ROGER FARMINGTON GOES TO CATHOLIC SCHOOL

For reasons not fully known to me, Mom decided I needed a parochial school education. She said the public curriculum was watered down, multifarious and polytomous. She felt it important for me to challenge my mental capacity and grow intellectually. Not sure what that meant, but what I did understand, I didn’t believe any of that crap.

I came to believe the real reason for my exile to the Vatican West was obvious. For a ten-year-old, I’ve been getting into a lot of trouble. Hanging out with older friends, mostly eleven and twelve-year-olds. We didn’t do any weird, illegal, or debauched stuff, just kid stuff, stickball, and hockey on an almost frozen creek. We’d play tackle football in the street always trying to ensure if tackled, we would land on the only grassy area on the playing field. Mom would go to Crazy Town when I’d come home with my shirts in tatters, my pants ripped, and a little blood on my elbows. I thought, what’s she going to do when I join the Marines? Mom thought if she could exile me to Patmos or worst Elba, I would see the errors of my ways and get back on the righteous path.  

Then came the Sears advertisement episode. We would frequently get classified ads in the mail. The catalogs had a variety of items, power saws, sports items, and color TV. One section of the Sears catalog intrigued me the most. Not for any physical amplification but for allowing me to ingratiate myself to my older compadres. As I flipped through the promotional, past the washing machines and coffee makers, there was El Dorado, the place of great wealth and opportunity. In full unadulterated spender was six pages of women’s lingerie. Beautiful ladies clad only in bras and underwear. I had an older sister, Meg, but never noticed her in this scantily clad apparel. Now here I was, a confused prepubescent ten-year-old wondering what apolitical advantage I could get with this gemstone. 

I didn’t find the ads particularly exciting but did realize sharing the pictures could further bind me to my older cohorts, and make me look cool and more mature. So, I did the unthinkable, or was it the obvious? I tore out three pages of the lingerie section and stuffed them in my pocket, anticipating a grouping later in the afternoon with a spectacular presentation to my homies.

As I was scurrying out the front door for my rendezvous with fate, Mom notice something trailing out of my left front pocket. Busted! Mom found the pictures in my pocket and immediately took another trip to Crazy Town. This was the coup de grace and my ticket to Christendom. 

The thought of going to a Catholic school sent my imagination into overdrive. Dad ensured our family went to mass every Sunday unless the schedule interred with a Cleveland Browns game. If we missed mass, we’d do an “act of contrition” and pray the rosary for the Browns to win. Unfortunately, it took more than divine intervention for the Cleveland Browns to make the playoffs. 

Having made numerous youthful trips to the communion altar, I was still puzzled and frightened at the experience. It seemed every time I received the host, I would look up and there was Jesus on the cross looking down at me. His eyes followed me. I could hear his voice. He knew of every transgression I had committed the previous week and was tallying up the number of days I would have to spend in purgatory. Instead of embracing the gift of redemption, I envisioned hell’s fury, a fiery caldron patrolled by demons and the devil. Those early catechism lessons did a number on me.  

The saving grace was mass being only an hour long, maybe an hour and twenty minutes during Palm Sunday. Now I’m going to a Catholic school, starting the school day off in the cathedral, confronted by the crucifixion, and being looked on by habit-garmented nuns and smock-wearing friars and priests. The thought had a bilious reaction, creating an unhealthy anxiety level. I begrudgingly accepted the verdict. The dye had been cast and Mom had crossed the Rubicon. No turning back. 

As I was getting ready for my first day in the penal colony, I received another headache. I was forced to put my blue jeans back into the drawer and my Rolling Stone T-shirt back into the dirty clothes hamper. Mom laid out a brand-new pair of navy blue slacks with a perfect crease down the middle of both legs. She then handed me a white button-down collar shirt, thick with starch and pristine with cleanliness. I thought heck am I going to a funeral? 

I was more certain I was going to my wake when Mom pulled a paisley-colored tie from behind her back. The sight was horrifying. To add insult to my vanity, it was a clip-on. I can’t even celebrate learning how to tie my first tie. 

Mom did let me dress. After my kerfuffle, I meander downstairs for breakfast. My older brother Hank was already stuffing his face with breakfast delights. He stops only long enough to roll his eyes and flick a snicker my way. I thought about strangling Hank with the rosary Mom put in my pocket. How many purgatory days would I get for that transgression?

The public school I attended for three years was a short bicycle ride from my front door. Now I have to take a school bus across town to a school I didn’t want to go to. I walked down the driveway and waited for the yellow beast to arrive. Suddenly, like the advance riders of a Mongol hoard, the bus came storming down the street. As if a clip-on paisley tie, navy blue slacks, and white shirt weren’t enough, the appearance of the bus added insult to my already fragile demeanor. I was forced to ride a short yellow bus for eight miles. As it assailed through my neighborhood, my pedestrian friends would notice my vacuous face staring out the bus window and laugh, flip me the bird and make caricatures of crippled or physically challenged people. I would never reconcile this morning’s event with my manhood. 

Upon arriving at school, Saint Paul XV, I immediately looked for something that would direct me to the fourth-grade classroom. I walked next to the wall to avoid bumping into or talking to someone. The thought of conversation was horrific. “Hey, you the new guy? I’m Duke, give me your lunch money.” Or a smiling “Hi, I’m Shirley. Can I walk you to your classroom?” Either option was not acceptable. I just needed to be invisible. But being unseen wasn’t in the cards. 

As I walked around a corner I came in contact with the anti-Christ, Sister Mary Louise. She would become my archenemy for my next three years at Saint Paul XV. I’m sure after our first meeting she saw me on the road to perdition and felt a missionary zeal to put me on the righteous path. Good luck. She was omnipresent. 

One of our first encounters was morning grammar. She passed out an assignment and gave the group twenty minutes to answer the interrogation. After she collected the annotated assignment, she took five minutes to grade and pass the papers back to the testees. Slowly, yet certainly, Sister Mary Louise came sauntering back to my desk. As she stood over me, she begins hitting me on top of my head with the twelve-inch ruler she was known to carry. As her rhythmic blows continued, she began to bellow “Mr. Jacklin, English is your native tough. Why are failing English?” After she repeated the mantra Sister Mary Louise frequently uses on me, she turned and odiously walked back to her desk. Over the next three years studying with Sister Mary Louise, I would beat her down enough to eventually pass English, and move on to greener pastures.   

Duke became my best friend in High School. We even went to Vietnam together. I was the first one to tell Duke’s parents, he wouldn’t be coming home.

Shirley and I later hookup and became buddies. Our mutual infatuation would come to an abrupt end on Senior Prom night in the back seat of a Dodge sedan. Shirley would study at Oberlin College, and later Brown University. I didn’t keep in touch with her but assumed she would have a good life.