tests, because the Bible says you will reap what you sow, do you understand that?
The Bible is supposed to be perfect, I said.
Yes, she said, it is in its way. If you have ears to hear, Jesus says. There is such a thing as listening too closely and then the fault is really yours, you know. Now be quiet and let me teach.
I never knew, until years later, that nuns had a reputation for toughness, that they were supposedly uncaring, authoritarian, even sadistic. That was a huge surprise. To me they were as open and nice as family. I meant it when I said Sister.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Monday, September 6, 2010
Working Life
Brooklyn 3 was a neighborhood of working people and there wasn't anyone who didn't work. You could see all the people without jobs you wanted walking around from the mental hospital and if that didn't encourage you to go to work and be grateful, nothing would.
Everyone knew where everyone worked. On our street, 878 Clarkson owned a produce business. 880 was us and our father ran a print shop at Pan American. 882 was shipping and receiving. 884 worked for the phone company; 886 at the Navy Yard; 888 were two secretaries; 890 worked in cargo at Idlewild airport; 892 was a cop.
888 was a household of two sisters, their two adolescent children, and the women's father. The sisters worked as secretaries in the city. Their father was retired and minded the house. This was an unorthodox lineup, but driven by necessity, and we all knew what that was.
We were particularly proud of our father because he worked in the city, for a big company everyone knew, in an office. He was the only guy on the block who wore a tie to work, unless you count the cop.
In those days Pan Am's offices were in Long Island City. In 1963, they moved to Manhattan, a gigantic building with their name on top. It meant prestige although to my father I think it meant most notably a shorter commute.
When he came home at night we kids would shout and run to the door and ride his legs and feet around. My mother never got the opportunity for that kind of greeting which of course is emblematic of the kind of deal women got. The men might have complained about work but you did not hear of them offering to trade places.
Everyone knew where everyone worked. On our street, 878 Clarkson owned a produce business. 880 was us and our father ran a print shop at Pan American. 882 was shipping and receiving. 884 worked for the phone company; 886 at the Navy Yard; 888 were two secretaries; 890 worked in cargo at Idlewild airport; 892 was a cop.
888 was a household of two sisters, their two adolescent children, and the women's father. The sisters worked as secretaries in the city. Their father was retired and minded the house. This was an unorthodox lineup, but driven by necessity, and we all knew what that was.
We were particularly proud of our father because he worked in the city, for a big company everyone knew, in an office. He was the only guy on the block who wore a tie to work, unless you count the cop.
In those days Pan Am's offices were in Long Island City. In 1963, they moved to Manhattan, a gigantic building with their name on top. It meant prestige although to my father I think it meant most notably a shorter commute.
When he came home at night we kids would shout and run to the door and ride his legs and feet around. My mother never got the opportunity for that kind of greeting which of course is emblematic of the kind of deal women got. The men might have complained about work but you did not hear of them offering to trade places.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Pre-School Resistance
The streets of the neighborhood were full of activity but you could also be isolated, if you wanted. There was enough going on that no one really cared what you were doing, or if you existed, with the possible exception of your loved ones, with whom you could check in a couple of times a day, to keep them satisfied, and get something to eat.
There was not much greenery around, but there was enough dirt to meet a kid's desire to dig and bury. When it rained, water ran through the gutters, and you could float sticks.
Streets and schoolyards were for games, and alleys for skulking, or sitting or walking alone.
When it came time for my first remove from this world - for kindergarten -I balked.
I knew a bit about kindergarten. P.S. 268, on the corner, ran a summer program every year, which introduced me to the building and activities.
Outside, in the schoolyard, was fine. There was stickball, sprinklers, and running around.
The cafeteria was good, too. Cartons of milk and juice, nok-hockey and other games.
But deep inside was different. Hallways were dim and echoey quiet. Doors were forbidding and heavy, with glass up too high. There were flags and mottoes on the walls. It smelled like glue.
Sneaking around, I got a load of the kindergarten space.
This laboratory of learning consisted primarily of cheap-looking toys (not real toys; educational toys), books (not real books; picture books), and musical instruments, or sort-of musical instruments, like triangles and tom-toms.
I saw pictures of past classes. They didn't look too smart. Well, the girls looked all right; but the boys wore these little ties, or had their shirts buttoned all the way to the top.
I thought, did they get that way here? Or come in like that?
Probably both. But I wasn't taking any chances.
I talked to my parents about not going.
I don't see the point, I said. I already know how to read; I'm ahead of schedule. You don't see anybody else who knows how to read hanging around kindergarteners. They're going to have me looking at snap-together cards with big letters on them.
They'll teach you other things there, my parents said.
They won't, I said. I've been asking around. There's no subjects, no lessons, no homework. You sing songs, clap hands, and take naps. I could be here reading and doing things.
But all the other kids will be there, my parents said.
Exactly, I said. I'll have the neighborhood to myself.
I don't know if their reaction was more exasperation or resignment. But they granted my request. I never went.
I don't know if it was legal. Probably not, because it made good sense for someone.
There was not much greenery around, but there was enough dirt to meet a kid's desire to dig and bury. When it rained, water ran through the gutters, and you could float sticks.
Streets and schoolyards were for games, and alleys for skulking, or sitting or walking alone.
When it came time for my first remove from this world - for kindergarten -I balked.
I knew a bit about kindergarten. P.S. 268, on the corner, ran a summer program every year, which introduced me to the building and activities.
Outside, in the schoolyard, was fine. There was stickball, sprinklers, and running around.
The cafeteria was good, too. Cartons of milk and juice, nok-hockey and other games.
But deep inside was different. Hallways were dim and echoey quiet. Doors were forbidding and heavy, with glass up too high. There were flags and mottoes on the walls. It smelled like glue.
Sneaking around, I got a load of the kindergarten space.
This laboratory of learning consisted primarily of cheap-looking toys (not real toys; educational toys), books (not real books; picture books), and musical instruments, or sort-of musical instruments, like triangles and tom-toms.
I saw pictures of past classes. They didn't look too smart. Well, the girls looked all right; but the boys wore these little ties, or had their shirts buttoned all the way to the top.
I thought, did they get that way here? Or come in like that?
Probably both. But I wasn't taking any chances.
I talked to my parents about not going.
I don't see the point, I said. I already know how to read; I'm ahead of schedule. You don't see anybody else who knows how to read hanging around kindergarteners. They're going to have me looking at snap-together cards with big letters on them.
They'll teach you other things there, my parents said.
They won't, I said. I've been asking around. There's no subjects, no lessons, no homework. You sing songs, clap hands, and take naps. I could be here reading and doing things.
But all the other kids will be there, my parents said.
Exactly, I said. I'll have the neighborhood to myself.
I don't know if their reaction was more exasperation or resignment. But they granted my request. I never went.
I don't know if it was legal. Probably not, because it made good sense for someone.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Brooklyn State Hospital
Most households had multiple children and not much square feet, so we were encouraged to be outside a lot. "Children should be seen and not heard," goes the expression, although the "should be seen" part did not seem heart-felt with most families I knew.
So you were shooed outside early in the day. It was okay because there were plenty of kids to play with, and adults to bother.
One slight complicating factor was Brooklyn State Hospital, home to a large and special population you couldn't play with and shouldn't, as a good person, bother.
Brooklyn State was a mental hospital, with many, many residents.
The hospital stretched long blocks north to south, and ten blocks east to west. Our side, east, was the only one with stores. So we had lots of visitors from the hospital, at all times.
The cautionary catechism from parents to kids was that "they" were like children, harmless, and wouldn't bother you if you didn't bother them.
We did find them to be harmless, though this made them unlike children, in our experience.
Good kids did not need to be warned about bothering them, and bad kids had the idea that it was bad luck to pick on on people "like that," so there was no trouble, or not much.
We didn't really speak of them much, prevalent as they were, and what you might call occasionally obvious. Bad luck or not, such mention was considered rude.
Of course, we were not always so genteel, and the words "retards" and "nuts" were used freely.
But we felt bad for them, because they caught a bad break; and the common wisdom seemed to be that hospitalization made the bad break worse, rather than helping.
There was sometimes shouting on the street, for no good reason, by a person to himself. But to be fair, this was not restricted to hospital residents, in Brooklyn 3. At least, we thought, the guys in green pants and laceless shoes had an excuse. More than one.
So you were shooed outside early in the day. It was okay because there were plenty of kids to play with, and adults to bother.
One slight complicating factor was Brooklyn State Hospital, home to a large and special population you couldn't play with and shouldn't, as a good person, bother.
Brooklyn State was a mental hospital, with many, many residents.
The hospital stretched long blocks north to south, and ten blocks east to west. Our side, east, was the only one with stores. So we had lots of visitors from the hospital, at all times.
The cautionary catechism from parents to kids was that "they" were like children, harmless, and wouldn't bother you if you didn't bother them.
We did find them to be harmless, though this made them unlike children, in our experience.
Good kids did not need to be warned about bothering them, and bad kids had the idea that it was bad luck to pick on on people "like that," so there was no trouble, or not much.
We didn't really speak of them much, prevalent as they were, and what you might call occasionally obvious. Bad luck or not, such mention was considered rude.
Of course, we were not always so genteel, and the words "retards" and "nuts" were used freely.
But we felt bad for them, because they caught a bad break; and the common wisdom seemed to be that hospitalization made the bad break worse, rather than helping.
There was sometimes shouting on the street, for no good reason, by a person to himself. But to be fair, this was not restricted to hospital residents, in Brooklyn 3. At least, we thought, the guys in green pants and laceless shoes had an excuse. More than one.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Reading Billboards For Dimes
"Even Y.A. Tittle isn't afraid to tackle a book," went a ditty on a TV ad for reading.
I knew early, through my own precocity in it, that reading could be profitable as well as fun. My parents took a quiet pride in it, but my uncles - my father's 6 brothers - were willing to pay to see me do it.
They seemed to regard it as freakish, or a trick. Their entreaties were like challenges.
I remember reading aloud a lot of newspaper stories about Berlin, Khrushchev, bombs, and space, with uncles over my shoulder. I got dimes and quarters for it. (I was discouraged (by my mother) from reading about Kitty Genovese, though I did. Despite her disapproval, Mother acquiesced enough to define for me the term "cocktail waitress.")
I earned money in cars reading billboards for these guys. "What does that one say?...Alright, how about that one?" As if I didn't really know what I was doing, but had somehow memorized every printed word in our house, but on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway they would trip me up.
The one uncle who just seemed to enjoy the spectacle was Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy was kind of a sport - not married, a bit of a black sheep. He had a kind of natural exuberance, which included swearing, which no one else in the family did, at least not much.
Jimmy had the aspect of a compulsive gambler in this enterprise. I remember riding in a car with him, Uncle Robbie (the second oldest brother; quiet, a cop) and my father. We had gone through all the reading material around and about, so Jimmy started pulling things out of his pockets.
"What does this say?"
"Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco."
"Holy shit!"
"Hey," said my father.
"How about this?"
"Close Cover Before Striking."
"Holy shit!"
"Hey, I said."
"Sorry. But this kid is either a genius or psychosomatic or something." I might have gotten my hair tousled at this point.
Silence for a while. Then all of a sudden taciturn Uncle Robbie pipes up. He sees something he recognizes. "Stephen," he said from the front seat.
"Yes?"
"What do the words say on that building?"
I looked around, but before I could see it, Uncle Jimmy, sitting next to me, grabbed me and turned my head away.
"Hey, what are you, kidding? Don't make him look at that."
Robbie smirked. I was confused.
"What is it?," I asked.
"Prison," Jimmy said, in a whisper. We were on Atlantic Avenue. The words in question were probably House of Detention. Something like that.
"What's wrong with reading 'prison'?," I said.
"You should never even look at a prison," he said.
He drew in close.
" 'Peepings might be catchings.' You ever hear that saying?"
"No," I said.
"Well, remember it," he said with the air of a mentor. "The next time you might find yourself on the inside. If you want to look at it so bad. You know what I mean?"
Remarkably, maybe, I did. And I realized that reading was getting me into the world of grown-ups pretty quickly. I was getting pretty privy to their thinking. Also, their dimes.
I knew early, through my own precocity in it, that reading could be profitable as well as fun. My parents took a quiet pride in it, but my uncles - my father's 6 brothers - were willing to pay to see me do it.
They seemed to regard it as freakish, or a trick. Their entreaties were like challenges.
I remember reading aloud a lot of newspaper stories about Berlin, Khrushchev, bombs, and space, with uncles over my shoulder. I got dimes and quarters for it. (I was discouraged (by my mother) from reading about Kitty Genovese, though I did. Despite her disapproval, Mother acquiesced enough to define for me the term "cocktail waitress.")
I earned money in cars reading billboards for these guys. "What does that one say?...Alright, how about that one?" As if I didn't really know what I was doing, but had somehow memorized every printed word in our house, but on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway they would trip me up.
The one uncle who just seemed to enjoy the spectacle was Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy was kind of a sport - not married, a bit of a black sheep. He had a kind of natural exuberance, which included swearing, which no one else in the family did, at least not much.
Jimmy had the aspect of a compulsive gambler in this enterprise. I remember riding in a car with him, Uncle Robbie (the second oldest brother; quiet, a cop) and my father. We had gone through all the reading material around and about, so Jimmy started pulling things out of his pockets.
"What does this say?"
"Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco."
"Holy shit!"
"Hey," said my father.
"How about this?"
"Close Cover Before Striking."
"Holy shit!"
"Hey, I said."
"Sorry. But this kid is either a genius or psychosomatic or something." I might have gotten my hair tousled at this point.
Silence for a while. Then all of a sudden taciturn Uncle Robbie pipes up. He sees something he recognizes. "Stephen," he said from the front seat.
"Yes?"
"What do the words say on that building?"
I looked around, but before I could see it, Uncle Jimmy, sitting next to me, grabbed me and turned my head away.
"Hey, what are you, kidding? Don't make him look at that."
Robbie smirked. I was confused.
"What is it?," I asked.
"Prison," Jimmy said, in a whisper. We were on Atlantic Avenue. The words in question were probably House of Detention. Something like that.
"What's wrong with reading 'prison'?," I said.
"You should never even look at a prison," he said.
He drew in close.
" 'Peepings might be catchings.' You ever hear that saying?"
"No," I said.
"Well, remember it," he said with the air of a mentor. "The next time you might find yourself on the inside. If you want to look at it so bad. You know what I mean?"
Remarkably, maybe, I did. And I realized that reading was getting me into the world of grown-ups pretty quickly. I was getting pretty privy to their thinking. Also, their dimes.
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