From grade one thru grade eight I attended Sacred Heart School in Boone, Iowa. The nuns ruled the place like Al Capone's Chicago. Instead of wearing a holster then had a ruler for knuckle breaking. We were taught via our parents to believe any and all things said by them. When I was in grade 1 I came home from school. My mother asked me what I learned that day. "Sister said, I told her, that God is a string bean." My parents laughed and I was angry because 'Sister said'. Turns out I was wrong. What Sr. Mary Calasanctus said was, "God is a Supreme Being." Maybe I was coloring at the time and not paying attention. Another time I was showing off in my sisters class of 4th grade about how smart this second grader happened to be. I don't recall the question form Sr. Baptiste but my answer was Kalestine instead of Palestine. Everybody laughed. I didn't. Even at that age I knew how to give the finger.
We had a not so smart kid in the school, Johnny Joe. Once he scored a 2% on a math quiz. From then on his nickname was Milk. For some reason I never glommed onto a nickname that can be repeated in mixed company. That's okay, though. My other buddies were known as Fat, Spider Legs, Hing, Tanny(he started of as a 97 lb. weakling then started lifting weights with great success) as in Vic Tanny, Crazy Man, and Sweat. He was amazing. It could be 40 below zero and droplets of sweat would drop off him.
Being a 9 year old kid is weird. For me it was akin to being in 10th grade. We were clueless even though we tried to fake everyone out. At age of nine in the fourth grade Bowmans's Shoe Store put in a machine whereby one put his feet in it and could see their bones. It was an x-ray gizmo. I'm surprised none of us came down with bone cancer as much as it was used.
In the fifth grade my very favorite nun, favorite teacher of all time, Sister Dolerine had a heart attack in class but I was home sick. Devastation set in when I found out. She was replaced by Sr. Louis Joseph. Yuck! She was like having Nurse Ratchett. I do believe I wrote this once but it's worth repeating. I never heard about Sister Dolerine from 1955 until my grandfather died in 1975. I was at the funeral home and someone told me she was visiting at the convent and was going to make a visit. We're talking about my favorite teacher and I told myself I was her very favorite student. Anyway, she came to the mortuary and I approached her and mentioned all that I've previously said. Then she uttered these knife in the heart words, "Oh Wayne, it's so good to see you. We did have a Wayne in our class but he ended up going to jail.
Aside from putting Limburger Chesse in the school heating vents at Sacred Heart we guys. our gang six, were fairly tame. Once I dropped the F bomb in referring to a girl--to her face--but that was about it for nonsense. I mean, what 10 year old kid hasn't used the F word? My parents weren't too pleased.
Kids today that have every electronic toy in the world would suffer a severe case of boredom in the 50's and 60's. Once again at age 9 I mentioned to my parents I'd like to join the YMCA. Mom flipped out. She thought it was an organization that would teach us to give up Catholicism. Honestly, that never entered my mind. Besides Sister said we'd go to hell if we weren't Catholics. Argument settled.
The 'Y' had a basketball court of sorts. It had a concrete floor, wasn't close to being normal sized and the out of bounds was surrounded by brick walls.
For fun upstairs we'd take a checker and play hockey. One player had a short stick as did the other. The idea of winning was to put the checker through a hole. There was a ping pong table and that's about it. Some fun, huh? For refreshments we'd buy a bottle of Coke and drop in Planters Peanuts. We lived on the wild side.
On Friday night's the head man, Carl 'No Nonsense" Saubert held what was called GRID. I'm positive the letters stood for something special but I never asked. It was 1961 and we were the coolest guys in the world or so we thought. For two hours songs were played and this was the spot where high school love affairs began. As for me I didn't dance. It wasn't that I was afraid of girls. Oh heck, I was. Who am I trying to kid. Example, during basketball season of my sophomore year my ankle was in a cast due to a bad sprain. I was was getting around school on crutches and one of the big kids, a girl in the 11th grade, asked how my ankle was. The poetry coming out of my mouth was, "Sore". That's it. I said sore. Pretty smooth, huh? At GRID I mostly stood next to the brick walls with other classmates who didn't want to dance or didn't know how. I fit both categories. The 'cool guys' in our class were Wally Free and Terry Pollard. The girls, and I don't know why, had a thing for them. Many of us called them 'Hoods". Maybe high school girls did like the bad boys.
When I left Sacred Heart in 1960 I was a straight A student. When I left high school I hung between a C+ and B-. Studying wasn't my bag. Not to worry it carried over into college so I was on a roll.
And that is most likely why I went into teaching. You've all heard the phrase, "Those that can do. Those that can't teach."
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