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.