My First Confession Experience

In second grade we were deemed old enough to have our First Communion. But in order to reach that destination, one must accomplish their First Confession. That's when the sinner has to tell a priest about all of the bad stuff he's been up to since his last confession. Teaching all of us little kids about confession was left up to a nun called Sister Gerald. She was real old, real wrinkled, and real mean. I swear her house was made out of gingerbread and candy. She was notorious for smacking kid's knuckles with her weapon of choice, a wooden ruler. Fortunately, I was never one of her victims.
We studied the ins and outs of Confession at school and at home until we got it right. We knew what to say and when to say it. We rehearsed in the real confessionals at church, with Sister Gerald standing in as a priest. We were given a fake Scapular to get us used to the idea of having a real Scapular. A Scapular is a little felt medallion thing with a cord that is to be worn around the neck. Sister Gerald told us that if you're wearing it when you die, then you get into Heaven, no questions asked. That seemed like a pretty good deal. Wear your Scapular, and have a worry free life. None of this Limbo, Purgatory, or Hell for this kid. I got me a ticket. Well, sort of. You have to do your first Confession before you get a REAL Scapular. I guess it's like an award, with benefits. That couple of weeks between getting the fake and First Confession was pretty scary. I was afraid I'd die and when I got to Heaven the gate guy would say sorry kid, this Scapular is a fake so you're stuck in Purgatory, and jeez, you were so close! Sucks to be you! But that wasn't my only concern. I worried what I was supposed to confess to. Little kids don't sin. We were way too scared to sin. So I figured I'd make stuff up just to get through it. But making it up and confessing it would make it a lie. This was certainly a dillema. I finally decided how to handle the problem though. I'd cover the made up stuff by confessing that I'd just lied.
The big day arrived and I'm ready to 'fess up and get my legit Scapular.
"Bless me Father for I have sinned. This is my first confession."
"OK kid. Lay it on me."
"Well, let's see. I stole; three times. I cussed; two times. I hit my brother; two times, I disobeyed my parents; three times,  and I lied; (um . . . let's see . . .) FOUR times."
Apparently I fooled the priest, because he told me to say some 'Hail Mary's' or something for my penance. I got my ticket-to-Heaven Scapular and all was right in my world. I wore my Scapular every day for a while. Then I got lazy and didn't bother with it, because if I'm still alive, it isn't really doing me much good.
I eventually lost my Scapular. Now I'm thinking maybe I should go to the religion store and buy a new one, and wear it. 'Cause at my age, you never know. Then if I died the Heaven gate guy would see my Scapular , and in I'd go, just like Sister Gerald said. I could even tell him I wore it every day of my life. But that would be a lie, and I'm not sure that they have Confession in Heaven.

On being an Altar Boy at Sacred Heart Church

I'm not positive what grade I was in, but I'm guessing sixth or seventh. It was the annual drive to recruit for altar boys. I had three older brothers that all became altar boys, so this wasn't new to me. I didn't want any part of it. I wasn't a joiner. I didn't want to get up that early. I didn't want to get in front of hundreds of church goers. I didn't want to belong to a thing called St. John Berchman Society. But I thought it was predestined that I would have to sign up. Being the fourth of four sons, I figured I had no choice. It was expected of me. So . . .
We were trained by older altar boy pros. We were expected to learn the choreography and prayers and responses in Latin. After a few sessions we were supposedly competent. I had more than a few doubts that I was ready. But schedules were made, and butterflies took up residence in my stomach.
  From my personal experience I remember that it was difficult to not set the altar on fire when attempting to light candles with that eight foot long flame thrower. Too big of a flame caused sooty wax to drip on the altar cloth. That was a guaranteed way to piss off the nun in charge of altar cloths.
  I remember that I was usually assigned to weekday Masses at six in the morning. That was fine with me. Only a handful of old people showed up. Same ones every time. Serving Communion only took a couple of minutes. Dickie O'Neal played the big pipe organ and sang all the songs solo. My Mom would drive me to church every time. I remember those car rides still. At the same time every morning, like 5:45 or so, a commercial would come on the radio for Red Man Chew. That ad jingle is with me still. I guess the spot was aimed at factory workers heading to their jobs. The song was incredibly annoying, and it never enticed me to chew tobacco.
Monsignor Blecke expected a lot out of his altar boys, so I hated serving his Masses. He yelled at me after one Mass because I didn't speak loudly enough to suit him. I didn't tell him that my responses weren't loud because I wasn't sure what the hell I was supposed to say. Jeez! It's six in the morning Bud! It's hard enough to stay awake, let alone pay attention to an old guy speaking in Vaticanese. It was equally hard to ring those bells on cue. I got more than one dirty look from a priest for daydreaming instead of clanging those cowbells on time.
  Since I was an average altar boy at best, I never had to work a wedding, or funeral, or Sundays. There was one time though that stands out. It was a High Mass on Easter Sunday. Me and seven other guys got the job of 'Kneel on the steps and hold a big candle for an hour and a half'. It was a hot Easter morning and we had on the usual altar boy uniform. We had to kneel on the steps parallel to the Communion rail. We each held a wooden pole with a red glass candle holder on top. Three quarters of the way through Mass, Joe Hines started swaying back and forth. I watched him, hoping I was wrong, but I knew what was about to happen. Then . . . BAM! It was lights out for poor Joe. He was down for the count. There was no contingency plan for such an event, so we all just held onto our candle poles, stared at Joe, and tried real hard to not get horizontal like he was. Monsignor Blecke turned around because of the commotion, but he just rolled his eyes and went about his business. Finally Joe got up and staggered off to the dressing room. I felt sorry for Joe, but I was also pretty damn glad it didn't happen to me.
  Many years later I was talking to my Mom about the altar boy ordeal, and that I felt forced into doing it. She said, hell, she didn't care whether or not I was an altar boy. Jeez! I could have saved myself a lot of grief, let alone sleep, if I'd known she didn't care! I only did it because I thought she wanted me to. Although I don't consciously regret becoming an altar boy, I do find it interesting that I have almost completely blocked all that Latin from my memory. I can't recall hardly any of it, except . . . Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Fifth Grade at Sacred Heart

My fifth grade teacher was Sister Mary Agnes. She was a mean short person. I think she had Napoleon syndrome. The class room was split. Half fifth grade, and half fourth grade. I didn't like this arrangement because although we had seniority, the fourth graders weren't afraid of us, and showed us no respect. The only good part of this classroom was that Teresa Van Raes was in the fourth grade section. She was my very first real crush. I would have married her, but I was too shy to talk to her alone. Somehow I got a wallet size photo of her, and I kept it on the under side of the bunk-bed mattress above my bed. That way I could see it every night. Plus, it was hidden from a normal view. I sure didn't want anyone to know I had it. Well, it wasn't long before my Mom found it. She told my brothers, and I was teased big time.
My best friend was Jim Flatley. He was funny and had a great sarcastic wit. Basically he was a smart-ass. We got along great, and kept each other laughing. He also was a non-stop talker. One Friday we were sitting together at the required once-a-month eleven o'clock Mass. Naturally he was talking, and of course I was laughing at his comments. Sister Mary Scagnes wasn't laughing though. She caught us, but didn't say anything. Until after church, that is. She bitched us out and sentenced us to write ONE THOUSAND LINES of 'I will not talk in church'.
I don't get why she was so pissed off. The show hadn't even started yet. There was no getting out of this crap though. My Dad was Mr. Integrity so although he wasn't even Catholic, I knew he'd go along with the punishment. I was f***ing doomed. I started writing my lines on Friday night, just to get a jump on it. I procrastinated all day Saturday, assuming that on Sunday I'd go at it 'till I was done. I finally resumed late Sunday afternoon. My parents went bowling so the house was mine. After a few pages of punishment I got the bright idea of how to speed things up. Carbon paper! I could write four pages at a time. This stuff was great!
'Course, page number fours were pretty faded, but I reasoned Sister Mary Ag-bag wouldn't look at every page, and hopefully wouldn't notice the thin blue copied words. My parents came home from bowling and Dad asked if I finished my lines. I proudly yet apprehensively said I'd finished. Now the reason for my apprehension came true. He wanted to see the finished product. Great. I'm screwed. He saw immediately that I copied at least half of my assignment. He wasn't laughing either. Mr. Integrity made me tear up the copied sheets and write the rest of the lines legitimately. I finally got all one thousand lines done late Sunday night.
Monday morning I gave my lines to Sister Mary Agony and she promptly threw them in the waste basket next to her desk. She didn't even look at them. What a f***ing bitch. All that work and torment and rework and re-torment. I wanted to take them out of the waste basket and show her that there really were a thousand lines, and I didn't have any carbon copies. I wanted to hear her say good job, you're back in my good graces. I wanted her to at least acknowledge my existence. I wanted her to see my integrity. No such outcome for naive little Pauly.
So, what did I learn from my thousand lines punishment ordeal? Let's see.
I learned that Sister Mary Battle-Axe Agnes had problems with kids talking in church. I learned that she was prone to over-reacting. I learned that Protestants don't have hang-ups about talking in church. Hell, they do it all the time. Walk into any Protestant church fifteen minutes before the service, and the whole place is filled with people yammering away. They're enjoying each others company, and they actually like being there. Pretty different from the forced silence demanded of us.
  Oh yeah. . . I don't remember why, but my friend Jim didn't write his thousand lines punishment. Wonder what he learned.