Baldur

Schoold -d =School

marius

That was funny that Baldur wrote, kindergarten did not prepare him for the nuns. Just their outfits scared marius. However, by 7th grade I was getting bold. We had a new nun, she was young and VERY pretty. One day at recess I said, "Why are you a nun? You are WAY too pretty to be a nun. And you are VERY nice. I bet you have broken the hearts of 100 men by being a nun."

The next year she was gone. The next thing I heard, Sister Beverly got married. That made me happy. Not that marriage is the ideal, but she was so warm and womanly ... and ...

Baldur

Our nuns escaped from the Russians by crawling across muddy minefields on their stomachs under endless stretches of barbed wire. That's what we were told.
It was odd because they seemed to all be French.

marius

Wait a minute. Baldur went to an all male high school but was still taught by nuns? In our town the nuns and some priests taught the girls' highschool and the Jesuits (not sure of spelling) taught at the boys' highschool. NO nuns taught the boys by then - at all!

marius

LOL ... crawling through mud in Russia but sounding French while teaching school. That is very strange indeed.

Baldur

The nuns of Saint A, were very old-school.
The only skin you saw were their faces and hands, not a trace of hair was visible because of their wimples. Baldur imagined them bald.

marius

Our nuns were like that too - no skin, no hair. Does Baldur remember the days when the nuns were allowed to "relax" their uniforms? The started wearing these half-veils that showed part of their hair. And they wore off blue skirts that were mid-calf length and off shirts and vests? Fashion disaster. They were so uncomfortable in their new clothes.

marius

-off +odd

Baldur

I was only taught by nuns from grades 1 thru 6.
Grade 7 we had nuns and non-nuns, even men.
Grade 8 we had hippies, including one that was a nun though you wouldn't know it.
By High School the majority of the teaching staff were Christian Brothers, though there was a nun, several non brotherly men and some teachers were non-nun women but Baldur never had a class with any of them.

Baldur

I saw that first in Grade 6, the habits also went from cotton to polyester

marius

Curious. Were there any parts of Catholic school or church that Baldur liked? The parts marius liked were: the quiet and Gregorian Chant. The classrooms were so quiet I could think. The quiet was divine. Dad sang in the men's choir, and sometimes I was allowed to sit at the side in the choir loft when they sang a mass in Gregorian Chant. Perhaps I asked for this treat, not sure. But it was absolute heaven. The sound from the choir loft seemed better than anywhere else in the church. And you could look down on all the people and dream. Didn't have to sit, stand, kneel, you could just zone out on the music.

Baldur

You haven't experienced reformed education until you've been in a Charismatically charged Catholic School staffed by hippies.
I absolutely loved it. It was the first time I'd ever been hugged by a teacher.
Baldur still owes his audience a spaghetti story, and it revolves around this school year. Eventually I'll type it out.

marius

Oh - that's who taught the boys ... Christian Brothers! But, are or were they also Jesuits? Can't remember.

Baldur

Our were from the Order of St Jean Baptiste de LaSalle.

We did not have a choir, the music was rather dreadful.
I would hear good choir music on records and occasionally on television and wondered how we got shortchanged.

Baldur

There were Jesuit Brothers out there, and Franciscans, possibly many more.
I remember that Franciscans wore brown robes, the ones at my school wore black, and often as not it was a shirt & trousers and not the robe

marius

Charismatically charged Catholic School staffed by hippies??? That sounds fun. Also hard to imagine.

I managed to un-join the Catholic church at age 14. Figured out it is a mortal sin to be a hypocrite. Armed with that, sat parents down, told them I did not believe my Protestant and Episcopalian friends (kids in the neighborhood), nor Hindu's nor Jew's and on and on would go to hell because they weren't Catholic. Told parents that by forcing me to attend church, they were forcing me to be a hypocrit and if I died and went to hell for being a hypocrit ... it would be on them. Amazingly, that was the end of church for me ... and a few months later, for my parents and the rest of the family. It was all most peculiar.

Baldur

I liked that there was never any noise, even in a classroom of 50 kids there was no unnecessary noise.
There were always bullies though in the early years. I think that type of repression brought them out.

Baldur

My parents stopped going to church by the early 1970s, I actually attended masses longer than they did.
Baldur still gets in the mood to go sometimes, though not always to a Catholic Church.
The Lutheran Church was the one that seemed most Catholicesque (+4 points) of the ones I've attended so far. I really should have attended an Anglican mass when in New Brunswick a few years back

Baldur

Back in the early 70s there was a charismatic renewal movement in the local church. As my parents would say it attracted all the freaks.
There would be prayer meetings, chanting, speaking in tongues. Baldur got to see all this when the local Charismatic community basically established itself in the faltering Church of St B. The school had been closed, the numbers of parishioners was dwindling.
They decided to reopen the school under new principles and hired a very progressive 'hippy' faculty.

Baldur

This was by far the nicest group of people I'd encountered up to this point.
Most were artists, but all were well-read.
The hippy part is not an exageration, There was long hair, scraggly beards, love beads, bell bottoms, sandals and the occasional barefoot teacher.