Pleasant memories/important values
Walking in the woods
Vespers in the chapel
Exploring the convent cemetery
Going to watch, hear, and feel the town church’s bells pealing on Sunday
Singing in the choir
Sister Marianne’s French class
Talks with Father Michael
Father Jerome’s inventive homemade stereo system and perpetual gloom
Sister Mary Mark’s kindness
The general store on main street
Getting miserably ill from smoking my first post-convent cigarettes
The Faulkner sisters
Miriam
The turkeys and flowers and bee hives
Joan Emmel’s lake cottage and the horse
Steaks in the dining hall at butchering time
Rhubarb custard pie
Where life has taken me over the past 50 years
From the Middlewest to Washington, DC, with stops in NYC
From hearing to deafness for 46 years and back again, sort of
From marriage to divorce to the single life
From motherhood to grandmotherhood and almost to great-grandmotherhood
From catholicism to agnosticism
From writing to painting to blogging (www.xtremeenglish.blogspot.com)
From there to here…..thanks for the opportunity to think on this!
Monday, January 11, 2010
pleasant memories of st. ben's
I spent one school year at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, after I got out of the convent. I am part of their Class of 1960--even though I graduated from St. Catherine's. Recently, they contacted the class of '60 for contributions to the 50 year memory book. (holy crap! has it been 50 years!!!????) Anyway, here is what I contributed. It won't mean much to anyone but me, but it was fun to think on this.
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I'm intriqued by Father Jerome's perpetual gloom. I would think that his inventive homemade stereo system would have cheered him up a bit.
ReplyDeleteyes, 5'8" plus a smidgen more.
Shammy...Father Jerome's God was on the order of Jonathan Edwards's (you know, "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God"). On the third Sunday in Advent, called "Gaudete Sunday" after the first word of the Introit, "Gaudete"--"Rejoice!", he walked to the pulpit and said, "Today the Church bids us wear rose-colored vestments and tells us to rejoice in the coming of our Savior..." and I thought, ha! finally a letup in the crankiness. But then he said, "But that doesn't mean we should look at our lives with rose-colored glasses!!!" and he was off on another rant.
ReplyDeleteI used to hate it, and I never understood it, either. He caused Sister Mariella Gable, OSB, a wonderful poet and anthologiser of Catholic literature and chair of the English department, to be given the heave-ho from St. Ben's because she had put J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" on her course reading list. He claimed the book was obscene and dangerous to tender minds.
But he did rig up a neat speaker system for his stereo--he attached the speakers to the windows of his office to add resonance. I liked him (I didn't know he had caused Mariella Gable to get the boot at the time--the story was not published in the newspapers then), but he was a true gloomy gus.
Old age is full of riches. You are enjoying your riches. That's good.
ReplyDeleteI'm still agog at your own amazing journey.
ReplyDeleteA nice collection of memories!
20th Century Woman--all the way from Australia! welcome! i look forward to reading your blog.
ReplyDeleteRonnie--some journey. i'd MUCH rather have gone to CUBA
At 65 going on 66, I think I'm on the downslope of the 'Flowers for Algernon' Trip :-(
ReplyDelete"Flowers for Algernon" trip? 'splain, pls. Maybe i am too literal, but that story is about a dimwit, non?
ReplyDeleteYour story is so similar to mine with two exceptions. I was a Protestant and I was widowed. But I moved a lot and am now an agnostic.
ReplyDeleteAnd, of course, we share the hearing loss, recapture (sort of) journey.
darlene: what turned you away from religion? i sometimes wonder if moving had anything to do with my loss of interest.
ReplyDelete"Flowers for Algernon" summary:-
ReplyDeleteDimwit's IQ improved due to medication. People dislike him for becoming brighter. Effect proves temporary. Slides back from IQ150 to IQ75, but people like him again.
Told in 1st person, very sad and moving, IMHO.
Parallels can be drawn with the sad fate of those who realise they are descending into Alzheimers, e.g. Terry Pratchett. A loss for all.
eunoia: in your case, you'd start so far UP the slope, that even if you think you're on the way down, you're still way ahead of the rest of us. which makes me wonder--did you have to take a lot of pain killers when you had your rumble with the motorcycle? i broke my wrist rollerblading about 15 years ago, and as i was staying with a nurse friend, she had a nice bottle of something with codeine in it. it knocked out the pain, all right, and about half my brain cells with it. i'd get home at night after work, arrive at the top of the escalator, and have to stop to figure out where the hey i was. (note to self: no more o' that stuff!! now i bite bullets like they do in the old westerns or have a nice martini with lots of vermouth) (so sue me...i happen to be one of those freakish people who prefer the non-dry martini)
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