CHAPTER THREE—NEW SCHOOL AND RELATED STORIES

 

Assumption Church and School, Peekskill, N. Y.

Assumption School, Peekskill, N. Y., ninth grade diploma dated 1953.

Promotion certificate dated 1947 from St. Catherine of Siena grade school, NYC.

     My step-father was a non-practicing Lutheran. On school choice for the children he left the decision entirely up to my mother, so my Irish-English Catholic mother enrolled the three oldest children at Assumption Church School in Peekskill. The church and school were located at the corner of First Street and South Division Street. The church was on street level, and school classes were conducted in rooms on the third and fourth floors of the church building.

     My brother John was enrolled in seventh grade. (He was left back in the fifth grade in NYC and repeated that class.) My sister Eustelle was enrolled in first grade. After six months John was transferred to the public grade school in the Town of Cortlandt which, I suppose, was located about where the current town offices are located. Due to his misconduct, the nuns at Assumption school did not want him. I was enrolled in third grade. 

     At Assumption school Franciscan nuns taught grades 1-9. They were dedicated to their religious calling and to the teaching profession. Inattention was not tolerated in the classroom. I remember getting hit or punished by nuns every day until the seventh grade because I was clowning around during classes. Some of my friends got the same treatment. I wasn't singled out. The troublemakers were usually boys. 

     I was often reminded by a nun that I had choices. Choice One: I could do my homework and behave in class. Choice Two: corporal punishment. Why I preferred the latter, I don’t know. They used rulers, pointers, and open hand slaps. One of them pitched a chalk eraser at me and hit me in the head. I was holding and reading a Satchel Paige baseball card at my desk.

     Vice-Principal Sister Anthony was a strict disciplinarian. She taught ninth grade. She was the Holy Terror at Assumption School. I always thought she picked a man's name, not in memory of a famous saint, but because she was almost six feet tall and weighed about 180 lbs. Dressed in a black habit with white trim, her hair concealed from view, no makeup, a face usually showing stern discipline and determination, one might easily imagine the intimidation a bad boy felt. She hit hard. Once I saw her lift an ninth grade boy, who was wearing a winter coat, off the hallway floor and place him by the collar of his coat on a wall coat hook. She then slapped him in the face several times while he dangled on the coat hook, feet off the floor. I don't know what he did to earn that treatment.

     On reflection I must have been looking for attention or I was bored, or both, when I fooled around in class with the other boys who were troublemakers. My monthly report card reflected this activity. Red circles around a grade marked 40 for the categories "deportment" or "conduct" usually told the story. I also remember nuns screaming at me for every trivial offense because I was a repeat troublemaker. Sometimes I thought they picked on me because of my brother John's reputation. The nuns weren't going to allow another Palmer boy to disrupt class in Assumption School.

     I used to watch the clock when I wasn't listening to the teacher or fooling around with other students. In every classroom in Assumption School an old-fashioned large clock was stuck high on the wall above the blackboard. The minute hand moved in two minute increments. I watched the two-minute hand with a strange fixation and wondered why time was so slow, why I had to put up with this boring process called education. I had no idea why school was necessary, other than to move ahead to the next higher class. I don't recall that anyone in school or at home at that time ever explained career choices to me, or explained that an uneducated boy would be a politician’s dream voter when he grew up. I passed all subjects taught, but I was grouped with the lower achievers.

     I did not study or do my homework with regularity until I entered seventh grade. At the start of seventh grade my rebellious attitude about schooling changed dramatically. I was introduced to a new teacher and she to me. I can't remember her name now (how unfortunate!) but you can be sure that she was named after the best of the saints. Her approach and attitude toward me were very different. Months later in private conversation she told me that she had made inquiries about the performance of her new students by talking to the other teachers in lower grades. Apparently she had my "number" from the start.

     My seventh grade teacher had a routine which started promptly at 9 A.M.

     "All those who have not completed their homework, please stand."

     Several boys stood and occasionally a girl. One by one our teacher would address a standing student and request an explanation for remiss. If she wasn’t satisfied with the explanation, the student was required to remain standing until 12 noon when the lunch bell rang. Inevitably I remained standing until 12 noon. She completely ignored my most inventive and clever excuses, the most monstrous lies, some of which took me almost an hour to develop and refine in preparation for her inquisition. Perhaps she didn’t exactly ignore them; rather she probably guessed that the odds of my telling the truth were zero.

     After two weeks of standing by my desk, usually alone among all the students in the classroom and feeling very self-conscious, bored, unable to sneak a clever note or utter a wisecrack to my lost audience of fellow students who were now making fun of me, I reluctantly started to do my homework.

     Suddenly a bright light was turned on. I realized that by doing my homework, my grades improved. Over the course of two months, I found myself achieving average grades, or slightly above average. Since Catholic schools seated students according to achievement, my seat was moved closer to the smart boys and girls, and further from the troublemakers. My communications to fellow students were redirected, and I started to ask the smarter students questions about subject and lessons. I continued to do homework. I played with the smarter students, and stopped playing with the troublemakers.This was my turning point in school.

     After Christmas vacation that year, when I returned to school I was seated closer to the smartest students. Many of them were girls, and that was very nice. I realized that I had not been hit by this teacher since the day I entered her seventh grade classroom. After six years of being hit every day in Catholic schools, the punishment stopped and the learning began—sort of.

     I recall catechism lessons as especially tedious and boring. A student had to memorize various passages and instructions of Catholic theology at every grade level.

     In sixth grade I recall getting drilled with "You are made in the image and likeness of God." (I wondered about that, especially when I looked at an angry nun.) I scribbled something on a note and passed it to the pretty girl, Nancy Sutyak (Augustowski), seated in front of me. She used to gratify me by laughing at my scribbled notes, but this time she read it and gave it back without any laughter or reaction. The nun saw the Nancy's arm movement and the note in transit, and quick as a fox the nun pounced on the scribbled note and read it.

     "God is made in the image and likeness of man," she read silently. I was smacked in the face as the class watched.

     I had attempted a simple juxtaposition of words as a stupid joke, and I confess that I didn’t understand anything of the deep challenge in it. The slaps and embarrassment I got as a result of this incident made me think more about it in the following weeks and years. Perhaps that is why I can't forget it.

     In school we were told by the nuns and our pastor that as Catholic students we must conduct ourselves "with self-respect and respect for others. We must never steal or tell a lie or bear false witness. Catholics must show a good example. Do you want to burn forever in hell?"

     The Catholic boys I knew rarely gave these admonitions much heed. For example, when the Catholic boys of Assumption school took a few lunchtime minutes to walk through Peekskill's Woolworth 5 and 10 cent store, looking for something to steal, something like a small molded metal airplane of WW2 fame—if the opportunity presented itself, if the clerks were preoccupied, if the store manager Mr. McCarthy was located near the checkout counter dealing with a paying customer—well, wasn’t it thrilling and daring to take what you wanted without paying, conceal it under your clothing and walk outside without discovery or apprehension?

     It was, we concluded, so we did it.

     We did it so often that our desks at school were covered with small metal airplanes. We hummed the sound of the engines and twirled them in the air before class resumed in the afternoon.

     One day, shortly after returning to school from our one-hour lunch period, we sat in our seats, and after the teacher resumed lessons there was a loud knock on the classroom door. To our surprise, in walked Pastor Joseph Stuhr and the manager of the Woolworth store, Mr. McCarthy. The pastor spoke in a low voice with the teacher and I saw her face get slightly red. Mr. McCarthy fidgeted nervously and waited by the door. He was holding an empty shopping bag.

     Then the pastor turned to face the class and he began to speak softly.

     "This afternoon at lunchtime," he said, "a store clerk at Woolworth's witnessed and recognized some boys from this school, apparently from this class," his voice rising, "and witnessed them remove certain items from the store shelves, items such as small airplanes made of metal." He paused to study the faces of the Catholic students before him. Then he surveyed the stolen items in clear view on several desks in the classroom. Mr. McCarthy and our teacher also looked at the toy airplanes on the desks. "These items were not paid for," he continued, avoiding the words that implied theft. "They must be returned. Put them on your teacher's desk now."

     He paused again, looking directly at the faces of the students, then at Mr. McCarthy and then at our teacher. The boys filed forward sheepishly and deposited the stolen items on the teacher's desk.

     When the boys returned to their seats, our pastor stepped back, and spoke briefly with Mr. McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy and our teacher carefully placed all the airplanes in the shopping bag.

     Then Mr. McCarthy faced the class and spoke.

     "Boys," he said, "you made a wrong decision in our store, but you made the right decision now when you returned the missing merchandise. These airplanes cost five cents each." He paused and stared hard at the boys. "There is more than a dollar's worth of airplanes in this bag. I don't need to remind you that you are Catholic. So am I. You must always set a good example!" He also avoided the incriminating word "steal."

     Mr. McCarthy stepped back and the pastor gave us a sermon about honesty, truth and good deeds. He finished by saying, "We are all made in the image and likeness of God."