I moved into the Brighton Park neighborhood during the summer of 1959. The street we moved to was loaded with intelligent life, yes, there were a lot of kids. There also was a baseball field (parking lot) right across the street from where we lived. It could not have been a better place to grow up. The only better place I could think of would have been under the stands at Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox, the only professional ball club in Chicago.
The neighborhood was a miniature Vatican City. Everyone on the block was Catholic, except for two homes occupied by very nice, but very Protestant families. Since everyone was Catholic the vast majority of kids in our neighborhood went to one of the three Catholic schools in the neighborhood. Closest to our home was St. Pancratius, mostly for the Polish kids in the neighborhood. Then there was St. Agnes, for the Irish kids, and there was St. Joseph and St. Anne for everyone else. I was in the everyone else category and so me and my two sisters went to St. Joseph and St. Anne. I will refer to my elementary and middle school home as SJSA from now on. SJSA was owned and operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph. There are a lot of terror stories about the nuns in the middle of the twentieth century and I am sure that while some of the stories are true, many have been embellished to pose the tale teller in the best light possible. I promise you that in this narrative I will refrain from too much hyperbole and try to lay out the facts in a truthful manner. The fact is that the Sisters of St. Joseph were not the kind of sisters that hit children. At least I never saw this happen. Some of my fellow inmates claim that there were incidents of nun violence especially against the male inmates. I do not think that the nuns really had to engage in physical violence. Back then their word was law and if you were punished in school and work got back to your parents, you were punished at home. This fear kept us inline. as for me my "Wonder Years" in SJSA were the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.
In 4th grade I ended up being condemned to room B6, the B indicating a room in the basement. The rest of the school was airy and bright, the basement was more like a dungeon. This land of tan colored bricks, small windows, and asbestos wrapped pipes was ruled by Mrs. R. Reid. She was a witch in human guise. I was never a good student at SJSA, I had a learning disability for math and learning disabilities had a technical name back then, it was called "Stupid." Once Mrs. Reid pegged you as stupid you were stupid in her eyes forever. She gave subtle hints as to which kids were stupid, hints that the wolf pack of fourth graders were quick to pick up. Stupid students were the subject of playground bullying. Luckily for me my friend Dennis was in the same room as me and since he enjoyed kicking ass, taking names, and going around a second time to make sure he did not miss anyone, I was spared much of the physical bullying.
In 5th grade I had a teacher that was so opposite of Mrs. Reid that I began to wonder if Mrs. Reid came from an alien planet and just didn't know how we humans should be treated. She treated all of the kids in her class the same. Unlike most teachers she did not have a cadre of favorites, and she knew how to lead kids in a way that helped the slower ones. Her name was Ms. Powaga. I fell in love with her. She helped me see that there was a lot of good in me, that just because I had trouble with mathematics, I was still a good person. Bullying in fifth grade disappeared with some of the kids that were bullied the most became friends with those who bullied them. It makes a difference who leads a classroom.
My sixth grade teacher was Sister Margaret Jean. It was in this year that I learned how to stand up for myself and how to fight against the living tyranny of the Teachers Pet system. In doing this I was able to rack up fifteen demerits and numerous detentions and being one of the only students to receive a "D" in school spirit on my report card. My fifteen demerits in one semester is a record that was never broken up until the school closed and the building was leased to the Board of Education, City of Chicago, making it the only public school sporting a cross.
My story about growing up on the southwest side of Chicago in the Brighton Park neighborhood contains a lot of humor, a number of lessons, killer roller coaster, and a genuine flying nun and is available at at my publisher American Star or at Amazon. com
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