A Catholic Education

It’s meant more as an inquiry than an indictment. A back-in-time exploration of the cornucopia of rites and rituals that helped shape my thinking as a radical thinker. ‘Cafeteria Catholic’ is just one of many monikers that fit that belief.

My sister and I were reminiscing recently about our Catholic school experiences with the nuns and priests/Christian brothers who taught us. Grade school and high school were both outward educational extensions of the times. They reflected the cultural, social, sexual standards of our parents and grandparents’ generation.

My mother was a devote Catholic so we had little choice in the matter of our education. Beginning in the early fifties, my sister and I attended St. Louis Grade School in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. The old gray relic has long since been torn down but the memories linger in black and white. Attending school there meant a half-hour ride to and from downtown for eight years. First by streetcar with their woven mesh seats and no heat (anyone remember those?) then by city bus.

The school had been started back in the mid-to-late 1800s to educate the poor, indigent children of the primarily French immigrant families coming to St. Paul. By the time, we were attending a lot of the students came from ‘the projects;’ the low-income housing located behind the Capitol.

The nuns were strict and mean and very old school. Unlike some of my unruly classmates I never got smacked across the head or hit with a ruler. Although once in second grade I got busted after sneaking peeks at my Daniel Boone comic book hidden in my desk drawer. The imposing rotund nun made me stand in front of the entire class and throw it into the wastepaper basket. That hurt!

I’ve always assumed my mother got a discount from the nuns because she certainly couldn’t have afforded full tuition on her meager restaurant salary. I’ll give the nuns that. They did have compassion for a single parent with two urchins under tow. There was the free lunch at noon and at times donated clothing that could be picked over after class. Those nuns were tough but classy. It was the Catholic way.

Cretin High School was an all-boys military school (Junior ROTC) and Our Lady of Peace (OLP) an all-girls Catholic school. I’m sure for my mother their most important attribute was their Catholic pedigree. She truly believed that nuns and priests were of the ‘saintly’ order and could do no wrong.

Cretin High School cost four hundred dollars a year paid for out of my paper route plus odd jobs during the summer. Cretin was an ROTC school run by strict Christian Brothers with their no-nonsense approach to life and education. At our fiftieth anniversary we alumni compared jobs and lives; subtly of course. Seems like that educational approach worked pretty well for my comrades and I in our careers as well as in life.

Graduation on May 31^st, 1961 was the launch of my ‘lost years’ although I didn’t know it at the time. It was the beginning of ten years wandering through the wilderness of a young life spiked with bouts of education and life-altering experiences. Back in the sixth grade my belief in Catholicism had been badly wounded by the Baltimore Catechism. Now all those simmering doubts and questions grew in intensity as I experienced real life on yet another level.

For some reason this photo of the quadrangle on the campus of the College of St. Thomas says it all. It’s the winter of 1961 and I’m freezing my ass off cutting across campus. What I remember most of that period were the blustery winter winds sweeping across campus and right through my light jacket. My most poignant college memories don’t cluster around classes or the cafeteria or my girlfriend at the time. It wasn’t the work after school or the hard studying just to keep my grades afloat. Instead, it was the bone-rattling cold that nipped at my fingertips and bit into my ear lobes. Funny how some school memories can do that; lose the true essence of the collegiate experience amid the discomfort of a bitterly cold winter’s day.

But St. Thomas never was a smooth fluid experience for me. Instead, it morphed into two separate life journeys distracted with interruptions from the University of Minnesota and the U.S. Army. By then Catholicism wasn’t even on my radar any more.

The Presidio of San Francisco opened up a whole new world for me. It released possibilities and dreams after my educational collapse at the U of M. The Army proven to be a macho world where I explored life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness all the while trailing other lost souls as I stumbled forth. For two years it carried me around the country and across the border. Then it dumped me back into the welcoming arms of Saint Thomas after an early release.

Thanks to the G.I. Bill there was less stress to find work and more time to write for the school yearbook. I had a nest in my basement at home where I could sequester myself and focus on learning to learn. I got two things from that experience; a college education and one of my first novels called ‘Love in the A Shau.’

Denmark made me a stranger in a strange land. There were new attitudes toward life and love and self. Religion continued to be this strange ritualistic practice performed by my mother but rejected by my colleagues and me.

After Europe, this ex-pat came home and found a dump to live in and a Sunday sanctuary full of song and fellowship. The Newman Center for Catholic Studies had gone hippie and folk-like with its mass, its litany and communal singing. It was a haven of peace and friendship and sharing. It hinted of something wonderful but we never labeled it Catholic…just community.

Susan was there with me to share that skeletal existence, career explorations, the Triangle Bar and the poetry-readings. She was just another road warrior searching for her future as I was searching for mine. We were like two literary hobos riding the rails of life’s jumbled journey but steeled by our dogged determination to succeed. She was like an elixir for my mind on Saturday nights and for my soul on Sunday mornings.

Back then, I was still wading through the flotsam of those early religious years. The Newman Center showed me another side of Christianity. It was love and compassion and caring. It was exploring one’s mind as well as one’s soul. It was questioning and challenging and accepting. It was finding comfort in who we were and the strength to believe we could be more. Then it was all gone. I moved on. Susan moved on. Life carried us both away.

Now years later, I’m trying to fashion stories out of those mixed religious experiences. I have wrapped myself in a coat of many colors and tried to decipher the coded messages from the real ones. What truth, if any, was to be found in the Baltimore Catechism? Were there really mess-ages in all those rambling, repetitive boring eulogies on Sunday morning? Is there a commonality among religions despite repeated claims that each is the only one? I wander through this religious wilderness seeking the truth that, in fact, lies only within me. So, I let my mind dance across the keyboard and stories come to life.

‘Love in the A Shau’ is a trip back in time when a young man was struggling to stay afloat in an Ivy-league world he never knew existed, the tantalizing taste of first love and class differences he let define him.

‘Cafeteria Catholic’ is a play which examines the relationship of an agnostic who finds himself attracted to a devote Catholic. It’s a paradox I find intriguing enough to write a play about it.

‘Frenchy’s Eats’ is a play which examines the dysfunctional and yet poetic relationship between

a man and a woman, an intrusive Catholic church, and a father the author never knew. It’s a complicated play in its rag-tag juxtaposition of elements and explanations that danced between my parents, their divorce and the mysterious Canadian legacy that still lurks far back in my own ancestry.

Because of my Catholic education, I learned the intrinsic value of working hard, helping others, being fair and trying to be a good man. Despite my Catholic education I learned the value of self.

Truth be told, I’m a Christian before I’m a Catholic. But I could just as easily be a Buddhist, a Muslim, or a Jew. I’m not a religious person but I believe in religion; whatever flavor people may choose. It’s not a bad combination; a double-edged sword to combat the challenges of life while accepting responsibility for what comes our way.

Perhaps way back then, those wise women, dressed in their penguin attire, did teach me something about religion after all. It’s been a long journey. In retrospect, one could say, I’ve circled back now to where it all started.

The Vanishing Classroom

In one of my past blogs, I shared my best effort to put together an All Class Reunion for my grade school. The Little French Church, May 31st. Unfortunately, that effort has fallen flat and only a half dozen folks have responded.  At about the same time that I decided to put that effort to rest, my old high school sent me a notice of a quasi-reunion of sorts.

It’s for an unofficial (but much welcomed) 61st class reunion for the Cretin High School Class of 1961. It’ll be held at a bar/restaurant in the nearby neighborhood. It’s more of a group effort by several classmates of mine than an officially sanctioned school affair. The reality is that many of our classmates have already passed and waiting another ten years for another class reunion probably isn’t too realistic unless it’s held in someone’s living room.

At about the same time I got the notice for this 61st class reunion, two books came to my attention about my old high school. Both were written by graduates of our all-boys military institution in Saint Paul.

The first is called ‘Cretin Boy’ by Jim Landwehr, a graduate of the class of 1979.

The second book was written by a classmate of mine who collected all the content for a book of memories of our class of 1961. Both books paint a vivid and honest portrait of that time period in my life as much as ‘they’ can remember it. Unfortunately, my own memory bank of my educational years is low on credit and almost in default.

The classrooms have vanished in all of my past halls of learning. From St. Louis Grade School to Cretin High School to the College of Saint Thomas, nothing has remained the same. Time, social changes and the inevitable march of progress has altered, erased or radically changed the face of education as I once knew it.

My earliest recollection of my formal education came from foggy brown-tinted photo plates nestled in the back of my head. There were fleeting images of creaking old wooden steps, the smell of old classrooms, wary nuns watching our every movement and poverty; even though we couldn’t recognize it at the time. It didn’t help that down the block were rows and rows of run-down tenements housing indigent and homeless people.

I don’t remember much about first or second grade when my sister and I walked to St. Louis Catholic Grade School each day. By third grade our mother had built a home in Highland Park, a half hour streetcar ride away. Each morning we would take the trolley to downtown St. Paul with our mother. Each night, my sister and I would take the rickety transit back home again alone.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Unlike a lot of the schools around our home in Highland Park, St. Louis Grade School was anything but vanilla and main stream. Students came from the surrounding neighborhoods like Irving Park, East Saint Paul, West Saint Paul, and the projects behind the capitol. It was an eclectic, mostly poor, somewhat mix-race group of students; clearly reflective of their communities of origin.

The teachers were all nuns. They were tough-minded, serious, no bullshit kind of instructors who had the full backing of our parents. We understood that punishment at school was always favored in lieu of a call to our parents. Catholic doctrine had a firm grip on our young lives and followed us home as well. The grade school closed in 1962 and the building razed in 1966.

photo credit: Jerry Hoffman

For many of us, high school proved to be a pivotal point in our lives. Even more than college, it was where the stumbles of youth were corrected by the realities of our teenage years and finally solidified into the more mature footsteps that carried us through our collegiate and/or skill building future.

Reflecting back on that time period in Minnesota history and my own historical tracks, I realize now that attending Cretin High School back in the late 50’s and early 60’s was a unique learning experience. The idea of an all-boys military school seems strange today with the sensibilities bubbling up from younger generations. Back then, it was our reality and not far out of line with the general mood of the country and our parents.

photo credit: Jerry Hoffman

In retrospect, it was a turning point in the history of our country. The beginning of the end of that idyllic plain vanilla existence our parents loved so much and wanted us to emulate. The old neighborhood was morphing through all kinds of changes just as we were. It was end of Doris Day and her’ Doggie in the Window.’ It was Frank Sinatra and his version of cool slowly being drowned out by the heavy drumbeat and bass guitar of Rock and Roll. It was hot rods and tail fins and poodle skirts that only hinted of secrets underneath. The Cold War was inescapable but it hardly permeated our existence the same way Rock and Roll and the first warm feelings of affection for the opposite sex did.

Cretin High School was a different kind of school but those of us attending it really weren’t any different from our friends at other schools. We came from all walks of life but for the most part were solidly middle class. Back in the late fifties, Cretin’s tentacles spread out across the Twin Cities in one last grasp at prospects before newer Catholic High Schools in the suburbs started to pick from the litter.

Cretin was a molder of men, a change-maker, and a foundation upon which to build one’s own values, aspirations, judgements, and creative hunger. Like ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream,’ my rag-tag group of Cretin friends have scattered with the winds of time. There are only a couple of guys left that I’ve managed to string together with a loose fitting web of memories that we can cling to. It was the best of times…most of the time. Now in retrospect, it seems even better than that.

Following in my cousin’s footsteps, the College of Saint Thomas was the next step in educating myself. It started out normal enough with two years of learning then hit the preverbal bump in the road. Two losing quarters at the University of Minnesota prompted an invitation from the administration to take a break. Ever watchful, Uncle Sam welcomed me into the United States Army, sent me around the country and left me with the GI Bill to finish my college education back at St Thomas.

Then living abroad, starting a career in writing and television, and I was finally taking my first tentative steps toward a lifelong career in what I loved to do.

All my old classrooms have now disappeared into that dark, murky pool called fast-fading memories. Along with a few scattered classmates, all I have are some old photos and mind-pictures that keep morphing from vapid to vague. Thankfully, the lingering effects of hard work, focus and determination, long since hammered into my soft core brain, hasn’t gone away. Even if the classrooms have.

Back on Campus

It was one of those strange ‘ah-ha’ moments that crept into my brain as the speeches droned on amid the clinking of water glasses being refilled. Sharon and I were guests at a University of Southern California alumni funding raising event Down Valley at the Classic Club in Palm Desert.

Sharon and I with Jake

A good friend had invited us there to hear an outstanding young man named Jake Olson. Jake had been blind almost since birth. He gave a fascinating talk about his experiences growing up blind and his close affiliation with the USC football team. As Jake shared his inspirational story, it became a siren call for my mind, once more, to go wandering back in time.

The USC alumni event was similar to others I’ve attended like Notre Dame Parent events on campus, the Father-Daughter dance at the College of Saint Benedict and the St. Thomas Law School Parents Invitational. Collegiate alumni events usually follow a similar pattern of sharing school pride, loyalty, and hope for the future.

Therefore, of course, with my over-active mind already soaking in the sights and sounds and under-current of collegiate comments swirling all around me, I couldn’t help but go back in time when I was enmeshed in a collegiate experience of my own.

The realization came pretty quickly that I’d been ‘back on campus’ before. In fact, on four different occasions. Each one more radically different than the one that preceded it. Four different cauldrons of life experiences from which to draw up collegiate images from my past.

Unlike our children for whom Sharon and I insisted they have the full ‘collegiate experience,’ I never felt really comfortable around the campus quadrant. I was like a fish out of water; too hung up on getting good grades and paying for that opportunity. For one thing, I was always working. I still lived at home and there was never continuity to my existence there outside of the classroom.

St. Thomas 1961-63

My first campus venture was from 1961 through 1963 at the College of Saint Thomas. As documented in my novel ‘Love in the A Shau.’ St. Thomas was a private, all men’s Catholic college set in middle class Catholic tradition. Sports played a prominent role in campus life as did sorties to the All Women’s College down the road. For those who could afford to live on campus, it was the idyllic early sixties campus experience. A stroll through the campus parking lot reminded me that a lot of my classmates had well-to-do parents.

U of M 1963-64

My second collegiate experience doesn’t really count very much if at all. It was two brief quarters at the University of Minnesota, 1963 to 1964. I left a classroom of thirty students at St. Thomas to find myself squeezed into Northrup Auditorium with twenty-six hundred other ‘Intro to Psychology’ students.  I was lost on that sprawling campus even before I parked in one of their multiple parking lots and started wandering the crowded streets to find my classroom. To say it was a calamity even before it began would be a real understatement. Uncle Sam rescued me from that certain educational disaster and gave me a two-year reprieve.

St. Thomas 1966-67

A return to the St. Thomas campus in 1966, thanks to the GI Bill, proved a pleasant return to a more normal campus lifestyle. I was still living at home but now there was more time for campus events and Yearbook involvement. A lingering romantic entanglement made for pleasant distractions from work and studies. After that period of love and lust crashed and burned, I graduated and moved to Europe. College had been diced and sliced and chopped up into divergent life experiences but overall it was satisfying, gratifying and earned me a college degree. I was done with school or so I thought.

Writing ‘Love in the A Shau’ proved a cathartic return to campus one more time. While researching my storyline, I went back in time to capture the sights and sounds and visceral experiences of a freshman on campus. After my protagonist returns from military service, I tried to capture the emotional roller coaster he felt being once again back on campus.

It was for me an emotional and cathartic roller coaster return to what might have been. It was a chance for me to paint a picture of my hero (in truth, myself) back on campus and create events as I chose for my hero to experience. It was a chance to encapsulate all those pent up emotions I had back then and expose them for my readers and in turn, to purge them from my soul. It was painting an idyllic ‘Playboy Magazine’ image of campus life as seen in their glossy air-brushed versions of real campus life. In turn, it was fun, fulfilling, foolish, and quite satisfying if only in my imagination.

They were four different tours of campus life at four different times in my life. Each passage was radically different in their approach, their outcome and their reflective abilities to peak my imagination. Three have been captured in yearbook photos. The fourth in a storyline of my own making.

Retracing Cobblestone Steps

Many of the streets in downtown Saint Paul were made of cobblestone pavers long before the turn of the twentieth century. Gradually as the streetcars were discontinued and replaced by buses in the early 1950s, the streets were paved over and make smooth with asphalt.

This little known and totally inconsequential fact pricked a memory bubble in my mind not long ago. Those cobblestone pavers were some of the first that I stepped on as an infant. I was born and raised in Saint Paul and even though I now find myself in a third tier suburb out of the city, the memories are still there. I can go back and find connections all over the city. I’ve watched the curious and sometimes neglectful changes the city has gone through in mostly subtle but profound ways. Twin Cities Public Television captured it best in their ‘Lost Twin Cities’ documentary series.

I think where you grew up to a certain extent defines who you are and what you’ve become. It can be a reflection of your values, interests and affiliations. I have no problem being defined by my mid-western roots. And old Saint Paul isn’t a bad place to be from. While you can’t go back home again figuratively speaking you can revisit those times and places that impacted your life in many unnoticed and yet profound ways.

The first home I don’t remember was on Smith Avenue. It was a tired old duplex that never survived the demise of the Smith Avenue Playground and creation of United Hospital. Then there was a six-plex apartment near Irving Park. That structure also succumbed to the realignment of the neighborhood. Finally we created a real home on Randolph Avenue where I grew up.

For eight years, St. Louis Catholic grade school was a streetcar then bus ride to downtown Saint Paul. In the afternoon, my sister and I would park ourselves outside the the W.T. Grant Department store and wait for the Highland Park bus with ten cents in our pockets.

Our gang in the photo booth (photo by Jerry Hoffman)

Cretin Track & Field (photo by Jerry Hoffman)

Randolph & Hamline (photo by Jerry Hoffman)

Cretin High School was six blocks away from our home and a world apart from what I knew growing up. A paper route during those formative years got me up at 4:30 each morning and taught me the value of real work. Then the John Wood Steel factory just off of Como Avenue reinforced the need for more education to keep me out of that factory setting.

The College of St. Thomas was yet another world apart from the middle class world I grew up in. It was a hint of the future for those with a college education.

KTCA Television on Como Avenue wasn’t my first job. That first exposure to the work force was with the Minnesota Department of Public Health on the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus. Run down housing on University Avenue just south of Dinkytown was my first foray into independent living and away from the security of home.

The Annual Catholic Appeal in the Hill House on Summit Avenue was the draw that got me back from the east coast. Telstar Educational Corporation on Prior Avenue was the next step along the way. Then back to KTCA Television on Como Avenue and finally TPT relocated to Lowertown in St. Paul.

Then it was working in public television, running my own business and managing two apartment buildings on Portland Avenue that kept me in St. Paul for many more years to come. It finally culminated with my running the Twin Cities Marathon with my daughter and a move back to my home office in Apple Valley.

Now my daughter and her family have moved to Highland Park, just two blocks away from my old paper route. Funny how some things change and yet others remain the same.