My Bronx Tale - Episode 5

HOLY TISSUES BATMAN! LET’S FINGER PAINT!

Today’s episode of My Bronx Tale begins with memories of my time at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church when I was about seven or eight.

Blessed Sacrament church today. The church

Is on the ground floor and the parish school is

on the upper floors. Wikipedia trivia--Judge

Sonia Sotomayor graduated from here in 1960.

The school and church have been around since 1929.

Mom made sure my brothers and I attended church every week. Blessed Sacrament was a few blocks away and I remember walking there from our apartment in the Projects.

We went to church every Saturday morning for Catechism classes. There I learned about the Catholic Church and God. Mostly I remember memorizing the prayers I would need to know so I could make my First Holy Communion.  There were several prayers but the ones I remember the most were the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Apostles Creed.

On Sunday we would go again for regular church services.  On one particular Sunday, I forgot my head scarf. In order to enter the church, Canon Law required a girl or woman to have her head covered.  This eventually changed later, but then it was a big thing. I usually had one with me, but this time I forgot to take one. I didn’t even think about it until one of the nuns grabbed my shoulder and asked me where my head scarf was.

“Uhhhh. I forgot it,” I replied.

She looked sternly at me as I looked to my brothers for support, but they had already passed through the doors to the sanctuary to sit down. I was on my own.

“Do you have a scarf I can borrow?” I asked.

The nun said nothing as she reached into the pocket of her habit and pulled out a crumpled tissue. [I do not know, nor do I want to know, if it was used!] Then she took one of the bobby pins that was holding her veil in place and pinned the crumpled tissue to the top of my head!

Can you say MORTIFIED!!! I entered the sanctuary and found my brothers and sat down with a tissue on my head! I could not wait for the end of the service so I could take that thing off!! You can bet I never forgot my head scarf after that.

Before I move on, there is one more snippet of a memory I have that I associate with church even though I was not at church. It involves me walking home from church by myself. I think I was about eight or nine.

I was about half way home when I passed three girls going in the opposite direction. They were older than me by a few years. As they passed, they started name calling and making fun of me. I said nothing and kept walking. Then one turned around and punched me in the back. The other two soon joined in. I tried to run away, but three against one was not good odds. One of them kicked me in the leg. I fell to the sidewalk and started to cry.

Just then Jesus showed up in the form of an elderly lady. She was walking up the street and saw what was happening. She yelled at the girls to stop and get away from me. When they saw her, they ran. The lady helped me up and asked if I was alright. I said I was. I walked the rest of the way home crying.

Bullies…they’re everywhere. But so is Jesus!

PS 36

Public schools in the Bronx didn’t have names like you would expect, they had numbers. The elementary school I went to was simply called PS 36. I started kindergarten in Sept 1956 at the age of five. 

The front of PS 36. Architecturally, it was a nice looking building.

PS 36 today. The gym was on the top floor. 
It was off limits. I remember once sneaking 
up there with someone else to see what it 
was like. How daring I was.

  

Mrs. Kirschner was my kindergarten teacher. I only have one memory of her and it is not a good one! I’m sure she was nice enough, heck I probably even came to love her—who knows, but when all you have to go one is this one memory, it doesn’t say much for her or her teaching style.

Finger painting was new to me. I had never seen it or done it before this day. I was sitting at a little table for two when Mrs. Kirschner came around and put a smock on me.  Then she put down in front of me a large shiny piece of white paper. Then she came back around and squeezed out tubes of paint onto the paper…some blue, some yellow and some red. She did the same for all the kids in the class. Then she told the us to make a picture with the paints.

What!!? How? With my fingers?!! No way!

I saw the kid next to me put his fingers in the paint and start to smush the paints together and make swirls.

What!!? I’m not going to put my hands in that!!

So I sat there.

Mrs. Kirschner was walking around the classroom looking at what the children were drawing when she walked up to the front of my table. She told me to start drawing. I said, “No! I don’t want to.” I was and still am a person who does not like to get her hands dirty, and this seemed like a mess waiting to happen.

Mrs. Kirschner walked away from the table. I thought I was safe, but no, she came up behind me, grabbed both my hands and before I knew what was happening, she forced them into the finger paints! I can still remember the cold, pudding-like feeling of the paints as I started to cry. I don’t know how long she left me like that or if I ever did draw a picture, but eventually, she walked me over to the sink and washed the paint off my hands.

I haven’t seen this picture of my Kindergarten classmates in many, many years. 

But as I look at it I remember most of the faces and even some of their names. 

I would love to know where they all  are now. Can you pick me out?

Mrs. Kirschner looks likes she's thinking, "I'll get you my pretty!!"  Hahaha!!

Traumatic! It must have been for me to remember this now fifty-five years later. Even though there was no physical harm done, I am scarred for life [laughing]! At least I can laugh about it now.

It was all about doing something new we have never done before or doing something we are not comfortable doing. Today they use the phrase “stepping outside of the box.” Then, it was finger paints.

Tune in tomorrow for the final episode of My Bronx Tale called Moving Day.

Hugs,

~ P