Having become accustomed to the pretty first grade nun and her black habit, advancement to the Second Grade injected more fear into my young life since that was the grade level that all Catholic students were introduced to the dark “box” called the confessional. A “good” confession brought the reward of being able to receive that white, circular bread called, “The Eucharist.” The fear involved was whether one could remember to confess ALL one’s sins committed since the last confession and how much penance one would receive for those sins confessed. An added concern was whether every classmate in the church knew how bad I was by how long a penance I received.
I got over the terrible fear of the black habit quickly. Just how, I do not remember. What I do remember is my mother and the nuns working on making me a black habit for a school play, with the white thing on my head that hid my long hair and my pigtails.
By Third Grade, my baby sister had advanced to three years old and had taken the heart of our father from the other five of us, and became quite spoiled. If we complained to our mother, we were admonished that we were the ones who spoiled her because we thought she was so cute. Nevertheless, we all began to suffer the results of that and to learn more about fear – in this case – fear of Daddy, who always defended his baby. But that was not the worst fear I remember from that age. One day, as I hurried to cross a street at the bottom of an icy hill on my way to school, my feet went out from under me and I fell. My heart was pounding as I scurried to get up because there was a bus coming down that hill. Need I try to describe that fear?
One type of fear was dealt with before it could happen with me – the fear of a black (Negro) face. My Fifth Grade teacher, Sr. Andrea, had been assigned to the local “black church” and her work with them spilled over into our fifth grade class, teaching us that it was very unkind to use the word, Nigger, etc. I had never seen a black person up to that point in my young life. Being as impressionable as I was, I never forgot Andrea’s lessons and applied them in my life shortly thereafter as we welcomed the first black students to our school.
There were those of us students who feared the principal simply because we heard others being fearful of her. My mother, however, had no fear of Sister “Principal.” That I learned when it was discovered that I had brought home head lice to my five brothers and sisters. I had never had a haircut, thus my hair had grown to my waist but had to be cut in order to deal effectively with the lice. Mother reported the problem to the principal who denied the remotest possibility that I had picked up head lice in her school. It was later discovered that the boy who sat in front of me carried the lice in to the school. The nun apologized but Mother had already made arrangements to pull me from the school and enrolled me in public school for the next grade, where I had to be sent to the nurse’s room every week to have my head checked.
I don’t remember at what age I began spending some time during summer vacations with my Aunt & Uncle in a neighboring state. We would sometimes visit other relatives, but Aunt Mary & Uncle Bill took one or two of us for a couple of weeks each and we were delighted for the change from home and the special attention we received.
In addition to those special vacations, on an occasional Sunday afternoon we would gang up on Daddy to take us to visit Aunt Mary & Uncle Bill and their two sons and we would all go to the lake for a swim. It was the same lake we had in our city and state but of course it was always fun to go with our favorite relatives. But one of those trips held the secret of my insurmountable fear of deep water that has kept me from learning to swim all these many, many years. I was so young when that happened I can only guess my age as being five or six. What I remember about it is simply that I was given mouth-to-mouth or something by someone, back on the sandy beach.
At the age of twenty-six, as a young married on vacation on Long Island, I came as close to drowning as one can get – down and under the famous “three times.” I remember knowing I was going under the third time and the fear was unimaginable and produced the forbidden panic. And sure enough, as he stood me on my feet in the water, those were the words of the young person who rescued me (he couldn’t have been more than twelve!) – “next time, don’t panic.” I was so deep in panic I did not have the presence of mind to thank him and that bothered me for years.
Years later, sitting around my mother’s kitchen table with one or two of my sisters as we visited on some holiday or other occasion, something was said that caused me to explain my failure in learning to swim. I think I was the only one of us who could claim being a non-swimmer. When I mentioned the incident on Long Island, I also mentioned having a vague memory of being resuscitated as a very young child on a beach somewhere. It was the moment I had been vindicated from making up things as my sister, Pat, revealed, “I was the one who resuscitated you.” She didn’t tell me how and why I had nearly drowned – just confirmed my memory and told me where it happened. There is a clear memory of those uncles and cousins in my family trying to get me used to the water by carrying me on their shoulders as I screamed in fear. (This is all leading somewhere - more to come.)
