A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O'Reilly
Well, okay. You’re right. My behavior back then was not much different from what it is today.
Sin City
And now, let me introduce Clement, who should be in the Fresh Kid Hall of Fame. Stocky, with black hair and pale white skin, the boy had no fear. I, at least, feared my father, but Clem was ultradaring; he’d pretty much do anything.
For example, our fifth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Carolyn, became obsessed with reforming Clement. Throughout the school year, the nun used a variety of psychological techniques in an ongoing attempt to shape him up. Of course, her efforts were futile. Clement was a confirmed outlaw.
One day, Sister Carolyn tried the proven counterinsurgency strategy of trying to get the dissenter to buy into the system by giving him authority. Believing Clem might turn his wayward conduct around if granted some responsibility, the nun decided to award him a daily task. This idea was completely insane, but there was no Dr. Phil back then to intervene.
And so the clueless nun put Clement in charge of opening and closing the huge windows that lined the east side of the classroom. Reaching the tops of the windows required using a long, lancelike metal pole, which would hook onto latches so the windows could be pulled down. Thus, a long, heavy, warlike item was placed in his hands? My pal Clem was salivating.
Soon after becoming the pole guy, Clement made his move. With Sister Carolyn facing the blackboard, her back to the class, Clement promptly whacked Kenny H. with the metal pike. Kenny howled, causing the good sister to whirl around in great alarm. He quickly fingered Clement, who was actually still holding the semilethal weapon. But, stunningly, Clement denied the charge. The entire class had witnessed the misdemeanor, but nobody gave Clement up. We all sat there mute when Sister Carolyn asked for confirmation. Kenny was going nuts, but the class stayed silent.
I can still remember Clement wailing in his New York accent: “I didn’t do it, Sista; everybody’s always blaming me.”
Now, the nun might have been naive, but she wasn’t stupid. Furious, she ran down the aisle, grabbed the pike, and fired Clement from his job. He was also given demerits or something, which mattered not in the least to Clem, who relished demerits the way most kids savor ice cream.
By my reckoning, Clement committed at least three sins that day: assault, lying, and gloating about lying afterward. While visions of hellfire often danced in the heads of many Catholic schoolkids, Clem seemed to have no fear of eternal damnation. On some level, you have to admire that.
And speaking of sin, fortunately there was an antidote. On the first Friday of every month, the entire St. Brigid’s student body was force-marched into the church to go to confession, which is one of the seven Catholic sacraments. There was no getting out of it unless you could convince your mom that you were sick and she let you stay home. And on confession day, every kid in my class, all sixty of them, knew you never got behind Clem in the line. Ever.
That’s because whatever Clement was telling the priest usually teed him off so much that he’d take it out on the next few penitents. One time Clement foolishly entered Father Tierney’s stall, and moments later the priest actually yelled, “You did what?”…his voice echoing throughout the church. Some of the girls actually trembled.
At lunchtime, we all pleaded with Clement to tell us what he told Father Tierney. We even offered him money. But Clem just smiled and walked away. I hate using the word cool, but there’s no way around it: Clement was a very cool guy.
As you can see, my take on Catholicism is sprinkled with humor and affection. Today, there are more than 60 million American Catholics, and each one has a unique relationship with the religion. That’s because it is complicated and emotional. Other kids were very intense, even intimidated by Catholic teaching, but not the bold, fresh guy. I embraced the good stuff—like the outstanding Christmas rituals and the fun of St. Patrick’s Day—and took the bad stuff—like hell—in stride.
For some, the bad stuff included Catholic school, which was not exactly a hayride. There have been so many things written about Catholic education that clichés abound. So let me set the record straight from one survivor’s viewpoint.
In the 1950s and ’60s, “old-school” rules still applied. That meant corporal punishment was acceptable, a strict regimen of spelling, writing, and long division was an everyday occurrence, and Jesus was a constant topic of conversation.
Years later, I look back and appreciate most of that. The slapping was extreme, but the academic discipline and emphasis on loving your neighbor as yourself set me apart from many of my public-school friends. I still played with them every day after school, but as I got older, I noticed a difference in the way we looked at life. Temptations like drugs, alcohol, and violent behavior were major deals for me. I was trained (brainwashed?) to resist them. Some of my secular friends were not.
Also, the constant teaching about Jesus resulted in an indelible role model for many Catholic schoolkids, myself included. There’s a reason that the cross is the symbol of Christianity. It is a powerful statement: that a good man suffered for me, that a just God was looking out for me, and if I lived a good life, I would be rewarded after death. Those beliefs, sincerely held, can get a human being through many hard times.
Fortunately, most Americans agree with my analysis. According to a Pew Research study, more than ninety percent of those living in the USA believe in God, eighty-one percent describe themselves as Christian, and eighty-five percent say their religion is an important part of their lives.
I believe that a concentration of believers has made America a strong, noble country. As I got older and learned more about history, I saw how the Founding Fathers used Judeo-Christian philosophy to forge the Constitution, perhaps the most perspicacious political document ever designed. I also understood how a strong belief in good over evil enabled the USA to defeat godless enemies like Nazi Germany, the Japanese emperor (who was regarded as a god), and the Soviet Union. Yes, there have been bad things done under the banner of religion in America. But, on balance, the United States has benefited greatly by the mass belief Americans hold in a just, compassionate God.
As I wrote in Culture Warrior, I never had a problem believing in a higher power because of nature. It works. There’s never a “miscommunication.” Everything man gets involved with is fraught with uncertainty. But every morning the sun comes up.
Some think an asteroid or something caused the natural order. Wow. Talk about blind faith!
So combining a good guy like Jesus with a higher power that created a stunningly efficient natural universe was relatively easy for a simple guy like me. There was no major downside to being Catholic, except, of course, the inconvenience of actually obeying the rules. There’s always a catch.
There is no doubt that many people who attended Catholic school see things differently than I do. Some say the experience damaged them. And I respect their dissent, as every school situation is unique. I also respect every other religion that promotes goodwill toward all people. In my view of life, spirituality is a very positive thing, and faith is a personal matter that should be accepted as such. If someone tells me that I am going to hell because I don’t believe as they do, I simply put three letters next to their name: N-U-T.
One of the blessings that I was given (not by an asteroid) is the ability to think for myself. So all the while I was going through St. Brigid’s School, I was doing that. I absorbed the lessons, challenged them often, and ultimately decided that the faith I was born into was the one I would die with. My call, and I’m glad I made it.
Along the way there were certainly times when I could have chucked the Catholic way of life. Some of my friends did. But I hung in there despite some tension between the Church establishment and me. As mentioned, many of my teachers marked me as a very bad influence, a troubled and wayward youth. I know you may find that hard to believe.
In the fourth grade, for example, our teacher, Aimee Martin, a Catholic layperson, put me in the “dumb row,” where I most
Unlike some in the dumb row, I had no self-esteem issues about being there. In fact, it was fun. Clement was a dumb-row denizen, and a couple of my other friends were too. So, instead of being ashamed, I pulled a Tom Sawyer and convinced the class that the hippest kids inhabited the dumb row. My spin went like this: Mrs. Martin was clueless (unanimous agreement), and Clement was the coolest guy in town. Do the math (tough for dumb rowers): the window row was the place to be.
Before long, Mrs. Martin got wind that the dumb-row assignation was no longer a humiliation but had somehow evolved into a status symbol. Furious, she upped the ante, hoping to further humiliate us by constantly berating the row. However, the more she ranted, the more prestigious the row became. It was anarchy in the finest sense.
Clement and I celebrated this unlikely success by upping the ante ourselves and openly mocking Mrs. Martin. Looking back, that was wrong, probably a venial sin. But the teacher did deserve some of the grief we gave her, no question. More important, the fourth grade was a crucial turning point in all our lives: from that time on it was guerrilla warfare between my classmates and our teachers all the way through to the eighth grade. We had thousands of laughs. The insurrection was permanent; nothing the teachers could do stemmed the tide. No child was left behind; we were united: us against them, no wavering.
Even under the feared rule of Sister Thomas.
The Hairy Eyeball
If Ivan the Terrible had a sister, she would have been Sister Mary Thomas, a nun whose great regret in life was that she missed the Inquisition. The year was 1961, the month September. The Berlin Wall had just been erected, John Kennedy was in the White House, Mister Ed, a talking horse, was huge on TV, and Ray Charles was advising Jack to hit the road.
None of that, however, mattered in the least to our seventh-grade class sitting before a young nun with an attitude. We were just trying to survive. To call Sister Thomas “unusual” is like calling Michael Moore a liberal. It doesn’t even come close.
As I write these words, I am staring at my seventh-grade class photo. The girls are all sitting at their desks, Laura D. and Kathy M. anchoring the front row. The guys are standing in the back, lined up according to height. I am the second-tallest, positioned between Greg (the aforementioned Bear) and Kenny H. of pole-bashing fame.
Sister Mary Thomas’s reign of terror. That’s Clem, twelfth from the left, two guys away from Sister.
In the midst of the boys stands Sister Thomas, her black-and-white habit (the name for the nun uniform) shrouding all but her pale white face. Wearing black-rimmed glasses and a very slight smile, the nun looks to be about thirty years old. Most of my classmates are smiling, but out of fear, not mirth. Everybody knew that Sister Thomas would see the class picture, and anybody defiling it would be subject to major unpleasantness.
Unlike most teachers at St. Brigid’s School, who toed the Catholic line but were somewhat gentle in doing so, Sister Thomas was a fanatic, a hellfire advocate who brooked no nonsense. Every morning she would order the class to take out The Baltimore Catechism (which listed Catholic teaching) and chant the following: “A mortal sin is a deadly sin. A venial sin is a lesser sin.”
She would then define mortal and venial sins, putting a unique spin on the abominations:
Mortal:
• Slow dancing with chests touching
• Anything involving the tongue except talking and eating
• Thinking about the above (except talking and eating)
• Not going to Sunday Mass
• Not telling every single sin to the priest in confession
• Not praying to the Virgin Mary for forgiveness of sins
• Not doing everything the Church and your parents tell you to do
• Not being “sincere” in your penance
Venial:
• Hitting your siblings
As you can see, mortal sins dominated, and drastic punishment, eternal damnation, was the price. Sister Thomas often told the touching story of two “youngsters” who had committed some kind of impurity. Tragically, before they could reach the confessional, they were killed in a car wreck. Sometimes a train demolished the car. Other times the car simply got wrecked with no explanation. Incredibly, Sister Thomas had tapped into popular culture with this story line. A pop song called “Teen Angel” had become a big hit in February of 1960. Some will remember the song’s refrain, sung by a teenage boy holding the hand of his dead girlfriend, who had just been annihilated by a train:
Teen angel, can you hear me?
Teen angel, can you see me?
Are you somewhere up above?
And am I still your own true love?
Good grief! The nun even had American Bandstand helping her.
Even at age twelve, a lot of the kids were deeply affected by Sister Thomas’s harsh vision of life, but not Clement and not the bold, fresh guy. Often, we would discuss the nun at recess, and most of the time the conversation was in the mortal-sin category. The nun tortured us, but we would not let her prevail. Revenge was in the air.
The conflict had been brewing for a while. Even before the 1961–62 school year had started, Sister Thomas knew Clem and Billy O’Reilly. She had heard the stories and she relished the challenge. One time, in the sixth grade, Clem and I were standing together at some school assembly and she walked over.
“I’m looking forward to having you two gentlemen in my class next year.”
No more frightening words were ever spoken.
Tragically, Sister Thomas got her wish, and the ensuing nine months were the longest of my life. She had sonar hearing, picking up every whisper. The nun had a long list of infractions, with each bit of bad behavior earning its own specific punishment:
• Talking out of turn—slap on the hand with a ruler.
• Talking back to sister—slap in the face, often hard.
• Being a wise guy in general—note home to parents, which had to be signed and brought back to her (this usually led to domestic punishment, at least for me).
• Sloppy appearance or work—after-school detainment.
• Teasing girls Sister Thomas liked—trip to the principal (Sister Mary Thomasine), likely leading to after-school yard work along with a severe scolding.
The list of sanctions went on and on. Sister Thomas’s seventh-grade class wasn’t an academic experience; it was a prisoner-of-war camp.
But the absolute worst was her signature face-to-face confrontation. Staring down into your eyes, her eyeballs darted crazily back and forth. We called it the “hairy eyeball,” and it was truly eerie. Having that nun in your face was a terrifying experience rivaling a viewing of Not of This Earth.
But revenge is a dish best served cold.
Let ’Er Rip
A few times a year, the entire school body would participate in an activity. In the fifth grade, for instance, we all marched down to the Westbury movie theater to see Jennifer Jones in the classic 1943 film The Song of Bernadette, for which Ms. Jones won an Academy Award. The thinking here was to use a Hollywood film to reinforce the Catholic faith. Since the movie jaunt got us out of math and English, the outing was fine with me.
Unfortunately, all plans can go awry, and this one proved that beyond a reasonable doubt. The turn-of-the century theater had an extensive balcony from whence water balloons were launched just as the Virgin Mary was appearing to Jennifer. Pandemonium ensued; the sanctity of the occasion was lost.
Clem and I denied any part in the sacrilege. One of us was lying.
In the spring semester of our seventh-grade ordeal, Sister Thomas was given the honor of having
That year, 1962, was tremendous for pop music. The Beatles launched their first single in America, “Love Me Do,” Chubby Checker was twisting his butt off, and a real teen angel, Shelley Fabares of The Donna Reed Show, had a huge hit with a song called “Johnny Angel.” The girls in my class loved Shelley; the guys liked a new show called McHale’s Navy. We were all twisting like insane people. My classmate Marlene named her new dog Chubby.
Against that cultural landscape, Sister Thomas selected Rip Van Winkle as the play her seventh-grade class would perform. A classic tale, the Washington Irving short story involved a guy falling asleep for decades, largely because a mean woman was “henpecking” him. Many boys under Sister Thomas’s tutelage immediately identified with Rip.
Everyone in the class was assigned a part except Clement and the bold, fresh guy. The reasons were obvious, and Clem and I didn’t much care. Until, that is, we learned that while our classmates rehearsed, we’d have to do “busy work.” We were ordered to fill out multiple pages in our Think-and-Do Books (real name) and, by the end of the day, turn them in to Sister.
An outrage! While the rest of class played, we had to work? Unthinkable.
So we decided to plead our case. We went to Sister Thomas and politely asked to be included. Unbeknownst to us, this was exactly what the nun wanted. She believed that we would lose face if we whined about the exclusion. So she publicly mocked us, explaining to the kids that we had come hat in hand to her, asking for parts in the play. Rolling her weird eyes, she then put our request to a vote by the class. Should Billy and Clement be included? What say you?