Hobo Jungle

[rex desilets]

Don't worry, it all ends with the damned Super Bowl. That's in May now, isn't it?

No, it's not in May. Our football addiction follows the Super Bowl with preps for the NFL Draft, the draft itself in April (oh, the anticipation), then signing, then mini-camp, then OTA's, then pre-season football, and, gloriously, the actual season itself.
In between there are preps for the college football season, and so forth. (I'm a Philly Eagles fan, since 1964, and visions of Super Bowls dance in my head).
Glorious.
Whatsamatta wit the rest of you???

[Roy]

The origins of Thanksgiving, A Day of Thanksgiving, officially dates to 1863 and a proclamation by Lincoln during the Civil War while it had been unofficially and sporadically celebrated in one form or another as days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving for many decades.

Well, the humiliation part I remember. Also, being fed a bunch of God damned turkey, which made me sick. I am thankful that part of my life is OVER!!!!!!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

... it had been unofficially and sporadically celebrated in one form or another as days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving for many decades.
Sadly, Thanksgiving has become a day of gluttony and excess, endless professional sports ....

For me, especially as a kid, it was always a quiet day. During the in-session school days immediately beforehand, the Sisters (seen below,) always cheerful, strong, and patient, had us make lists of all the things in life for which we were thankful. I suppose I am still doing that to this day, in my mind's eye.

[rogruth]

Murph,
Why did nuns have names like Richard and Eugene? I am sure there are more. I know there are Mary, Grace and others.
Who chooses a nuns name?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
Why did nuns have names like Richard and Eugene? I am sure there are more. I know there are Mary, Grace and others.
Who chooses a nuns name?

They selected the names for themselves, upon taking their Final Vows ("final" meaning along the road of their novitiate, discerning how true their "calling" to service was), employing the name of a favorite saint within their new identity. They no longer had the name of their family and birth; legally, they became know by society, including their bank, as their chosen name. The Sister shown among my photos as our Eight Grade teacher and principal was Sister Agnes Eugene. That meant she had chosen two saints as her models of conduct.

We adored them.

P.S. Roman Catholic popes do the same thing - they select the name(s) of saints to be their new name, for their chosen vocation in life. When a pope is elected by The College of Cardinals (Sistine Chapel), the first two things that are said to him, upon election are:
1.) Do you accept election as Pontiff? He then takes on the whole office with one simple word, in Italian, "Accepto," meaning "submit to."
2.) By what name will you be known?

For example, when Angelo Roncalli was elected pope, in 1958, he selected the name John XXiii.

[rogruth]

Thanks for the above Murph.
I notice in the eighth grade photo that those students are smiling, mostly.
Don't always see that in a school photo.
The Catholic school and the public high school were a block apart in my hometown.
Many of us walked to school or in cold weather rode public buses to and from school together.
The only differences that we could see was at the parochial schools there were some classes
involving religion and the teachers wore odd clothes.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Thanks for the above Murph.
I notice in the eighth grade photo that those students are smiling, mostly.
Don't always see that in a school photo....
...The only differences that we could see was at the parochial schools there were some classes
involving religion and the teachers wore odd clothes. :D

Interesting that you noticed the smiling faces. I had not taken notice of that myself, not consciously, at least. We were a happy group, even with the fact that there were fifty of us seated in that Eight Grade class. One or two girls seemed a bit removed from the contented mainstream of us, but we usually simply let them be or tried to engage them in the fun. My desk was in that far right corner, last seat in the window-aisle.

Regarding the clothing the Sisters wore, we children always marveled at the immaculate and well-pressed appearance their "habits" consistently evidenced. However, even more amazing to us was the weight and depth of all those layers that comprised a Habit. I never heard a single one of them complain, and in the days of no air conditioning in that school, we were suffering in short-sleeves, but the nuns seemed immune to the heat (though we knew better that they were not), especially considering their heads and arms being so encased so thoroughly in layer upon layer upon layer of fabrics.

P.S. If you ever saw the movie, "The Nun's Story," starring Audrey Hepburn (1959), autobiographical, you get a pretty accurate dramatization and explanation of the whole process and life of becoming a nun, including the reason for every article of clothing (habit.).

[rogruth]

I had an undergraduate friend when I was in grad school from Bridgeville, PA. Took him home once (from Morehead,Ky, went through my hometown in Ohio) and we had to stay to meet his sister John. When she came in I had to blush and laugh because it was his sister Sister John. This is shortly
after after the time that some orders dropped the heavy black habits so the confusion was even greater. By the way she looked a lot like Audrey
Hepburn. She said she was still a good friend of her high school boy friend.

[healey36]

Wow, what's she holding? A rock? I had a nun in fifth grade that looked remarkably similar. Sister Theonilla, as I recall, one of the great Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. It took me a long time to learn she always led with her left hand and followed with a devastating right. She was hell with a meter-stick too.

I'll be over in the corner in the fetal position if your looking for me...

Healey

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Wow, what's she holding? A rock?

Hot pastrami on rye....

It took me a long time to learn she always led with her left hand and followed with a devastating right. She was hell with a meter-stick too.

You have to pay extra for that now.

[healey36]

I don't know...she's got that "What, you forgot it's Friday and ate a pastrami sandwich? I'm going to have to beat you senseless for that."

They represented the opposite of what we have now. Today the kids are beating the teachers senseless. I survived it...I say bring it back. Time for some order in The House...

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Wow, what's she holding? A rock?

Hot pastrami on rye.....

You're probably right.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I don't know...she's got that "What, you forgot it's Friday and ate a pastrami sandwich? I'm going to have to beat you senseless for that."

They represented the opposite of what we have now. Today the kids are beating the teachers senseless. I survived it...I say bring it back. Time for some order in The House...

Our Sisters of St. Joseph were not into that hitting stuff, and I was surprised, decades later, to hear that some nuns were, apparently, from what some of the comedians said on TV.

We were punished either by being the recipients of Sister's ire and dark-looks, or we had to write the Times Tables and/or our spelling words a zillion times. To this day, I am lightening-fast when it comes to multiplying. In fact, I used to test my own Eighth Grade students (back in the 70's) by challenging them to "take me on" in front of the class, one at a time, facing the class, while a student held up the "flashcards" to quiz a student and me at the same time, standing next to each other. If the student were faster than I, I gave him or her a silver dollar on the spot. I rarely lost, but kept a pocket full of them just to be sure. Of course, sometimes I'd pretend to not be so quick so that a student who needed a boost in morale would win the race.

Nowadays, I do a version of that race while 4th Grade students and I are awaiting dismissal, except that I offer quarters as the prize for each pupil who spontaneously calls out the right answer quickly, in reply to my saying aloud, "# x's # is ____?" The process usually consumes a half a roll of quarters.

[healey36]

I rarely ever got hammered by one of the nuns, but I had my moments. Theonilla, which I understand was an honorary name, used to do this thing up at the board where she would rock back and forth on those hobnailed shoes they wore. You'd swear she was levitating...scared the crap out of me.

A good friend of mine got nailed for some minor infraction and the nun actually knocked him out (he slipped trying to duck the blow and hit his head). It was an accident but still. His dad, a family friend, called The Old Man and relayed the incident. The next day The Old Man went down to the school to talk to the principal, another nun named Sister Helen. At the end of the week I was enrolled in public school.

The funny thing was the kids that were really incorrigible rarely got in trouble in a physical way and the smart kids sailed through without a lick. It was us mid-tier kids that took the beating...maybe that was the strategy, they figured it might elevate our game. The worst thing you could do was talk back or resist...as Bill Cosby used to say "you didn't remember much after that."

[Mitch]

We had the Sisters of St. Joseph, (Baden, Pa.) at St. Mary's in Freeport. I can say after 8 years in Catholic grade School and personal experience, some of those nuns were pretty good with a yard stick or a 3 cornered ruler. And one, like Sister Mary Mark, would just crack ya across the mouth with a 4 knuckle backhand. "You impudent boy"! (Never forgot that, yet).