Beam Me Up Part Five

Once the school bell rang, we headed inside to follow an itinerary that was sent to us in the mail that summer. The inside of the school looked old, yet clean and freshly painted for our coming. Long tall hallways with endless rows of brown lockers embedded in the tan walls gave order to the building. The classrooms had the usual blackboard walls and 12-foot ceilings. The outside wall of each room had the traditional tall school windows. The bottom rows of windows were frosted so you couldn't see outside to daydream. Unlike grammar school, there was no artwork or decoration of any kind in the rooms. All the desks were the small freestanding variety that could be moved around at will.

My First Day

The school building also included a special kind of circulation system. The Administration Building architect had devised a state-of-the-art air transfer system. This system took the warm air from the classrooms and exchanged it with air that was in a deep underground labyrinth of large pipes that took advantage of the cooler temperature of the earth below. The cooler air would circulate back up into the school through huge grilles at the front of every room.

The first day was an orientation to the school and our own schedules so we followed an abbreviated class schedule with a few variations for listening to speeches by the principal and a few other school luminaries. What struck me on that day was the speaking ability of those who addressed us. While most of what was being said was what you might expect at a high school orientation, each individual seemed to have a special presence and a certain way of saying things. A day that you thought would have been extremely dull was one that really caught your attention. You somehow got the idea that these folks were serious about how they were going to help us fashion ourselves into great people and as incredible as it may sound, we were predisposed to believe them.

In our homeroom orientation, we were given a little speech by Father Tom O'Brien, who stood 6 foot 6 inches and wore a one piece brown robe or cassock that made him look even taller. Father O'Brien had a very large head and an Irish smile that could charm donations from Scrooge. O'Brien spoke about the changes that we would see in ourselves in the next four years.

"If you could see yourselves four years hence, you would not recognize yourselves. You'll see physical, mental and spiritual changes forged in part by Mount St. Mary's in the same way we worked with your fathers and uncles and older brothers. However, the trip calls for tremendous stamina and courage. You need to reach deep down within and call forth your best efforts to see you through. Mount Saint Mary's is not just a school for athletes; it is not just a school for scholars. It is a school for those who exert an effort to be their best."

After passing through a few quick classes, we went down to the gymnasium, which was an ancient solid-looking facility. Like the other rooms in the school however, the gym was clean and freshly painted. The basketball court had just enough room on its edges for bleachers that rolled out of the walls. Above the gym, you could see a second story running track that ran the perimeter of the place. At one end of the gym floor was an alcove that served as open area for wrestling mats and equipment. Directly above the alcove were the gym offices and handball courts. Hanging high on the walls above the gym were the banners that proclaimed the feats of the legendary Mount Saint Mary teams. Major sports championships earned by the school easily outnumbered those of any other school in Chicago.

For the second presentation, we were the captive audience for Mr. Quigley, the physical education teacher and wrestling coach. For this presentation there were over a hundred freshmen sitting on bleachers facing Quigley, who had the demeanor of a drill instructor with a touch of human kindness hid behind his deep blue eyes and ruddy red face. Quigley looked like James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. Like Cagney, his walk was one hundred percent athleticism, but in a choppy jerky way.

"Well, I hope you men have a good sense now of what has to go on to your brains in the next four years. I am here to tell you what's going to go on to your body. First, we are going to get you in shape and that means work. You'll do more push-ups, jumping jacks, sit ups, and other calisthenics than you can count. Then you'll run and run and run some more. You'll go farther than you ever thought possible."

Quigley stopped for a second and looked menacingly at one of the kids in the front row of the bleachers who was talking and giggling. He walked over to him quickly and stood directly in front of him.

"Say, what's your name?" he demanded.

"Harrison, Sir." said a thin blond haired boy.

"Well Harrison, you've got a goofy looking face that seems to go with your goofy behavior, but if you like that goofy face, you better change your behavior. Are we clear on this?" the coach asked.

"Yes" said the tall blond boy who to our surprise did not look intimidated in the least.

"As I was saying," continued the coach, "be prepared to work your butts off in this class, and from what I have seen, a lot of you guys have a lot of butt to work off. Don't forget to bring your entire gym uniform including jock straps, we'll check for those. And don't try and give me any phony doctor's note about how you can't run or exercise. I'll check each and every note out. See you tomorrow freshmen." The coach ended his speech with a sneer directed at Mr. Harrison.

Third stop was a speech by Father Kevin our religion teacher who was there to tell us about our spiritual selves. Father Kevin was a tough-looking rubber-faced little man with a flat top crew cut that he would sport all during the longhaired 60's and beyond. He was just a few inches taller than five feet so he was shorter than most of us. He had small hands and short legs, but he had a developed sense of decency about him that more than made up for his lack of physical stature. Father Kevin’s enthusiasm for life had rubbed off on thousands of graduates and would rub off on thousands more before he was finished teaching. He was one of those teachers that former graduates always asked about when you ran into a Mount Saint Mary alum.

Father Kevin spoke to us in a classroom and while he wore a modern black suit with a Roman collar, he had an executive look about him—flat top crew cut or not. His suit was new, his shoes were perfectly shined and his silver rimmed glasses gleamed as the sun came into the room. This was a special day for Father Kevin and on his special days he looked his best.

"As part of your Catholic upbringing our goal is to provide you with a decent Catholic Education. However, unlike grammar school we will not start and end with the 10 Commandments and the Catechism. We'll talk about marriage, dating, children, responsibility and other issues and behaviors that need to be rooted in your beliefs. In today's world you have more freedom than ever before, but there's a price you pay for it and you need to understand the ramifications of your behavior before you make important decisions. Religion really isn’t a subject so much as the faith you take with you and use to guide your actions throughout your life."

Our next stop was back to the gymnasium for a large all school speech by the Principal, Father Stanton Lonergan. Father Lonergan was straight out of Boston and spoke with a thick accent like John Fitzgerald Kennedy. He was not a man who established close bonds with the students, but he was a brilliant administrator and a good forty points higher on the IQ scale than most mortals that I know.

"Men of Mount Saint Mary's let me first tell you how pleased I am that you have chosen our humble little school. We are small in a physical sense, but big on achievement. The students that have graced these halls before you have accomplished great things and we'll expect no less from you. Authors, athletes, political leaders, judges and scholars all walked these halls before you. Who of you will achieve great things in this world it's difficult to say, but we hope that every one of you achieves some measure of success. We are here to help you, to guide you, to motivate you and to push you. And if we can't do anything with you, we'll throw you out. You will not graduate from Mount Saint Mary's unless you meet the school’s high standards. It will take the grace of God and everything you have.”

Our last stop was to the cafeteria where we were given a few minutes to buy a snack. It was a dark cavernous building without a single window. Endless rows of long dark metal long picnic benches surrounded the perimeter of the place. After I bought chocolate milk and a small pie, I made my way to one of the tables where I met Jan Kobieski from what was called the east side of the city around the steel mills. While Mount Saint Mary’s drew a lot of Irish kids from the southwest side, the southeast side contingent was primarily of eastern European decent, including many Poles and Czechs. As it turned out, our lunch table was to include Shanahan, Flannigan, Monaghan, O’Brien, Callaghan, and Hannigan as well as Gwyzdulski, Kobieski, Kobus, Nemcyck, and Martinez and Lopez for good measure.

In no time at all, we were back on the "brown and white" traveling through the streets of Chicago once again heading back to our safe little corner of the world. I quickly walked through Kennedy Park to the little tan slate-sided Callaghan residence on Washtenaw. I sat on the third wooden step of our house, where I had planted myself thousands of times. The step was my security blanket and was sacred to me. I looked at our street thinking about my day. I looked up and down the street at the small two bedroom homes in which resided mostly four bedroom families. The large maple trees seemed to hold their breath as I glanced around trying to get my bearings on my new life in high school.

One thing I understood from my first day was that I would always be a little uncomfortable at this school. There would always be an edge there for me. There was always an element of threat and struggle that would affect me deeply and call up all my survival instincts. I would always be trying to prove something to my classmates, my teachers and myself. Everyone at the school was challenging us and their message was clear. Our future is in our hands so don't screw it up. You are privileged to be here so make sure you survive as one of us.

For me the high school experience began as a medicinal four-year program. Culturally, intellectually, physically and spiritually I was in for some tough times. As a beginning freshman, it seemed like it was all a tough strenuous exercise. What I didn't know was that we would all somehow work within and outside the construct of the school to make it a very human experience filled with laughs and good times as well as stress and strain. The human spirit in all of us, teachers and students, would break out from the educational methods and structure.

Copyright Sporting Chance Press

This story is taken from The Brown and White. 

Beam Me Up Part Four

That morning we approached school from Stony Island Avenue, a great broad street solidly in the heart of Chicago’s black belt area of the city. While the Avenue was alive and thriving in large sections, the area closest to the school was decrepit with boarded windows and doors. A few bars still showed signs of life, but every building had steel gates that were swung closed and locked in the early morning hour as we passed. These are common in many cities, but we had never seen them in our neighborhoods.

We turned down 64th Street and we could see a huge beige brick school looming regally in the distance. At first, some of the kids on the bus who had only seen Mount Saint Mary’s in pictures or once for their placement test, mistook this for our school. But, we went right past the beautiful building, which was a large public grade school. Just beyond the grade school we could see a complex of old brick buildings facing us that appeared to be much older than the school we had just passed. This was Mount Saint Mary.

Ahead and on our right, we saw an immense dark Quonset hut that resembled some of the bowling alleys that peppered Chicago. This was the cafeteria. Next, there was a sturdy brown brick and grey stone gothic structure that was the school administration, gymnasium and classroom building. To the left of these buildings was a very large apartment building that was a monastery that housed the priests and brothers. Further to the left was a row of occupied apartment buildings.

Across the street from the school facing west was a smaller school building with “St. Joseph's College” chiseled in stone above the door. We later found out that this building dated back to when the Mount Saint Mary priests who ran Saint Mary’s had operated a small college, trade school and high school at the site. The entire operation was consolidated into the High School when a new building was constructed about 50 years before our class set foot in the place. “Saint Joseph’s College” was now our library.

The school was indeed framed by things urban and resided right smack dab in the center of a community that was in urban decay. A few blocks to the South was the headquarters for the Blackstone Rangers, the most powerful gang in Chicago during the 60's. A block to the North was a declining business hub. To the East was a checkerboard of empty lots and old buildings that eventually led to Jackson Park and the lake. To the West was the raised bluff of the IC train tracks and beyond that a residential neighborhood of homes and churches.

There was a courtyard between the Administration Building and the Cafeteria where we congregated that morning before class. I looked around to scope out the kind of kids I'd be going to school with for the next few years. "Tough" seemed to be the best way to describe their overall demeanor. While many of the kids dressed in Levis, CPO jackets and other clothes that were popular, some of the kids seemed to come from another decade or a set from an old time Bowery Boy movie. They wore clothes their fathers may have worn in the 1930’s or 1940’s. Baggy tan pants, blue collar work shirts, strange looking hats of every kind, steel toed work shoes, cardigan sweaters--all kinds of clothes that many kids that age would not be caught dead in. These guys were definitely not out there to make a fashion statement on the only day in the school year when we didn't have to wear dress pants and a dress shirt.

Copyright Sporting Chance Press

This story is taken from The Brown and White.