|  Years later, despite my protestations, my parents demanded I also attend the
local Catholic high school. Sister Marys are few and far between in the
world of nuns, and I dreaded four more years of a system that rewarded conformity
and stifled creativity.
Not that I was so creative. Even the Catholics can’t be blamed
for inhibiting in a boy something that never existed. If I described
my teenage self, considering all aspects of life at a parochial school in a
small, midwestern town, the term that would come up more than any other would
be “average.” Hey, considering all aspects, that’s
not bad. For years, my father hammered into my head my mediocrity and
utter lack of promise. Less direct than he but no less judgmental, the
Catholics relied on the church’s concepts universally applicable to all
young boys such as insignificant, unworthy and undeserving. Given that,
you can see I had a big hill to climb just to get to “average.”
Looking
back, I suppose my Catholic high school was not so different from Champion’s
public school. We had a group that typically got good grades, participated
in student government and were seen at all school functions. The jocks
were right under them on the social ladder, and sometimes, there was leakage
between the two groups. Occasionally, a jock was pretty enough to pass
as intelligent and get bumped up a rung, and now and then, a student government
geek made the swim or track team.
My group hung out in the parking lot,
smoked cigarettes, shot the shit and fooled around. Not too different
from elementary, for me, high school went along day-to-day, while I walked
the razor’s edge between war and
peace at home. Around school, my homeroom class was like the animal house. Irreverent
and intolerant, my buddies and I were scornful of authority, and nobody on
the faculty wanted to deal with us. When we were spoken of, it was in
conjunction with deep sighs and resignation to the unpleasant reality that
every school had “that element.”
All that was a long time
ago. Another time and another place. Now
and then, I receive invitations to attend high school reunions in Champion,
Ohio, and though I frequently long for that simpler time, I never reply.
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