Brown and White eBook about to Publish

Forty plus years in the making, The Brown and White will be on Amazon Kindle very soon. The Brown and White is a fictionalized memoir that tells the story of Collin Callaghan's freshman year at a Chicago Catholic High School.  Collin is a white boy who is living in turbulent times in a changing city. He clings to his neighborhood and his family as he heads out each day with his classmates on the Brown and White, the ancient school bus driven by free-spirited Willie.  Memorable characters abound as the right of passage unfolds. The story is also about Collin's loveable family, especially his Irish Catholic policeman father and his Irish immigrant mother who blazes her own trail through the 60s.

Brown and White Book Not Forgotten

From time to time I have posted portions of my Brown and White book on this site.  Meantime, I have been working to publish my authors' sports books under the Sporting Chance Press company.  I still hope to one day publish my Brown and White book as soon as I can figure out how to pay for it!

Publishing has been a very difficult field since I started my company in 2008. Thanks for sticking with me and following this blog.  You'll seen new posts on it soon.

Mount Saint Mom's Knitting

This is a small piece from a book I've written over 40 plus years that I call the Brown and White.  I look at it as a great Catholic story although a publisher I wrote one time called it "commercial fiction." I may not be promoting Catholicism in the work, but it is very Catholic in a visceral sense.  This part is based on my mother--who is now 97, and no longer knits or drinks, but she still is a great inspiration in both humor and human kindness.

Once I am off to Mount Saint Mary’s every day, my mother’s influence in my life wanes. I am 20 miles away with hundreds of other boys and a male faculty. When I get home, I eat and then hit the books. There is no walking home for lunch with my mother like grade school and most of the best stories from school are too rough to tell her. Life changed that fast.

Nevertheless, my mother is always trying in some way to make life better for me. She is not like some mothers looking to control me; she is honestly trying to make a contribution, even if it does not always work out so well.

I come home one day and my mother meets me at the door – she is overjoyed.

“I was talking to Mrs. Halloran on Talman and she told me that she has a neighbor whose son went to Mount Saint Mary’s and she has a school letterman’s jacket, you know the very expensive ones with leather sleeves. She says it is like brand new and the boy no longer needs it” My mother gloats.

“I don’t know Mom, wouldn’t this guy want his jacket even after he is out of high school? “ I ask.

“Oh no, this kid is on to Loyola University, he isn’t going to be wearing a High School jacket.” She returned.

“OK, Mom, but please let Mrs. Halloran know that I don’t want it if the guy’s mother is taking it away from him.” I said.

A week or so later on a Saturday morning, Mrs. Halloran is at the door delivering what looks like a brand new Mount Saint Mary Jacket. It is beautiful and it actually fits. It is dark brown with tan leather sleeves and it looks just like the new ones that some of my buddies have bought. I cannot believe my luck. I wear it around the house for a few minutes and then put it into a closet thinking about how great it will be to have it for Monday.

A short time later the phone rangs and as usual my mother answers.

“Hello, oh yes Mrs. Halloran he loves it. And thanks so much, we could have never been able to afford it.” My mother looks over at me and smiles while waiting for Mrs. Halloran to speak.

“Oh really,” my mother says as she gets this pained look on her face. “That’s awful. That’s just awful.”

I immediately know the too-good-to-be-true jacket is too good to be true. I make it easy on my mother and go over the closet and carry the coat over on a hanger and hand it to her. She looks half disappointed and half surprised that I have sensed what was going on.

“Well, all right then, I guess it can’t be helped. Well, no, we wouldn’t want it under those conditions.” She says and then hangs up the phone.

All the air is out of my mother’s sail when she says:

“Mrs. Halloran’s neighbor screwed things up. Her son had already promised the jacket to his girlfriend’s brother who is going to Mount Saint Mary’s next year. But, the good news is that she said she knows someone else who may have one.”

A few minutes later, Mrs. Halloran came over and took away the beautiful jacket. After she left, I said,

“Jeez Mom, maybe we should have taken a picture of me with the jacket. I could have cut out some letters on paper and pasted them on for the photo! “

She laughed a little, but it was a painful moment for both us. We both knew we’d never have the money for jacket like that. Life goes on and ten minutes later, it didn’t mean a thing. In my house material possessions were never a priority.

A few days later, my mother got another phone call from Mrs. Halloran.

“Hello, oh yes Mrs. Halloran. Oh really. Well that sounds nice, yes. Oh it does? Oh I see. Well thanks so much again. Yes, I’ll be home. Great. Good bye.

My mother turns to me and says:

“She got another one from someone else. She says it’s a little older than the other one, but still has plenty of wear.”

Before I saw the jacket, I knew what I was in for. When I saw the jacket the next day after coming home from school, I was surprised. It didn’t look like a jacket another student had worn while attending Mount Saint Mary’s, it looked like a jacket everyone who had ever attended Mount Saint Mary’s had worn. The dark brown that made up the body of the coat had a grayish hue to it, like it had been stored for a thousand years in a pyramid. The tan arms had so many wrinkles and deep creases that it looked more like elephant skin than leather. It was an ancient hideous thing and on top of everything, it was a couple sizes small.

But of course, it became my Mount Saint Mary’s jacket and I wore it all the time.

After successfully acquiring my jacket, my mother got even more ambitious in her determination to dress me for success at Mount Saint Mary. She knitted things for me.

One day, I came home from School and there was my mother, busy at work, knitting away. I had never seen my mother knitting, but there she was, having at it like nobody’s business. And again, I knew I was in trouble immediately because she had two big balls of yarn: one white and the other brown. What could she be knitting in Mount Saint Mary colors I thought.

“So Mom, what are you knitting?” I ask.

“Well I have a few things in mind, you’ll have to see, you’ll have to see.” She says.

“But, I didn’t know you could knit.” Says I.

“Oh, I did lots of it when your Father and I were first married, but I got awful tired of it, so I put it aside for 20 years or so.” She returns.

Well, she’ll be practicing on me no doubt I said to myself as I walked out of the room. I went to the back porch which was a heatless space that my brother and I had commandeered as a bedroom because of its proximity to the kitchen. I opened an old wooden wardrobe that my Uncle Ed had acquired from a hotel and I hung up my coat. Our house was tiny and amounted to a series of small rooms. The master bedroom was about the size of a walk-in closet and it was located just off the living room. The place was so small that if my father sat on his bed and left the bedroom door open, he could carry on a conversation with any of us sitting on the couch without raising his voice. A second bedroom was off the dining room and it was even smaller because a large chimney for the oil furnace ran through it.

Although our carpets were threadbare and our furniture was junk, my mother was a good housewife. The house was as always clean as a whistle, but she had no passion for baking, sewing, or any of the crafts that attract many women. What my mother liked to do best of all was curl up on the couch at night, watch TV with a book in her hand, sip on her beer and smoke a few cigarettes. She liked to watch sitcoms and dramas during the prime time hours. Most of the TV shows were so insipid that she could read her book and still keep track of the various show plots. She read through mysteries faster than Perry Mason could solve them. We respected the fact that evening was her “time off” as she called it.

So we were all surprised to see my mother take up knitting and continue it every night. It kept her hands so busy she couldn’t smoke or have her evening beer. We secretly thought that maybe a priest who was trying to be very practical had given my mother a knitting assignment as penance, but my brother reminded us that we had never seen my mother near a confessional. If she did go, I suspect she would have said to the priest, you tell me yours and then I’ll tell you mine.

At first, my mother produced a pair of white mittens, but I dodged a bullet when she announced that these were for my little sister. The mittens were actually very serviceable, but High School guys just didn’t wear mittens, so I was relieved. She handed them over to my little sister and said: “You are next Collin.”

“Lucky bastard” I thought to myself. I could feel my stomach turn with nervousness at the thought of what I might be required to wear.

Clickety click click, every night for hours; the knitting went on. During the second week, she started to pace herself a little so she could have a little beer as she worked. So the cadence changed to clickety click click sip sip, at times. A few days into that second week she worked in a few cigarettes. So the cadence changed to clickety click click, sip sip, clickety click click wooo aaah. My mother was a master at adaptability.

I could see my mother was making great progress on something long and narrow, but I wasn’t sure what it was. Strips that she would sew together for a blanket? One day when I came home she had switched to what looked like something much smaller and round so my theory on the blanket went out the window.

Finally, one day when I came home, my mother proudly handed me a brown beret and a long brown and white scarf: the perfect companions to my jacket. For a few seconds, I could see my entire life pass before me. I thought this is it, no one will ever see me as an acceptable “hard ass” any longer and I will not likely survive a day with this outfit. I looked into my mom’s eyes and I could see all the love she had put into the knitting and knew in an instant, that regardless of my fate, she had done great.

“Jeez Mom, this is really great stuff, really the best. This is perfect Mom.” I said and I meant it in a way. She looked at me and she put the beret on and lovingly wrapped the scarf around my neck.

Again, like the jacket, once the cold weather hit, I wore the scarf and the beret every day—they had grown on me that much. And for some reason because it was Mount Saint Mary’s, where the guys seem to think a little differently than the rest of the world, my outfit was just fine.

The only odd thing was that the scarf seemed to have a beanstalk sort of quality about it. In no time at all it started to stretch and grow longer each day I wore it. At first, I could wear it around my neck and it hung down to my belt. Then it got longer and I had to wind it round my neck once lest it extend too far down beyond my coat length. Then I had to wrap it round my neck two full turns. As the winter wore on, I was looping it around my arms under my coat and finally I had to wrap it a few times around my waste. As the length of the scarf grew of course, the width shrank. One day toward the end of the winter it fell on the floor outside my locker as I was getting ready to go home. Hanni, who had a locker next to mine, looked down at it and said:

“Jezus Callaghan, what the hell are you doing with a rope in your locker – going to use it to escape some day out the window during Latin Class?”

“No Hannie, I am going to lasso one of the Academy girls as we pass by them on the bus and get myself a date.”

Copyright Sporting Chance Press

This story is taken from The Brown and White. 

10 cc's of Mr. Happy

Practically everyone who attended Mount Saint Mary knew the instructor of Freshman English grammar and Literature, Mr. Henry, who we called Happy Hank. Happy was a sturdy-looking man in his 40’s with a pleasant face that bore a perpetual grin. Not a big goofy looking grin; one that someone might have who is holding a straight flush in a poker game. He was average height and weight, but he had huge rough hands that gave evidence of his handball playing prowess. Handball uses a very hard small rubber ball that you smack without much protection other than gloves that are as thick as plastic wrap. If you play, your hand either gets very tough and leathery or it falls off altogether.

In front of the class, Happy would bend his arms at the elbow and hold his hands up about the level of his neck with his fingers perpendicular to his palms. He would hold this pose for lengthy periods as he lectured. If his fingers were not bent, you would have thought he was demonstrating the size of a Muskie he had caught. Happy’s class was fairly normal and his lectures were routine. He had a good speaking voice and he managed to keep most kids awake. But he had two odd habits. His first odd habit was the manner in which he gave us a surprise quiz every other day. Right in front of us, Happy would transform from a flesh and blood teacher to an automaton who give us the following instructions without moving an inch:

OK, students now take a sheet of clean 8½” x 11” notebook paper out of your notebooks [pause]. Fold the top of the sheet down to the bottom in half [pause]. Take your ruler and run it across the fold to make it very neat and clean. Now take that half sheet and fold it over like a book [pause]. That’s it, make your corners crisp and neat – yes that’s it Mr. Dollar. Now once you have your corners folded neatly, rip the page at the folds so you create four small sheets of paper equal in size [pause]. Yes, Mr. Jenkins, that’s right. Now take one of the sheets and on the very top right corner, write you name, your full first name and last name. That’s right [pause]. But make sure it’s on the upper right corner Mr. Kobis, not the left corner. Directly under your name, write “English Grammar.” Now under “English Grammar,” write today’s date [pause]. Everyone knows today’s date? Well that’s good boys. Now over on the left edge of the page write numbers “1” through “10” down the page vertically. That’s vertically, Mr. Gilmartin, not horizontally.

At least twice a week, Happy would give us a quiz and he always worded his questions so each answer could easily fit on the small lines found on quarter pieces of paper that we prepared. He would go through the instructions each time as if he had never given them before. He expected everyone to get it right. Happy would stand there at the front of the room, the cadence of his words ever steady, the expression in his voice emotionless for this ritual.

His second odd habit would show up at different times during the class when you might not expect it. One second Happy would be in front of the room perched in his pose, holding his hands up high, and suddenly he would walk over to one of the students and peer down over him.

“Mr. Klemp, I see you are very tired today. I see your eyes are opening and closing. I see it is hard for you to stay awake. Mr. Klemp, you need some medicine. Class, Mr. Klemp needs some medicine. I’d say about 50 cc.”

Then Happy would put his left hand on Klemp’s left check and very quickly with exacting precision swing his right hand at Klemp’s right cheek. “Slap!” We never knew the total force of Happy’s slap because his left handle cradled the “slapee’s” cheek so his head would not fall off. But, by the sound of it, it was very wicked and generally, the “slappee” would have a case of watering eyes for the next five minutes or so. The red cheek would last perhaps a period or two.

Happy would tell you how hard he was going to hit you by the volume of “medicine” he was administering, although some of us secretly thought he was administering the same dose each time. Regardless of whether you were getting 50 or 200 cc, you got the message. This very quiet, nerdy teacher kept a very orderly classroom. You were never quite sure whether he was putting everyone on with this persona, or whether it was genuine. Copyright 2016, Lawrence M. Norris

This story is taken from The Brown and White.

Drill Instructors

The school’s mission was established decades before my class ever saw the old brick buildings. MSN had a reputation for taking all kinds of kids and making something out of them. It was a “no child left behind” or in the case of problem students a “no child left with a behind” philosophy. Most educators today would say that the methods used were certainly primitive by modern standards. Most MSM teachers had their own unique creative method of cruel and unusual punishment to foster discipline. It seemed to us that they dealt corporal punishment out unmercifully. But, for us, taking such medicine was a test of manhood that we were certainly willing to take. Like our dads, older brothers, and uncles, we wanted to make the grade more than anything else. We wanted to become men of Mount Saint Mary’s. The discipline methods were not just part of the school tradition; they were also a reason why parents were sending their kids to the school in the first place. If a parent didn’t know their kids would face such methods, they hadn’t done their homework.

While Catholics everywhere like to talk about how brutal the priests and nuns could be in the schools, in my experience it was the lay teachers who dished out the corporal punishment en masse. Most of the priests were much more kind and forgiving than the lay teachers. Nevertheless, each teacher whether lay or religious had his own unique persona with special stories that would become the living lore of the school.

Our Math teacher had the "Sabre," a narrow but thick black belt that he could wield like a Sword. His name was Karonska; we called him the Cossack. The Cossack sported a short military crew cut and was lean and angular with dark eyes and a long pointed nose. He looked like a Russian warrior and everything about him was no nonsense. He typically wore warn black leather oxford shoes polished to a spit shine. He perpetually sported black dress pants, a white cotton dress shirt and a dark colored tie. He never wore anything with stripes, dots, checks or patterns of any kind. His favorite colors were black and white. He was in his fifties, but he worked out every day with many of the other teachers and was in great shape. The Cossack was well-liked and good speaker, but he could be one mean guy when pushed. He seldom needed to use the "Sabre", but when he did, he was merciless.


In class one day an unorganized and undisciplined John Amoto was explaining to Mr. Karonska that his sister must have mixed up his homework with her stuff and taken it to her school. Suddenly the Cossack says, "hush! I think I hear your sister out in the hall. Why don't you go out and see if she has brought it for you?" John ominously walks out to the hall closely followed by Karonska who taking the “Sabre" off his pants. We heard the “Whack, whack, whack, whack” echo out in the hall. Back into the room walks Amoto bleary eyed and red faced.

Karonska announces, "Well John couldn't seem to find anything today so I helped him find his “behind.” Does anyone else need some help?" Needless to say, very few homework assignments were missed in Mr. Karonska's class.

Our Civics teacher had a sawed off wooden canoe paddle that he used to whack insubordinates. You would have thought that a paddle of that size would have been intimidating enough, but he drilled holes into the blade to cut wind resistance. His name was Jerry Patrick, we called him "Geriatric" because of his white hair. He was far from feeble though as he swung that paddle about as well as any member of the Oxford rowing team. He called the punishment he doled out “nautical nourishment.” We called it "ouch".

Another teacher, who taught science, was particularly menacing. He rigged up an electric chair in one of the labs. If he was particularly angry at someone he would have them sit down and put a few volts through their body. His name was Edward Sandals and we called him "Electric Eddie" or at times the more formal, "Commonwealth Edward." The electric chair, it turned out, had little current to it, but Eddie had it rigged up with extra wire and metal spools to make it look very nasty indeed.

Father Franz Stroussel was the Freshman Latin Teacher and although he was old and sickly, he was an institution at Mount Saint Mary's. A larger than life figure, Father Stroussel had taught students' fathers, uncles and older brothers. He was a tough old German priest who wore the full cassock or long brown robe worn by the more traditional minded Mount Saint Mary priests.

In grade school when the boys had an older nun for a teacher, some of the kids would victimize the poor lady to distraction. There were famous incidents in our grade school where the harassed teacher would leave the room in distress and return with an aspergillum, which is a device that the priest holds to sprinkle holy water to the congregation at times. She would stand at the front of the room and flail away with the device desperate to try to exorcise the demons present. Despite his advanced age, this was not going to happen with Father Franz. He knew his place as master of the class and he was going to make sure we understood ours.

Latin is a dead language, and the reason why it’s a dead language is not because it is no longer spoken, but because it is difficult and most current schools reserve the difficult for Math and Science, not language. In Latin, every word can have many different endings depending upon how it is used in a sentence. Such things as declensions and verb conjugations all must be understood and remembered. Working with Latin successfully means you must master a moving target of verb and noun endings along with grammar and vocabulary.

Before getting to the difficult study of Latin, Father Franz would begin each class with a lecture on his own personal beliefs. From Father Franz we learned that shoes and a good haircut made the man. The more ethnic you were, the more he liked you and that family was all-important. So if you never shined your shoes, your hair was a little long, you had a common American name and he didn't know anyone with your last name from the annals of Mount St Mary past, you were in trouble. On the other hand, if your name was O'Shannon or Flipovich, you had slick close cropped hair, a good pair of shoes and a father that he taught 30 years ago, you were in great shape.

Father Franz had a stout round dowel of wood that looked something like a drumstick that he kept with him at all times. He told us this was the "good wood" and he used it to emphasize points to our posteriors. He spoke with a slight German accent in a calm nasally tone.

His class consisted of constant quizzes on vocabulary and going over our translation homework on the black board. If you were having a difficult time with your board work, Father would come up behind you, grip your pants and pull them high ala a “wedgie” and then give you a few good whacks on the backside. For onlookers it was a very comedic sight, but for those who felt the good wood -- well, you got the message although it was not rip-roaring pain.

I struggled with Latin and although I loved the subject, it didn't come easy and I dreaded Father Franz's class. He was not the same teacher that he had been in his prime and at times he lost his composure. One day while I was at the board, I made a great error in a translation. The good priest tried to straighten my Latin translation out, gave up and then let the good wood do its work. I nervously smirked when he was administering the punishment and he got very angry at me. He dropped the good wood and slapped me a few times for good measure saying: "Here’s something to tell your grandmother!" In most of the classes if a teacher whacked you, it was something of a badge of courage to have survived it. That was not the case with Father Franz – most of us who got whacked were more concerned about the old boy’s stamina than about our posteriors. Father Franz gave us a sense of what the old days may have been like decades before we came to Saint Mary’s. Like other experiences, we took it in and processed it as part of the whole Mount Saint Mary education. Copyright 2012, Lawrence M. Norris

Getting Used to the Drill Part One

Mom: “How’s school Collin?”
Me: “It’s good Mom, good.”
Mom: “How’s the bus trip in?”
Me: “It’s good Mom, good.”
Mom: “Have you made any friends?”
Me: “A couple.”
Mom” “That’s good, Collin, that’s good.”

It took just a few days to get used to the drill; waking up very early, walking to Western Avenue, getting on the bus and going through a day of school and then getting back on the bus and making it home. Willie and the Brown and White were there every morning to welcome us and every afternoon to see us home.

The brown and white played a big part in our lives those days. It was our transport ship. We were sailors and the Brown and White offered security. We would catch up on homework, swap weekend "warrior" stories and sometimes get some sleep on our way to and from the school. The mornings were generally quiet. Some mornings it seemed like only Willie did any talking at all.

“Did you fellas see dat game on television last night. Now dat was a hell of a game and the beer was good ‘n cold. Jeez, I could use a good coffee dis mornin.”

The afternoons were noisy and buoyant.

“OK fellas, can you keep it down jus a little? My head is hurtin, like hell dis afternoon.”

In the first week, we quickly learned about the real characters of the school: the teachers. I cannot imagine there ever being a school with such a cast of unique and animated teachers. Special care was taken to recruit only teachers who would stand out in a crowd and inspire young boys from many different backgrounds. Our cast would make the witches and other creatures who instruct at Harry Potter’s Hogwarts look dull.

Each teacher seemed quirky in a different way, but on the whole they were fascinating communicators and extraordinary people. We learned immediately that they were focused on learning and that we would either get on the stick or get the stick - it was our choice. While there were several teachers who were beginning to practice some of the more modern approaches to discipline, most of the teachers controlled the classes through sheer force of their personalities or intimidation. And no apologies were made for it.

The school had many jocks, many scholars, some scholar-athletes and a large number of somewhat slightly above average to average students. Enrollment was kept relatively low at about 700. When the teachers used intimidating tactics they probably figured they were dealing well with the diversity issue. It did not matter what color you were or what ethnic background you had, if you stepped out of line, “bam,” you paid for it. Ironically, in the sixties, the bookshelves were full of best sellers on innovative educational approaches like open classrooms and self-directed learning. But, if someone asked our teachers "Why Johnny Can't Read," they would have answered “because mommy and daddy and their teachers are too soft on them.” Our teachers were not going to make that mistake! 

Copyright Sporting Chance Press

This story is taken from The Brown and White. 

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.