Part 12, You should have seen this coming.

Being a 9th grader at Morris brought with it the status of being a "senior" as the school stopped at the 9th grade. We had decisions to make regarding our preferences for high school but there were two choices for me and I'd already attended one of them when I spent the summer at Subiaco.  The next logical choice for me was St. Gregory's in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

It was a high dollar prep school that had attached to it, a Junior College. Refusing to go back to Jesuit in Shreveport, I began to have discussions about St. Gregory's as the lure of going to school in the Indian Nations was too much for me to turn down.

I agreed to sign up as did Sullentrop, who had an uncle there that was a priest, O'Malley, one of the tough guys from Chicago, and Joe Farris, a kid from Little Rock whose Daddy was a big time building contractor of some wealth and notariety in Arkansas.

I played center for the basketball team and right end on the football team that year. We had alot of fun traveling over that part of Arkansas playing Kensett, Bald Knob and other small towns within a 30 mile area of the school. Those were some hard hitting strawberry pickin' farm boys and we had our heads handed to us more than once. Despite that, I learned early on about team work and travel. It was alot of fun because we were allowed to stop after games and eat hamburgers at a truck stop that was conveniently located on the way home.

Brother Robert took us to Letona Bluffs for our annual camping trip and frog gigging experience. It was great because we got to tube down the White River and explore the cave that was on the bluff overlooking the river. A cave opening overlooked the river and allowed one to stand on a very small outcropping of rock and jump into the river from there. It was scary as the jump was at least 30' off the river. I did it once or twice but Greg must have done it 10 or 15 times. He was a natural swimmer and had no fear of heights.

Brother Robert took us mountain climbing and one kid from Oklahoma named Johnson, fell and had to be taken to the hospital in Searcy which was maybe 20 miles away. Greg and I made it without any problem and were very proud of ourselves as some of the pathways on the side of the mountain made us depend on the next guy's hand in front of us to keep us from making the fall that Johnson did. It was a blast. Greg and I talk about those experiences from time to time as it was so much fun.

As the end of the school year approached and we knew that time was coming when we would be leaving forever, there were lots of conversations about the various experiences we had over the years. In addition to the dairy, hay farm, kitchen duty, potato peeling, and gymnasium work, as we became seniors, we got to work in the boiler room and the laundry.

Brother Bernard ran the boiler room that supplied steam to the laundry and every building at the school so it was a big boiler room. We shoveled coal but did so in the midst of classical music that Brother Bernard had playing all the time. Brother Linus ran the laundry which was next door to the boiler room so we got to visit with him, too. He was much older than most of the other Brothers and would always pat you on the head or back, give you a compliment of some sort and encouraged us to be good and study hard.

All things considered, Greg and I had one hell of an upbringing there and the Brothers who did the overseeing portion, weren't anything like the Jesuits. They were tough as nails but they were fair. We had a well known list of rules that were not to be broken and a specific punishment called "swats" if we broke them. A swat was generally administered through the use of a 2 x 4 that had a bunch of holes drilled in the end of it and a hand carved handle on the other. One swat was good enough for anybody to correct an attitude.

One day, Brother Julian came into the class and made the following announcement in his somewhat unusual voice which was caused by a nasal condition and an extreme overbite of his front teeth. He said:

"The following named individuals will report to the execution chamber after last bell: Baaaaahhtluh , Craaaafts, Caaaaaahill and a few others.

Greg and I knew we were in for it so we reported as ordered. Remembering the announcement and the unique sound of his voice was much easier than remembering the swat. As far as our infraction was concerned, we probably didn't turn our homework in on time or were caught talking in class. Whatever it was, the important thing that I remembered from those occassions were always connected to the punishment fitting the crime. The Brothers knew their stuff and never physically overdid it when a spanking was justified.

Before we knew it, it was time for the senior trip and off we went to a State Park near the Rockefeller mansion and farm that was west of Little Rock. We would climb sugar loaf mountain and generally roam all over the woods. A good time was had.........except for one very unfortunate situation I experienced on the last day at camp.

I won't mention his name as he's still alive but one of the Brothers came into the cabin and for some reason, that to this day escapes me, he jumped on me and hit me on my left arm exactly where it had been broken, incorrectly set, rebroken in the second surgery and set in a cast that had rubber bands all over it due to the requirements to keep the bones under traction.

In the same sense that I hit the nun in the head with the chalk filled eraser when she made her untimely comment about the death of my Daddy and the thoughts I had that resulted in me almost hitting Father Junkin with a speedball, I found myself, shaving cream can in my hand, putting Brother E in a head lock and hitting him repeatedly in the head. He had several semi circles that were imprinted on his forehead from the repeated hits I was landing on his head. He got away and ordered an immediate return to school where I was to meet with the powers that be to determine what would happen.

Brothers Roberts, Bill and one other Brother that I don't remember, were waiting for me in the football changing room. I figured my ass was grass but was ready to defend my position and the decision I made to pick up the shaving cream can and throw as many blows as I could to defend taking another hit on my arm where the tender area was from last years break..

After many questions from the Brothers were posed and answered by me, there was the unbelievable judgement that I would receive no swats at all. They cautioned me that hitting a man of the cloth was an offense that could lead to excommunication from the church.

Since this was the 4th time I had experienced something of this nature, I said that I would "Quit" rather than wait on the excommunication and that I would have my family communicate with the Pope to explain the situation. After that, and in view of the history with my family, nothing further was said and Brother E never laid a hand on me again.

If I told Momma once, I told her a thousand times that I considered her decision to send me to Morris the first time and again for two more years to complete Jr High on the second tour, was a decision that I considered to be the best she'd ever made about my education and my experiences in life.

She loved hearing that and knew that I was serious. I think the reason she loved it so much had to do with the fact that I left home as a ten year old who had just lost his Daddy and that I needed the kind of supervision that  had proven to produce men like Greg's Daddy, my most loved Uncle Charles.

I graduated with good grades and a fabulous background in Algebra and Geometry thanks to Brother Cyprian Hill who was the head master of the school. Greg and I left to go home for the summer and play like crazy till it was time for me to head out for Oklahoma and the great boarding school known as St. Gregory's and the experiences of living in the Indian Nations. Greg eventually graduated from Jesuit but I'm sure no one gave him an ounce of trouble there. Slapping him would have been like hitting a rock. I'm telling you, he would be the last one you would want to pick a fight with.

More to come, be patient.



.