I’m a big fan of Mark Twain, and my favorite quotation from Mr. Twain also happens to be on my Facebook page right now. It reads:

“Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool.”

I happen to feel that way about religion. Now, before all my Christian brethren get freaked on this statement, I’m not talking about spirituality here. I’m talking about religion. This is entirely different. To me, ‘religion’ is what man does with spirituality once he/she gets hold of it. It’s the part that mortal men (or women) play in delivering spirituality to the masses. I’ve always felt that way about religion, even when I was a kid. That is why it’s so weird that I spent nearly 14 years in Catholic school. I say “nearly 14 years” because I spent the first half of the first grade in public school. That’s because Immaculate Conception in Revere didn’t have space at the beginning of the year. So, in a nutshell, I’ve always had issues with authority and nuns and priests (mostly nuns) represented “authority.”

My sister Jo-Anne felt the brunt of my dislike of Catholic school, simply because she was already a student at Immaculate Conception once I arrived. Every time I did something wrong, she would get the call. I can’t remember every single incident, but I do remember one time when I absolutely refused to stay at the school for lunch. My house was just down the street, dammit, and I wanted to go home for lunch. It was, of course, a Friday and the absurd Catholic rule of “no meat on Fridays” was in force. See, that’s what I mean about mankind delivering religion. WTF does what you eat on what freakin’ day have to do with believing in God?

Anyway, things really began to go downhill when the homeroom nun (okay, I can’t remember specific nun names back that far). It could have been Sister Honorius. She was one of the nuns I had at Immaculate, but I can’t really remember what grade I had her in. She said, “Come on, Deborah, tell me a fish story.” I know I began my response saying, “I’ll tell you a fish story alright…”  But everything that came after that is a blank. However, since my sister was called down to the room, it could not have been very nice.

I know my sister (not ‘the’ sister) pulled me outside in the hall to talk to me and I know she was pissed. But I also know that I went home for lunch. My mother fed me (of course, it was Friday so I had a tuna fish sandwich), and then promptly delivered me back to school…with a warning. Needless to say, I ate lunch at school for the rest of the year. But I didn’t like it.

I didn’t have the opportunity to stay at Immaculate until the bitter end. My dad died and I stayed at Immaculate until we settled somewhere else. I remember that I’d get a ride from my evil Aunt Buddy back and forth to school until we settled in. As it turns out, we ended up living with my evil Aunt Buddy in Medford. That’s when I enrolled at Saint James Grammar School. (This is where I met my partner in crime, George.) I cannot remember in-classroom specifics here at all. I’m not sure what that means. I do remember one incident. I used to sing in the choir, and one Sunday my friend and I were tossed out because we were leaning over the railing and spitting on people’s heads as they walked in below us. The only other thing I remember is getting everyone to skip church and go to the park for an hour instead. See. Great disdain for authority of any type. And religion in general.

Fast times at Arlington Catholic High

I continued on in my catholic education by choosing Arlington Catholic High. My mother was thrilled. I chose that school simply because all of my friends were going there. George was behind me by a grade or two, but he also ended up going there. So did Linda. Remember her? She was my first lesbian relationship experience that I wrote about several posts ago. So, it was great. Getting there was another story. Winters were brutal because we had to take three buses to get there, one from home to Medford Square. Then, a bus to West Medford, followed by a third bus that would drop us off in Arlington Center. By the time we got there, we were freezing.

Then there was the catholic school uniforms. These were dead ugly. They always consisted of a pleated, plaid skirt. In the case of good old AC high, it was a gray, red and white combination with a white shirt and gray vest — all wool. We’d die in the summer. It was absurd. It wasn’t that I was into fashion. I hated fashion. Didn’t care much for it and still don’t. But I hated that they were trying to make us all the same. That’s what the uniform felt like.

The assumption is that Catholic school kids are good kids. They don’t do anything wrong. They don’t get in trouble. Forget that shit. We were no different than anyone else at this age. Kids were fooling around in the back seats of cars. Some were drinking and smoking. Hell, the Mayor of Medford went to Arlington Catholic and he was a party animal! At the end of every school year, we’d have to clean out the homeroom we were in for next year’s incoming class. One day we sent the mayor out the window with a rope to go get us pizza.

I remember little tidbits from Arlington Catholic, but nothing in great detail. I remember that I was put into room 101 my freshman year. Any room ending in “01″ meant it was the academically advanced class. Now, we considered the kids in that class dweebs who didn’t know how to have real fun. It also meant that everything was harder. Hard work was not on my agenda at that time. I was sure of one thing: I was determined to keep myself out of room 201 next year, and I succeeded by not doing so well in a couple of subjects…like Latin. Latin. WTF kind of life skill comes from taking Latin? None. Absolutely none. We were forced to take Latin because it was a Catholic school and the Sunday Mass was still being conducted in Latin.

Sister Ruth taught Latin. She was brutal. She had bucked teeth and the spit would really fly when she was in the process of reprimanding you. All I can remember from her (at least once a week) was, “Miss Della Piana, you’re getting under my skin and making a dent.” Yeah. I’m sure I was.

And then there was Sister Georgiana. She was big, loud and quite imposing, and she wasn’t going to take any shit from any of us. I believe she taught Physical Science??? Not really sure.  All I know is that I sat in between probably the only two black kids in the entire school — Donna Bell and Paula Mont. I can remember to  this day exactly what they looked like. They were absolutely hysterical and they would just get me going. It never failed that we got caught every time we had the class. One time our laughing really got to her, and Sister Georgiana slammed her fist down on the chalk board ledge and took the damned thing right off the wall.

Out of control at Aquinas

I ended up moving on to a two-year Catholic college. There were reasons for this that had nothing to do with the fact that it was Catholic. It also had it’s share of stupid rules that I thought were oppressive, and I was determined to change them (although I complied at the beginning). Here’s a stupid rule: We had to wear skirts or dresses as though we were secretaries already employed in jobs. Absurd. After putting up with the uniforms at AC, there was no way I was going to wear dresses and skirts.

I simply started wearing jeans and cords to school. I was suspended once for that. Then again. Finally, I remember approaching the student council and urging them to start a petition to get rid of that foolish rule. Listen, we were paying to go to this school, so why should they tell us how to dress? The fact is that we weren’t working. We were students. We eventually won that battle. I was determined to have a good time in spite of where I was, and it turned into a great two-year party.

First, it was an all-girls school and it was truly my coming of age in that respect. A group of us hung around together all the time, and I was involved at various times with three of them. Of course, none of them ever knew that about each other because they were too afraid to openly talk about it. It was not easy to be gay at that time and, frankly, it was also scary to come to terms with the fact that you might be gay. My partying went well beyond that, however.

The sleepover was one thing I remember. They had this Aquinas tradition where the students spent one night sleeping over at the school. The seniors generally got to abuse us at this little event. You know, like making us roll uncooked eggs the length of the entire main corridor with our noses. Or blindfolding us and making us brush each other’s teeth. By the time we got to this, it was really late at night and a couple of us climbed out the bathroom window and headed for my car. We had stopped at Blanchards, our favorite local liquor store (and our favorite lunch spot, by the way) and bought some rum and coke. It was the perfect time to take a break. While we were out there, someone also suggested we might want to smoke a fatty since were at the far end of the parking lot and hidden under trees. We weren’t sure how we were going to get back in, but we really didn’t care at the time.

Luckily, we did get back in without much trouble. Someone had left the bathroom window partially open, so we forced it open the rest of the way and climbed back in. Everyone was pretty much settled down in the lounge in sleeping bags. Some had already fallen asleep. But we had the munchies, so we decided to see if we could find something to eat. All we could scrape up in the kitchen was a jar of jam. Somehow, and I really do not know how we found our way up there, we ended up in the chapel where the only thing we found to eat was a bag of communion hosts. We decided that they were probably still unblessed, so it would be a minor sin. We sat down and ate damned near half a bag with the jam. They were disgusting, but we were desperate for food. The funny thing is that nobody caught on that it ever happened. We simply sealed up the bag and put it back when we were done.

We knew that some of these nuns were fully capable of having a good time. We could tell. (And I was absolutely sure that Sister Carroll was gay, even though we never confirmed it.) So, one night we had Karen’s house to ourselves because her parents were at their summer house in Kingston. We decided to invite a few of the nuns over to a spaghetti dinner. I’m not sure if we ever got to the food because we got them drunk on Cape Codders. I mean, drunk. We got them so drunk that they couldn’t even drive themselves home. We had to take them home later that night (not that we were in much better shape). One of my friends drove their car back and I drove them in my car. We literally had to open the door and take them to their rooms. Then, we were so drunk we had a hard time finding our way out. It was like some kind of ancient catacomb. We continued to be friendly with this pack of nuns, but nobody ever mentioned a word about that night. We just kind of let it slide.

Sleeping with women. Eating hosts because I had the munches from smoking dope. Getting the nuns drunk. You know, if there is a Supreme Being up there somewhere keeping notes, I could be in big trouble.

It is Mother’s Day, a time of reflection for those of us not fortunate enough to have our mothers with us. That is the case with me. That is not the case with Beth, however, whose mother is still with us. I’ll not elaborate any further on that topic. The photo here is of my mother holding my oldest niece, Maria (another of my very favorite people on the planet, by the way). Dig that crazy fucking hat.

Anyway, I do not have my mother here, but I do have a bunch of good memories. Now, mind you, these are not the Donna Reed-type memories. I’m not talking about the idyllic fictional perfect type family memory. Those are Hollywood creations. That people buy into that is absurd, but anyway, each to his or her own brand of illusion.

No. My memories are different kinds of memories. Peach fuzz used to drive my mother crazy. She simply could not handle it. When I was little we had a telephone table and my mother would sometimes sit at it to talk to people. I used to crawl up behind her and rub a peach down her arm. I’d get the same reaction every single time. She’d immediately drop the phone and grab her arm, muttering “Ooh, you little son of a bitch!” Then she’d compose herself and sit down again and apologize for the break in the conversation, explaining the infraction of her wayward daughter. I wouldn’t mind, but this was a pretty common occurrence, a repeat infraction if you will, but it was like she never expected it to happen. That’s why it was such an appealing infraction. Even when she was an old lady, she had the same reaction.

Here’s another memory. This is a good one. I went to Catholic school for many years, but I bet I was in the second or third grade when this happened. One of the little punishments you’d get for misbehaving from the Sisters of the Spanish Inquisition was a series of slaps (for lack of a better word) on the back of your hand with a ruler. I came home from school one day and the back of my hand was red, so my mother asked what happened. I told her and she was absolutely incensed. She immediately went into the bedroom and started getting dressed, muttering something like, “Think they can hit my kid. Well, we’ll see about that.”

Then, of course, she asked why it happened and I told her I got caught passing a note across the aisle to a friend during class…and that this happened right after I got caught talking in class. You know, if one method didn’t work, I tried the other. Got caught both times. My mother, of course, pointed out that I was wrong to do what I did. Still, she told me that they had a lot of nerve thinking they could hit her kid. “Let’s go before they leave for the day.”

We only lived a block or so from the school. It was an easy walk. Actually, it was more of a march. I remember how smug I felt. Yeah, baby, these freakin’ nuns were going to get theirs. I have personal experience here. This mutha’ was nothing to fool with. I was ready for revenge. She marched right into my homeroom. I think (but I cannot be absolutely sure at my advanced age) that her name was Sister Honorious. I know the school was the Immaculate Conception in Revere. I am positive of that. Anyway, she promptly told her in no uncertain terms that she did “not give permission for anyone to hit her daughter.” No sir. Then, she said. “If anyone is going to hit her, it’ll be me.” It was at this moment that I received the very much unanticipated flat-hand whack on the back of the head. That was just in case I was still feeling smug. No threat from DSS in those days, man.

I can tell you that I was never again exposed to a ruler in that school. They knew they weren’t dealing with just anyone here. In our house, Mother’s only half a word. We’re talking about the first woman in Everett to wear pants. Somewhere in my family, there’s a newspaper photo of my mother in pants walking somewhere in Everett. I can picture it in my head. I just don’t know where the photo is. If I find it, I’ll publish it.

Anyway, hope all you Mothers have a great day.