My friend Ray slipped quietly into our school when we were in the seventh
grade, and under the gentle wings of Sister Marie Elise. Ray got to experience
an Ingrid Bergman-Loretta Young kind of a nun that year and while Sister taught
us all how to dance, read some of the great novels with us, and even put up with
us putting our index fingers out so that the tip of her veil would slide over
them as she glided up the aisle. She smelled like Jergens Lotion. ( Sister
Alberta's scent was more like 20 mule team Borax ). We loved Sister Marie Elise,
and Ray's quiet personality was safely accepted into the classroom. Little did
he know that the following year he'd be thrown into the lions den.
Ray wasn't and still isn't one to take it lying down. As the eighth grade
classroom began the mass descent into madness, Ray emerged as a behind the
scenes protagonist. He made a decision early on to fight fire with fire...if
Sister Alberta was going to act like a strange and unpredictable maniac, he
would likewise act like a straight-faced strange and unpredictable hilarious
eighth grade boy. He was of course admitted to our Friday Mickey Mouse club (he
loved the extra bonus of playing Spin the Bottle) and was the first member to
suggest that we begin to strike back. One of his plans was to have everyone
cough at exactly 11:00 on Monday morning...then at 11:30 we were all to drop a
pencil or ruler. He also announced the publication of an underground newspaper
that would carry the weeks more memorable moments with Sister. His paper was
called the ATREBLA TSEP ( ALBERTA PEST ) and Johnny Sessions was appointed
official photographer...and would take pictures of Sister Alberta during the day
especially when she was at her best...stomping on the floor above Sister
Evarista or beating up the pump organ or one of us. We loved Ray..for his daring
and creative plans to juice up the scene ( just what we needed), and we were all
curious to see just how far off the deep end we were all about to go.
Perhaps now it's easier to see why I fought off my Mom's suggestions that
my brother and I stay home on cold winter days...I didn't want to miss anything.
Injecting Ray into the scene suddenly plunged us into the lions mouth. At
precisely 11:00 the following Monday while Sister was sitting at her desk
looking into the fluorescent lights we all began to cough. Sister Alberta shot
up into the air like a jack-in-the-box and started swinging at anything and
anyone in sight. Johnny immediately began snapping away with his tiny camera,
Ray continued to cough as though he had consumption ( of course inviting Sister
to start shaking him...not to save his life, but to release the demon that she
was sure controlled him ). Sister Alberta was beside herself. My head was of
course in my desk, along with the other rows of "laughers" which had recently
grown to three. Ray and Johnny were always able to keep a straight face. The
laughers were doomed. Ray called off the 11:30 pencil and ruler drop that
day...I think Johnny was out of film, and Ray didn't want to miss some good
shots for the paper.
Ray tortured Donald Witfeld as well. He liked to yell "Open the Door" just
to see if Donald would leap into action...and once in awhile he'd get him to at
least start to move. While Sister Marie Elise had read to us from great stories
like Gone With The Wind, Sister Alberta had a book about "Savages" that she'd
read from at very odd times, like in the middle of arithmetic. She'd always lose
her place, and start each time with the line " TWO hundred wagons heading into
the west" TWO hundred....." Every time she'd read that Ray would raise his hand
and ask " How many wagons were there? ". She'd say TWO hundred. A few minutes
later he'd ask again " How many wagons did you say?" It was really easy to lose
all sense of reality in that environment. When Sister read about what she
pronounced as a "guffer hole", (presumably a gopher) Ray would ask " what was in
the hole? ", she'd say "guffers" and he'd say he never heard of one, then ask
again how many wagons there were. On and On it would go. A few of the girls
would sometimes start to cry, and kids like me just kept the desk lids open and
our heads inside on our rarely used history books.
While we all accepted the fact that we were living dangerously close to our
own black and white Mount Vesuvius, there was an occasional truce called, such
as when Sister announced that we'd be going on a field trip. That was rare in
our Catholic school, I remember very few of them, but the announcement was made
that we'd be going to the Buhl Planetarium in a few weeks. Now the Planetarium
was about 5 miles from our school, so we;d be taking a yellow school bus, and
staying for about an two hours. The preparations however looked more like plans
to take the Lusitania to Europe for the season. Every day for weeks we wrote in
our note books " No one will bring luggage to the Buhl", or " Everyone will eat
a hardy breakfast before we leave for the Buhl."...never the Planetarium, always
the BUHL...now of course Ray would ask her every day what we should pack in our
suitcases. We prayed for Ray a lot....usually as an added Hail Mary" for the boy
who will answer to God".
I plan to consult my treasured copy of the ATREBLA TSEP for next Thursday's
installment of Sister Alberta
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