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Growing Up On Jefferson Street, set 1

“St Christopher And Me” and “My Dad Can Whip Your Dad”

Dear Jack,

This is my first story and I thought that St. Mary’s School and Church would be a useful setting because we share them as our first “outside the home” experience.

Love, Marilyn

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ST. CHRISTOPHER AND ME
by
Marilyn Loughary Kok

As I recall it was a clear and cold day in early Spring. The trees were still leafless and the Spring bulbs were just beginning to poke their tiny green shoots through the soil. The wind was blowing a chill through the air and dark clouds threatening a change of weather. I was six years old with long, carrot hued hair, fading freckles and a dreamy nature. From St. Mary’s Catholic school, it was an eight block walk to Eugene High School where I was to meet the teen-aged sitter who would then accompany me home. I was passing the time by humming made-up songs that came into my head and little rhymes that reminded me not to step on any cracks, or I’d break my mother’s back.

St. Mary’s School gathered together as many as it could of the Catholic kids of Eugene and vicinity and had the expressed goal of molding their minds into the ways of Roman Catholicism and the True Faith. St. Mary’s was a liberal (no uniforms) school administered by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, an order of Catholic nuns that were head quartered in Portland. Although students were not required to wear uniforms, the nuns wore heavy black wool habits. The only hint of color about them was the pink of their faces and hands. Their faces were encased in narrow, stiffly starched hoods of white cotton that were partially covered by waist length veils. Encircling the second finger of their left hand was a heavy gold ring that signified their vow to become a Bride of Christ. The ring was used to wield loud raps on the backs of pews and signaled the moves that we, the students, were expected to make during Mass.

Click! Stand up.

Click! Sit down.

Click! Click! Kneel.

Clunk! (Usually on the top of someone’s head) “Stop that talking.”

The initial top priority was apparently establishing military-like discipline. Even first graders were expected to stand when speaking, mastering cursive writing (no printing allowed from day one), and not to color between the lines, to list only a few educational protocols.

By the time I was enrolled, you had made the transition to public school, which somehow meant ‘abandoned’ to me. Although I am sure that many children welcomed their first days of school, my own most intense feelings were of being left in a world of dark, black creatures that, although they spoke English, were unlike any human with whom I was familiar.

Each day I walked the mile to school, usually by myself. I do recall a young Catholic boy who lived in the next block who would occasionally give me a ride on his bike’s handlebars, but the usual route was a long twelve block walk to school. After school I walked to Eugene High school to be met by my “sitter” who walked home with me and “sat” until our parents returned from their work. On this particular day, I must have arrived early as there were no students to be seen outside the school. A small corner grocery occupied the lot across the street on 17 th and Lincoln and there I waited for my sitter. I looked forward to her arrival; she often bought a candy cane from the store for me to suck on as we walked home.

After a few minutes of playing hop-on-and-off the curb, I sat down to wait for the school bell’s dismissal ring. I gathered some small stones and sticks that were near my shoes and began to build houses and roads, when a voice spoke. “Hey Red, watcha doin?” It was a pudgy teen-aged boy suddenly standing inches from my knees.

“I’m waiting for my sitter,” I replied.

“Where cha go to school?,” he sneered.

“I go to St. Mary’s.”

The next thing I knew I was being punched and knocked into the street. He began to kick me over and over. “Cat lick! Cat lick!” he shouted.

Out of the store came my personal savior. The store owner ran up, a larger than life man, to me, who gave the bully a boot and a shake as he used some “forbidden” words to warn him to get away from me. He added a warning against returning. I was picked up, dusted off, and taken into the store and given a long pink-striped peppermint stick to ease my hurts.

I have always suspected that my non-Catholic Dad was the one who had finally put his foot down on exposing me to such unwarranted violence. His acceptance of raising his kids in the TRUE FAITH was this time tested past the limit.

It was about this time that I began wearing my St. Christopher’s medals faithfully night and day for the promised protection that they offered. No more violence in the dust.

Love, Marilyn

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My Dad Can Whip Your Dad
by
Jack Loughary

Dear Marilyn,

Your interesting story, even though describing an unpleasant event, was also an accurate account of the level of prejudice a kid could experiencing while growing up Catholic in an essentially protestant town. A standing family joke at the time was that after several years of conditioning by the Nuns of St. Mary's, you (Marilyn) made the distinction between not only Catholic and public schools, but also Catholic and public churches. We did for sure, lump all the public churches together. My first story is not nearly as poignant as yours, but does follow a related theme, which is after school walks from St. Mary's to the our second Patterson Street house.

It happened when I was in the second grade at St. Mary's, my last year there .We were living in the second of the two Patterson Street rentals. They were on opposite sides of the alley that ran east and west between 14th and 15th streets. They are still there, and I took a digi pix of them last week. My strongest memory of the last and larger house is Mom serving breakfast on a work bench in the garage to an unemployed traveling man (tramp was the operable term, I recall) in payment of some bit of labor around the house.

The house is near the University of Oregon campus and a 12 or 13 block walk from St. Mary's. It was not an unpleasant foot journey, and I like you, let my imagination make the most of it. Usually, I was on horse back chasing cowboys or Indians. Even thought I didn't know it, I was in dangerous Protestant country all the way from St. Mary's to our house.

After several uneventful months, one day I altered my route east on 13th Street which had a few stores and led directly to the campus, to 14th street which was lined entirely with private homes and a couple boarding houses. When I was about 3 blocks from home I saw a kid who must have been in the 5th or 6th grade standing on the front porch of one of the houses just ahead. As I approached him, he moved down the steps to the sidewalk and confronted me with several questions. "What school did I go to?" "Why?" "What was I doing in front of his house?"

This kid seemed large to me and I was also much aware of being a red head and small for my age. I told him I went to St. Mary's and I suppose attempted to answer his other questions, but mostly I was frightened. I had never been in a scary confrontation. I had no notion of a response strategy. He warned me to stay away from his house, or else!

I continued home, thankful to have completed the journey with dry pants. I didn't mention the encounter to Mom or Dad.

During the next few afternoons, I followed my traditional 13th street route. Then, for what ever reason, I foolishly ventured south again and trotted east on 14th street, safely I assumed, on the opposite side of the street from the big kid's house. Just as I was opposite of his front door, out he came, charging across the street and informing me that, "Kids from St. Mary's are not allowed on this street!" and that he”...would beat me up if he saw me in front of his house again!"

Obviously, I can't recall my actual response, but I have the image of trying to stand my ground verbally, which soon dissolved to telling him that I could walk where I wanted to, and that if he didn't stop bothering me I would get my dad to come over to his house and talk to his dad! Talk was cheap, but I was able to ride on down the trail and away from the raging bully. I didn't mention this encounter to Mom and Dad. I don't need to say that I was very upset.

Showing some sign of good sense, I began alternating my route among 13th, 15th even 16th streets in addition to using the cross streets of Mill and Oak as substitutes for the direct route to Patterson. I must have been successful in that I seem to have avoided the nasty aggressor. Then, some afternoons later, I was high tailing it east on 15th street when a Ford two door sedan came up beside me, pulled over to the curb and stopped. I heard a kid holler from the front passenger seat, "That's him, Dad! That's the one that told me he would send his dad over to our place."

The father, who I assumed must be a business man because anyone who had a real job would have been at work in late afternoon, opened the car door and walked over the parking to the side walk.

"I understand you threatened my boy", or something along that order he said. "Now what is this talk about your father coming over to my house?"

I was scared as to what ever is next to death and attempted to relate some mealy mouth explanation that I was just afraid of his son and was just trying to get away. The father asked me to explain myself, and I must have been able to mount a reasonable defense, explaining that his kid bullied me and said that I couldn't walk on his street on my way home from school.

He turned around and re-entered the Ford two door without a word, and drove away. I never saw him or his ugly, bastard, protestant kid again. I didn't mention this exchange to Mom or Dad.

Love, Jack

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