Good Catholic Boys

The neighborhood where I grew up was full of young families who moved into their new homes shortly after the end of World War II.   We moved into ours in the spring of 1950. The new St. Dennis parish was established later the same year, and St. Dennis became our church of choice. My dad was Catholic, and my mom agreed to raise their children in the Catholic faith.  She was baptized as a Catholic when I was about 10 or 11.

Many of my friends attended St. Dennis.   When the time was right, I attended catechism classes, studied and made my first communion and, later, was confirmed.   That was the appropriate path for good catholic boys.  Girls too but this is a story about boys.   My catechism experience began when I was very young (6 or 7) and lasted into my high school years.

For me, being Catholic meant I had a lot of rules to follow.  If you didn’t follow the rules, you were in danger of committing a sin.   We had two types of sin: venial and mortal.  While venial sins were not good to have on your record, mortal sins were terrible.  There were only two people keeping track of your sins.  You and God.

I’m pretty sure that eating meat on Friday was a venial sin.  At least it was at our house.  We never ate meat on Friday until they changed the rules, and thus the sin, at the Second Vatican Council during the four-year period covering 1962 – 1965.  My high school years.

My mom could cook, but she wasn’t a great cook.  If my memory serves me correctly, we had a Friday night rotation of four basic meals: toasted cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, salmon patties, tuna noodle casserole, and macaroni and cheese.  I hated macaroni and cheese.  If I knew that mac and cheese was on the menu for the night, I suffered all day.  We had a rule at our house, I expect in response to the shortages during the Great Depression and World War II, if we’re having it – you’re eating it.

One macaroni and cheese Friday I was playing at my friend’s, Bob Wert, house after school.   Bob was a fellow fifth grade classmate and a Catholic.   I believe he was more Catholic than me because he became an altar boy.  I was never an altar boy.  As the afternoon wore on, Bob’s mom asked me if I’d like to stay for dinner.  Alleluia!!!  I gift from heaven.  I called my mom to make sure that it was OK for me to stay.   She said “yes”.  Alleluia!!!   This was going to be one of the greatest spiritual interventions of all time.   I was going to miss the dreaded mac and cheese night.

Shortly after receiving the OK to say for dinner, the Wert family and I sat down.  Bob had an older brother and sister.   Bob’s dad worked at the big hardware store downtown and his mom was a stay at home mom like most of my friends.

As Mrs. Wert brought the food to the table she said, “I hope you like macaroni and cheese.”  What were the odds?  Two different families having the same meal on the same night.  How can it be?

I think I kept a straight face when I said, “Yes, mam.”  I wanted to say “hell no” but I knew that was a sin.  I’d rather commit the sin of lying than hurt Mrs. Wert’s feelings.

Mrs. Wert placed the casserole dish on the table and took off the lid.  What I saw was not my mother’s mac and cheese.  It was Mrs. Wert’s.  There were no little bits of stewed tomatoes in Mrs. Wert’s mac and cheese.  It was just macaroni covered with golden cheese.  She served me first.  (I was the guest.)  After serving everyone, we said a prayer and began to eat.  This was definitely not my mother’s mac and cheese.  This was GOOD.  It turns out that I did like mac and cheese.   I just didn’t like “little bits of stewed tomatoes.”  I still don’t.

Later, I told my mom of my experience.   I don’t know if she stopped putting stewed tomatoes in her mac and cheese, but I do know that I never ate it that way again.

I had another “no meat Friday” adventure with my friend, Rudy Ziehl.  Although he may not remember, Rudy and I ate lunch  together almost every day during 8th grade.  We were “brown baggers”.   We brought our lunch to school rather than purchase hot lunch.   Brown baggers had the opportunity to purchase milk and then eat together in what I like to call – the brown bag room.   The brown bag room was just a classroom with tablet armed desks.  It was the designated spot for brown baggers.

Rudy had an egg salad sandwich almost every Friday.  Maybe every. I was a peanut butter and jelly or cheese sandwich guy.  I secretly coveted Rudy’s egg salad sandwich.  (Coveting is a sin too.)

One day I was talking to my mom about Rudy’s egg salad sandwich and she offered to make one for me.  I accepted the adventure.  When the next Friday rolled around, she packed an egg salad sandwich for me.

I loved Fridays.   In additional to being the final day of school for each week, we had a school dance every Friday – at night – when it was dark.  The dance was called REC.   I don’t why.  Perhaps it was short for recreation.  Anybody who was anybody went to the REC dance.   They had a couple of lame hockey type games that some of the guys liked to play, but the reason that I went to the dances was to dance.  I couldn’t “fast” dance.  But I could “slow” dance.  Slow dancing involved holding a girl in your arms, and to tell the truth, that’s the part that I liked best. Cheek to cheek, boobs to chest.

The Friday of my egg salad sandwich started off like any other Friday, except that I was having egg salad for lunch.  Rudy’s sandwich and my sandwich looked a bit different, but I thought nothing of it.  As long as there were not stewed tomatoes, I was good to go.  Shortly after lunch I started to feel poorly.   My stomach churned a bit.   As the afternoon progressed, I felt worse and worse.  By the time last hour rolled around I just put my head down on my desk.  My stomach rumbled.

About two seconds before the clock was about to dismiss students for the day, I stood up and puked my guts out.  I hung my head looking down at a pool of egg salad and milk.  Disgusting.  All of my classmates made it around the pool and I headed to the bathroom to make sure that my puking was over.  It was.  Just one bout of upchucking and I was fine.

When I got home that afternoon my mom asked how my day had gone and how I enjoyed the egg salad sandwich.  Looking back I wish I would have committed a sin and lied, but I told the truth.  I told her that I had gotten sick, but that I was feeling much better and looking forward to going to the REC dance in a few hours.

“You’re not going to the dance.  You’re sick.”   See why I wished I had lied.

I didn’t go to the dance.   I didn’t get sick anymore either.  I was fine.   Once I had purged – all was well.

I know that it was my mom who made the call regarding the dance, but if Rudy had never tempted me (also the sin of temptation) with egg salad sandwiches I would have gone.  That’s one hold of a girl cheek to cheek, boobs to chest, at night, in the dark that I’ll never get back.