The Eye

So, you know I grew up Catholic. And honestly, I loved it. I grew up in an oxymoronic household – a liberal Catholic family. I know! Right? We went to a really great church called St. Charles that had two awesome priests, Father B, and Father C. Father B was extremely close to my family. He spent lots of weekends at my house, hanging out with my parents (drinking A LOT of scotch). They held these great masses outside in my backyard. It was the seventies. What can I say? Kum-bay-ya baby! For the most part, church, God, priests and nuns gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I was young.

Until I hit first grade and met Sister Regina Clare. You’ll notice here in my blog, that I rarely, if ever, mention people by name. I’m the one writing my blog. And I do it mainly for a writing release for myself. And I do it because I have an audience CLAMORING for me to write more and more. Oh yes, I do! At least two fans that I can think of right now. But none of my friends or family has asked, or agreed, to be a part of it. So I won’t ever name them. I just use initials. Most of the time, I give them a heads-up, so they can read when they’ve become a part of the most widely-read column on the blogosphere. Sometimes I skip that part! But SISTER REGINA CLARE NORRIS. She does not get that polite exclusion. She gets called out by name. She is one of The Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, in Indiana. If I had her social, I’d probably give that too. I detest thee, Sister. I do. I do.

She was not nice. She was not kind. She hated children. She hated teaching. And yet, she chose this as a lifelong career. She’s STILL a freaking teacher! I found her picture online and very nearly wet my pants. Look at your own risk. She’s kinda bald now. Justice can truly be sweet. Karma’s a bitch. So is Sr. Regina Clare.

As I entered first grade at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic School, I was beyond excited. I loved learning. I was starting to take piano with one of my favorite people on the planet, Sister Regina Marie (who gets named for the opposite reason, because she was and still is one of the most beautiful, wonderful people on the planet and had a lot to do with the person I am today). But I was a little nervous too. I’d heard some stories about this first grade teacher that were a little daunting, but I was a brave kid. I mean, I’d survived two little brothers, after all. I could handle one scary nun.

Ummmmm. No. No, I could not. One of the things I had been looking forward to the most was eating in the cafeteria with the big kids, many of whom I knew from church. But Noooooooo! We little first graders had to eat lunch at our desks, in our school room. With Sister Nasty-Face. And we had all been going to church for six solid years with our families – at least once a week. Some of us more than that. I’d been “lucky” enough to get doused with Wednesday evening masses in the backyard, so I was a bit of a Catholic girl pro. But did we get to go to church across the parking lot with the other kids on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays? Noooooooo!

We had to practice going to church. We had to learn how to go to church. As if we didn’t know the Catholic mass inside and out. But there we sat while all the other kids tromped across the parking lot to mass on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We little first graders worked hard in our classroom, learning all the parts of the mass. We practiced all the parts that we’d been doing for six damn years until Sr. Regina Nasty-Ass was convinced we wouldn’t embarrass her. And then the big day arrived. We were allowed to go to mass with the rest of the school.

Now, Sr. Regina Clare ruled her class with an iron fist (literally), an iron lung, a yard stick (many actually, she liked to break them on our desks), and pure terror. When in doubt, your best bet was to say nothing, look down, and pray. Seriously. Folded hands, mumbled words, and a whispered, “Jesus,” a couple of times in there for good measure. She tortured us into learning The Star Spangled Banner and The Pledge of Allegiance, which, along with the “Our Father” and “Hail Mary”, we said every morning while standing next to our desks. If we messed up one word, we had to start all over. One morning we kept messing up “The Pledge” over and over and over. It took us over an hour to get through it. And by the time we were getting through our trillionth version, my friend, M, just couldn’t hold it any longer, and she… tinkled. Yes, the traumatized child tinkled. Petrified of Sr. Too-Mean-to-let-a-Poor-Kid-Pee! So she just went! Poor baby. Probably scarred for life. Come to think of it, she’s actually a devout Catholic, with like 32 kids. All boys and one adorable girl. She survived Sr. Mean too, and actually stayed Catholic. That’s a thinker.

We were rarely rewarded. Our rewards were mostly not getting punished. We did have these star cards. Every month they were a different shape. And we got a star each morning when we did something like remember to bring our spelling list to school. Being a little pre-OCD, I usually decorated my star cards very prettily. Like the month we started going to church, we had apple star cards, and I had stuck my gold stars all around the edge of the apple and had started a new, second row inside. It was the little stuff in Sr. Regina Mc-Mean-Face’s classroom that could make you feel proud.

So off we went, in a straight little line (military-like), to mass, with the big kids. I was smiling to myself, knowing full well that I was going to get through this mass thing just fine. DUH! I got through it every week of my life! I did have butterflies though because with every step we took, Sr. Regina Nasty-Mouth was screaming at us to, “Remember not to put your elbows on the pews!” and “Remember not to lean back against the seat when you’re kneeling!” and “Remember to bow your head in reverence when you say Our Lord’s Prayer!” For crying out loud. She was making me a basket case!

But I went in and promptly got as bored as usual. Normally, when I got bored at mass, I’d spend some time “reading” the hymnal. I’d pretend it was a book, and I’d read the hymns like they were stories. It would actually keep my mind occupied for a little while. Then I would switch to trying to read the actual music, which was hard. I would have to concentrate on that. But since Sr. Mean-Bitch was watching like an eagle, I couldn’t look at the hymnal. So, I turned to my next time passer - I would space out and my mind would drift to heavenly topics and my eyes would drift up to the beautiful stained glass windows. There was one window, however, that always slammed me back to reality. It was the holy trinity. The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Dang!

This particular window was CREEEEE-PY! Any kid who went to St. Charles can probably tell you about this window. At least they can tell you about the Father part of the window. Because it was an EYE.  A big, giant, scary, creepy eyeball. And no matter where you were sitting in church, that eyeball was looking at you! If you moved, the eyeball moved with you. And who did that eyeball represent? You got it baby! GOD! So God was always watching you in church. Awesome! No Catholic guilt there! Cripes!

So here I was at my first mass in first grade, with Sr. Eagle-Eye presiding over us, making sure our little hands were folded perfectly and our little bottoms didn’t touch the pews. And if you’ve ever attended a Catholic mass, you know there is a lot to pay attention to. You stand, you sit, you stand, you kneel, you stand, you kneel, you sit, you sing, you speak, you pray, you shut up, you shake hands. I mean, COME ON!

And in the middle of the two kneeling down parts, I was standing up, and THE EYE caught my attention. So there I was… staring… at God. And I guess everyone else knelt down. And I… I was standing there, in rapt attention with God Himself. In communion, you might say (you can insert some heavenly, angelic choral music here, if you’d like), when suddenly… WHANG! I felt my ear being ripped off. YES! Ripped off! I shit you not! The bitch ripped off my damn ear!

So there I was, stunned, looking at Sr. Redder-Faced-Than-Anyone-I’d-Ever-Seen, who was holding my ear in her nasty, gnarled hand. And she was shaking, she was so mad. And I was shocked! What in the hell had I done??? Then I realized that she hadn’t actually ripped my ear off of my head completely, because she was using it to drag me out of church and across the very large parking lot to the school. On the way there, I caught bleeps and blips of words through her hisses and screeches. She sounded very much like the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz crossed with some kind of deathly bird of prey. What I gathered is that I had embarrassed her by standing while everyone else sat down. That was the gist of it. Yup. I was dead meat.

As I prepared to die, the Wicked Witch (and remember, she was dressed like a witch, in a big, black habit, swooshing across the parking lot, with what was left of my ear in a death grip) muttered threatening things under her breath about the switch and the yard stick and this and that. It wasn’t until she muttered “star card” that I flinched and she knew she’d hit pay dirt. “Star card, ehhhhhh?!?!?!?” she cackled. And she dragged me over to the coat closet where our pretty little apple star cards were tacked up. There was mine, right in the middle. Seventeen pretty gold stars lining the red apple. “Take 16 stars off,” she hissed.

“But Sister!” I protested, “That’s almost all of them!”

“SIXTEEN!” She screamed at me, and swooshed off to her desk to get her yard stick.

I started to cry. I think back and realize how silly it was to cry over a star card, but ya know? It meant a lot to me at the time!!! And she knew that, which is why she could use it the way she did.

“SIXTEEN!” she yelled again, and raised the yard stick. And so I pealed them off. One by one they came off, tearing the red paper apple as they went. It was ruined. She was gleeful. I was full of hate.

I found out only recently that she was fired. It only took 35 years to find out that there were adults who knew how evil that woman was. But it disturbs me that 35 years later that crazy, mean nun is still working with children. She was probably destined to become a nun. But she should have sorted manuscripts or something that didn’t involve little human beings. She was one of many (and not the major, of course) reasons I am no longer a practicing Catholic.

And why I don’t really like apples… or eyeballs.