All right, you asked for it. Here are two stories from my time at Garces Junior High School.
After I "graduated" from St Josephs elementary school, the next two years were spent at Garces, in north Bakersfield. At this time the girls were rigidly separated from the boys; though on the same property, the nuns and the girls they taught were rarely visible to us, almost like they didn't exist. The boys used the huge, expansive lawns to play Kill the Man with the Ball before school and during recess and lunch. I have no idea where this game came from - it was something like home-grown Rugby, where the objective was to pile on the guy who had picked up and started running with the ball, and there were no goals or teams or objectives beyond that. In addition, the boys had exclusive access to the football and baseball fields.
At induction into Garces, we were given what I later learned was an IQ test, and separated and seated according to the results. I ended up in the class of about 40 boys taught by Brother Gerald. He was one of about 8 members of a Catholic monk order called the Christian Brothers. The same people who make the wine also taught Junior High. They had no interest in the priesthood, or perhaps didn't qualify for some reason - they would never answer our questions about this directly. They wore cassocks - long shirts reaching to the ankles - like a priest, but did not have the white-notched Roman Collar.
Sometime in that first year, Brother Gerald came into the classroom one morning lugging a huge TV. He set it on his desk, fiddled with the rabbit-ears antenna, and we spent most of the next week watching the Baseball World Series. I still recall that it was the Dodgers vs. the Braves. Why he did this was transparent: he avidly followed each game, and displayed the most emotion (which is to say very little) that we ever saw in him. I have no idea where permission to just ditch a week's worth of Latin, grammar, and math classes came from, but we certainly didn't complain. This was the first time in my life that I ever recall seeing a sport actually played - there was only a rudimentary PE class intermittently taught at St Josephs elementary by the Mexican bus driver, Jesse, when he didn't have other day-work.
Brother Gerald was a large man - probably over 225 lbs( 110 kg) at that time. He towered over us, and the total lack of emotion that he evinced made us all a bit nervous in his presence. I suppose each teacher has different ways of commanding attention and respect.
One day Brother Gerald was lecturing about how to decline Latin verbs. Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. I love, you (singular) love, he loves, we love, you (plural) love, they love. I recall my friend Marcus Espitia lifted the lid of his modular desk as if to reach for a book, but really to hide what he was doing. He was shooting spit-wads at the guy in the desk to his left. Marcus was near the bottom of the academic ranking for that 6-week period, so his desk was about mid-way down the row on the extreme right side of the classroom. Brother Gerald was pacing back and forth in the front of the room, lecturing in his emotionless, sonorous voice. Unseen by Espitia, he moved from his back-and-forth pacing down the aisle between the two boys.
Suddenly, his heavy hand came down on the wooden lid of Espitia's desk-top, catching his head like a clam snapping its shell shut. I remember Espitia's hands and legs flailing all over the place while his head and neck were trapped under Brother Gerald's full weight. He held the lid hard down on Espitia's head for a full 20 seconds.
Still lecturing without any interruption, Brother Gerald then lifted the lid with his left hand and with his right hand gave Espitia's just-released head a ferocious upper-cut, open-handed slap. The force was such that it lifted Espitia physically out of his chair and threw his entire body against the far right wall. I remember it seemed like he hung there for a moment, before he slid down to the floor.
STILL without breaking the train of his lecture, Brother Gerald began pulling books from Espitia's desk and throwing them at his head as hard as he could. We could hear him grunt from the effort as he continued the lecture. It was terrifying and surreal. After being hit in the face and head several times with hard-edged books, Espitia bolted for the door, fortuitously at the right front of the room. Flying books followed him the entire way, not one ever missing. Baseball player, I thought. We must have each had at least 10 books in our desks, and Espitia caught every one with his head or back.
Having with this effort turned himself towards the front of the classroom as his right arm followed Espitia to the door, Brother Gerald paced slowly back to the front and continued his back-and-forth pacing. There was no expression of emotion, nor any break in the lecture on Latin during this entire episode. We all sat frozen in place, eyes fixed on Brother Gerald.
When the lunch bell rang, Brother Gerald retreated, as was his custom, to the Christian Brothers residential building on the west side of the Garces campus. Espitia found us out on the lawn and asked if it was OK to go back into class after lunch? None of us had any idea. We each thought to ourselves: There but for the Grace of God go I. Each of us was just glad we weren't the poor sucker who had been nailed.
When lunch was over Espitia nervously filed in with the rest of us and took his seat. People in the row in front of him shoved and slid his books down the far aisle floor to him, and he picked them up and put them back in his desk. Brother Gerald began the afternoon lessons as if nothing had happened, starting us on doing English grammar diagrams using sentences: where is the predicate? Where is the nominative? Where do they go in this diagram? Where do you place the adjective, and where do you place the adverb? He treated Espitia with the aloof, distant and calm disdain that he afforded all of us.
However, he had our full and undivided attention.
After I "graduated" from St Josephs elementary school, the next two years were spent at Garces, in north Bakersfield. At this time the girls were rigidly separated from the boys; though on the same property, the nuns and the girls they taught were rarely visible to us, almost like they didn't exist. The boys used the huge, expansive lawns to play Kill the Man with the Ball before school and during recess and lunch. I have no idea where this game came from - it was something like home-grown Rugby, where the objective was to pile on the guy who had picked up and started running with the ball, and there were no goals or teams or objectives beyond that. In addition, the boys had exclusive access to the football and baseball fields.
At induction into Garces, we were given what I later learned was an IQ test, and separated and seated according to the results. I ended up in the class of about 40 boys taught by Brother Gerald. He was one of about 8 members of a Catholic monk order called the Christian Brothers. The same people who make the wine also taught Junior High. They had no interest in the priesthood, or perhaps didn't qualify for some reason - they would never answer our questions about this directly. They wore cassocks - long shirts reaching to the ankles - like a priest, but did not have the white-notched Roman Collar.
Sometime in that first year, Brother Gerald came into the classroom one morning lugging a huge TV. He set it on his desk, fiddled with the rabbit-ears antenna, and we spent most of the next week watching the Baseball World Series. I still recall that it was the Dodgers vs. the Braves. Why he did this was transparent: he avidly followed each game, and displayed the most emotion (which is to say very little) that we ever saw in him. I have no idea where permission to just ditch a week's worth of Latin, grammar, and math classes came from, but we certainly didn't complain. This was the first time in my life that I ever recall seeing a sport actually played - there was only a rudimentary PE class intermittently taught at St Josephs elementary by the Mexican bus driver, Jesse, when he didn't have other day-work.
Brother Gerald was a large man - probably over 225 lbs( 110 kg) at that time. He towered over us, and the total lack of emotion that he evinced made us all a bit nervous in his presence. I suppose each teacher has different ways of commanding attention and respect.
One day Brother Gerald was lecturing about how to decline Latin verbs. Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant. I love, you (singular) love, he loves, we love, you (plural) love, they love. I recall my friend Marcus Espitia lifted the lid of his modular desk as if to reach for a book, but really to hide what he was doing. He was shooting spit-wads at the guy in the desk to his left. Marcus was near the bottom of the academic ranking for that 6-week period, so his desk was about mid-way down the row on the extreme right side of the classroom. Brother Gerald was pacing back and forth in the front of the room, lecturing in his emotionless, sonorous voice. Unseen by Espitia, he moved from his back-and-forth pacing down the aisle between the two boys.
Suddenly, his heavy hand came down on the wooden lid of Espitia's desk-top, catching his head like a clam snapping its shell shut. I remember Espitia's hands and legs flailing all over the place while his head and neck were trapped under Brother Gerald's full weight. He held the lid hard down on Espitia's head for a full 20 seconds.
Still lecturing without any interruption, Brother Gerald then lifted the lid with his left hand and with his right hand gave Espitia's just-released head a ferocious upper-cut, open-handed slap. The force was such that it lifted Espitia physically out of his chair and threw his entire body against the far right wall. I remember it seemed like he hung there for a moment, before he slid down to the floor.
STILL without breaking the train of his lecture, Brother Gerald began pulling books from Espitia's desk and throwing them at his head as hard as he could. We could hear him grunt from the effort as he continued the lecture. It was terrifying and surreal. After being hit in the face and head several times with hard-edged books, Espitia bolted for the door, fortuitously at the right front of the room. Flying books followed him the entire way, not one ever missing. Baseball player, I thought. We must have each had at least 10 books in our desks, and Espitia caught every one with his head or back.
Having with this effort turned himself towards the front of the classroom as his right arm followed Espitia to the door, Brother Gerald paced slowly back to the front and continued his back-and-forth pacing. There was no expression of emotion, nor any break in the lecture on Latin during this entire episode. We all sat frozen in place, eyes fixed on Brother Gerald.
When the lunch bell rang, Brother Gerald retreated, as was his custom, to the Christian Brothers residential building on the west side of the Garces campus. Espitia found us out on the lawn and asked if it was OK to go back into class after lunch? None of us had any idea. We each thought to ourselves: There but for the Grace of God go I. Each of us was just glad we weren't the poor sucker who had been nailed.
When lunch was over Espitia nervously filed in with the rest of us and took his seat. People in the row in front of him shoved and slid his books down the far aisle floor to him, and he picked them up and put them back in his desk. Brother Gerald began the afternoon lessons as if nothing had happened, starting us on doing English grammar diagrams using sentences: where is the predicate? Where is the nominative? Where do they go in this diagram? Where do you place the adjective, and where do you place the adverb? He treated Espitia with the aloof, distant and calm disdain that he afforded all of us.
However, he had our full and undivided attention.
~~~~~
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