Trouble Was My Name

I went to parochial school in SF my first eight grades.  I never went to kindergarten and neither did three of my four brothers.  Lordy, I would have never survived that.  I remember crying when I left my house every day for my first few years and ended up with a big lump in my throat when I arrived at school three blocks away.  My mom would stand at the window with one brother in her arms and one standing, all waving good-bye.  When I got to school, I faked stomach aches to be able to go back home to my mommy. The school nurse knew my phone number by heart.  Mom always said, “Send her back home” and I smiled all the way back to my house.

We had some earthquakes in those days in SF and I totally freaked out when the nuns announced we would be bussed somewhere safe.  All I could think about was that I would never see my family again.  I had bad dreams about it too. 

I remember my Nona winning a lovely long beaded necklace with shades of purple, lavender, and light grey which she gave to me.  Every time I took that necklace out, there was an earthquake.  So, I took that beautiful necklace out to the backyard and buried it.  I am not sure if there were earthquakes after that, but I felt relieved.

I got in trouble a lot in school.  There were 800 kids in my school, 100 kids per grade with one nun for each class of 50 in each grade. 

Mother Superior didn’t like me I guess and picked on me time after time. The first time I got in trouble, Jerome Perez kissed me in first grade in the school yard on my first day of school.  He was a first grader too and we did not know each other prior to that day. We were caught.  I cried.  This should have been an omen of what was to come for the next eight years. Mother Superior must have branded me a floozy back then.

But, I got in trouble for things that were really not my fault.

For instance, we had to wear white saddle shoes to school.  Not the nice black and white saddles which were in style, but ugly plain white ones.  When my shoes wore out and were sent to the local Italian shoemaker, I had to wait for days and even more than a week to get my repaired shoes back.  In the meantime, Mom took me to Gallenkamp’s to buy some white keds for me.  Mother Superior, with eyes like a hawk, spotted me in the assembly line, and called me to her office.  She told me I had to write lines that said, “I must wear regulation shoes to school” 2,500 times.

Another time, I did not have a beanie for my head.  It was an unnecessary expense for my parents and was not going to be used much anyway. I had to write lines for that too. 

My parents were so afraid I would get expelled that they did not make any waves with the school. 

If I was the parent, I would have marched down there immediately and given them a piece of my mind and then some more. 

My Mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad was a teamster, working as a beer salesman for the local brewery.  It was a struggle just to put me in parochial school and my two brothers that followed when we lived in SF. There was no money to buy another pair of shoes or a beanie that maybe would be worn a couple of times. I had one navy blue jumper uniform, one sweater, and two white short sleeve blouses.  That lasted me as long as I can remember. 

Those jumpers were so ugly that a developing girl looked flat no matter what.  So, I did what all good little catholic school girls did – stuffed my bra with kleenex.  But God punished me for that as I got older and was a late bloomer, because I always say that God must have said, “You want ba-zooms, well here are some, and here are some more.”  It was a curse, believe me.

Mother Superior had her eighth grade classroom door open when I had to walk by to go to the restroom one fine day.  She spotted me and waited for me to walk back by her classroom.  She invited me in and in front of her 50 students, berated me for ratting my hair. She sent me back into the restroom to comb the rats out of my hair and waited at her door to see that I followed instructions.  I hated her.  But since it was a sin to hate, I just didn’t like her much.  Not sure if that was a sin or not.  It seemed to me that everything good was a sin though. 

On Sundays at 9 AM mass, the students would sit together.  I wanted to sit with my mother in the back of the church. I think I was in seventh grade then.  I was wearing my new green suit that I got for Easter, my little chunk heels, and nylons with garter belt.  To compliment my look, I wore lipstick.  I thought we were not seen, but apparently hawk eyes saw me.  Monday morning at assembly in front of 800 kids, as she was standing on the last step into the gymnasium, she pointed to my direction and said on her megaphone, “You, come here.”  I didn’t think she meant me.  She repeated it and again and again I looked around.  She said, “you there, you know who I am talking about.”  I pointed to myself and she said, “Yes, you, come here.”  You would think that she would have remembered my name since it was very unique and since she had punished me many times before. 

Sheepishly I walked the 30 or so feet to where she stood and began to be humiliated.  She stuck her index finger repeatedly into my shoulder while saying, “This is the young lady who wore lipstick to church on Sunday.”  I was in tears.  I knew lines were coming and this time it was a doozie.  I had to write 4,000 lines, “I must not wear lipstick to church.”  I think all those lines improved my penmanship. God help me if hawk eyes couldn’t read one of those lines.

Mother Superior had a grudge against me for some reason.  Could have been the fact that unlike the other little rich girls in my school whose families donated money to the school fund, we didn’t have that luxury. My Dad was a blue collar worker.

One time before recess, one of the girls had the volleyball in her hands.  Somehow, the ball got loose, and my hand was the last one to unfortunately touch it.  It landed on Sister Mary Francis’ desk and broke her little black dachshund letter holder.  They were very popular at the time, made of ceramic with a metal letter holder in the middle.  My mother was called to the school about the matter.  It was just a cheapie ugly letter holder, but you would have thought it was a Faberge Egg or something valuable.  I almost got kicked out of school for that.  Good thing I was an excellent student. I don’t think Sister Mary Francis made me do lines, but I was prepared. I had a new pen with lots of ink.

I volunteered and stayed after class many times to clean the chalkboard and erasers so I could get holy cards to put in my prayer book.  I had a beautiful collection of the pretty cards. Sister said I should be a nun and teach kids.  When I got older and found out that being a nun was to be celibate, I realized that nun really meant “none.”  That life was not for me! I wanted to get married and have children.

I thought that nuns should be able to get married.  Having a husband maybe could have made them less mean.  Or, maybe not.