Chair Farts and Book Reports

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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . bogus fart producer


"good times, bad times
.you know i had my share"
.(l. zeppelin)



GOOD TIMES: CHAIR FARTS

We had these old wooden desks at Saint Anthony's grade school. They were always slick and slippery if you had long pants, but a little sticky and not quite as comfortable for bare legs. Since the boys always wore trousers, the chairs were easy to slide in and out of. Unfortunately for the girls in their uniform dresses, that was not always the case.

This would occasionally lead to the humiliating, but very entertaining, "chair fart." The slightest wrong movement by one of the girls and her bare leg and the shiny chair would create the most realistic high-pitched fart sound ever. The sonic authenticity, in both tone and timbre, was frequently quite stunning.

But that was only the beginning. Because as the chair fart demanded in most adolescent social situations, the emitter if you will, was then required (or so they thought) to very carefully re-create the aural event with their leg and chair in order to disprove that they had actually farted - to shoot down the "Ha! Ha! You farted!" fingers pointing at them and even more importantly - to silence the subtly self-righteous snickers.

It always amazed me how many times the "guilty" party felt obligated to do this, or how the replications either completely failed, or simply led to a non-fart sound that disproved nothing and simply compounded the embarrassment. And yet the quest to re-create and "save face" more often than not did occur, even though everyone new that the noise in question really hadn't been the real deal.

I really liked this part of school.

For me, many a slow and boring school day was saved by the chair fart. Especially when the culprit was a really smart girl. Or one of the girls who laughed at my glasses, or joked about my big ears - or how skinny I was. Chair farts were in many ways "the great equalizer" - my chance to point at someone else for a change. And of course at the age of ten - regardless of the social implications - a good solid chair fart was just plain funny - basically high comedy. It didn't get much better.

Those were the good times.



BAD TIMES: BOOK REPORTS


Sister Gratian (AKA Sister Mary Bin-Laden), Radical Catholic Terrorist and Extremist (pictured just seconds before trading her ruler in for a yardstick and declaring jihad on my head)


. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . The Infidel (AKA Me)


In the 5th grade I got behind with some of my school work and so my teacher, Sister Gratian, grabbed a yardstick and, while staring right through me the whole time, walked very quickly toward the end of the row where I was seated. She stopped just a few feet from my desk where she immediately coiled up and turned sideways just a bit, and while still staring right at me, Sister Gratian unloaded with a full swing of her wooden stick. The blow landed upside my head just above my ear, knocking me halfway out of my seat and sending my eyeglasses flying up against the blackboard.

I didn't care for this part of grade school.

I frequently refer to these types of days as the "bad times."

I had fallen behind with my book reports, but was rapidly making progress on that fateful day. I had read three books and completed three reports on that one single morning. When it got close to lunch time Sister Gratian saw me talking to another student. She yelled at me to be quiet and reminded me that I was already way behind in my work. I simply said "I have three book reports done."

I think that she thought that I meant that I had done three all week, when in fact what I meant was that I had completed three already that morning - no small feat, and something that I was proud of.

To be honest I'm not sure what she thought I meant when I spoke, or whether she even cared. I think all she knew was that I had just commited the ultimate transgression (other than taking the Lord's name in vain of course): I had "talked back to her." For non-1960s Catholic school goers, that phrase roughly translates to "I defended myself" - a much verboten offense.

Whether my statement had been offensive or not was irrelevant, because I knew there was no defense for what was coming next. Sister Gratian was loaded for bear and armed to the teeth with a wooden yardstick (once again, for those who never attended Catholic schools in the mid-60s - the yardstick typically gives you a little more flexibility than the more rigid, knuckle smacking, standard 12 inch ruler).

I took what I had coming which was the flat side of the yardstick upside my head. Since it struck the top half of my head, the stick did not leave a mark on my skin (those smarty-pants nuns . . . they were *always* thinking).

The first thing that I remember doing is jumping up very quickly and retrieving my glasses. I think that I was hoping that she had broken them because I thought that they made me look stupid. But they weren't broken because I was on the basketball team and my mother and father had bought special pliable hard rubber frames (which partially explains why they made me look dumb). Of course, if they had been broken, I would never have been able to keep my secret from my mother and father. That secret being: that I had gotten in trouble at school. So I guess in a certain respect I was grateful that the glasses survived.

I remember one of the lenses did pop out and settle along the wall underneath the chalkboard. For some reason I also recall that a classmate named Larry Clune picked up the lens, popped it back in the frame, and quickly handed the glasses back to me. I think that I remember this because Larry and I didn't hang out much and I was surprised that he had been so nice and done that. I may be attaching too much significance to Larry's actions, but it's pretty fascinating how a good solid whack to the head from someone you're supposed to trust will have you seeing allies, or simply kindness, in the most unlikely faces.

. .. . . . . . . (Larry Clune, lens repairman (8th grade photo))

The last thing I recall is that the classroom became very still and quiet, except for Sister Gratian making this barely audible, grouchy, mumbling sound like she frequently did when she was agitated. Then she immediately took out her always handy handkerchief, lifted up the top front edge of her habit just slightly, and started wiping the sweat from her forehead.

Over four decades later I find myself thinking quite often about that incident. Oddly enough I think less and less about being attacked. What I think about now is what kind of living environment would cause a 10-year-old boy to be more fearful of telling his parents that he had been assaulted, then facing, and being placed in the "care" of his attacker, the next day, and many days after that.

And trust me - not telling my parents what had happened was a very wise decision, because in my formative years, when it was me versus authority - authority *always* won (my apologies for straying perilously close to a John Mellencamp lyric - it won't happen again). I was guilty until proven innocent no matter how much those two judges on the stand resembled my parents. I never could figure out that system of justice and it's only gotten more difficult to understand now that I am a parent.

But the bigger question for me was this: when you're 10-years-old isn't your home supposed to be a safe haven? And isn't that the foundation, or at least a prerequisite, for many other subsequent needs? I would think so. And as Sister Gratian had handily demonstrated with one swing of a stick - a swing that carried no consequences or accountability - the outside world sure wasn't going to provide much for me in the way of alternative sources of safety and security.

I suppose I should be grateful that the priests kept their distance because there's no doubt in my mind that I would have been ripe for picking. What choice would I have had? Who would I have turned to? Authority was always right.

Maybe my ultra-skinny frame, big ears, and dork glasses actually kept the priests at bay. Maybe the things that I hated most about my appearance were actually a blessing in disguise. And here all these years I had assumed the priests left me alone because they were already in committed relationships with other boys. Although I must admit, that theory isn't holding up too well as recent news seems to make it fairly clear that most priests preferred to "play the field."

My parents did find out a couple of weeks later about the yardstick incident when my mother went to talk to Sister Gratian about my grades. Oddly enough she always thought that it was "funny" that Sister Gratian, who assumed that my mother had requested the meeting to discuss what had happened that day, immediately blurted out as my mother was sitting down: "I didn't hit him *that* hard!"

How could that possibly be considered "funny" when said in reference to your child? "I didn't hit him *that* hard." What context could move that phrase into the classification of "humor?"

I never discussed the incident with my father, but in retrospect I would very much like to ask him: "Why didn't you do anything after that person attacked me when I was 10-years-old?"

All of this puzzles me even more now that I am a parent.

Had my son been assaulted with a yardstick at school, my first action would have been to lock his enraged mother in the garage so that she wouldn't race over to the school and kill the teacher. Once I had secured and tethered her with rope to some type of beam or post, and instructed my son to continue wiping the foaming froth from her mouth, I suspect that I would have proceeded to the school, walked into the classroom, and confronted the teacher with a series of bitch slaps about the head. And for every time he or she cried out, I would have reminded them "NO TALKING IN CLASS!" and cracked them another good one.

OK - so my response would not have been that excessive, but I hope that I've made my point. Besides, if I had responded in that manner, all that it probably would have gotten me - other than considerable satisfaction - is a little cell in "the big house," and that would have left only one parent to watch my son's back.

But trust me - that beats having neither.


PRETENTIOUS EPILOGUE: So I suppose in the end you take both the bad times and the good and you don't ask any questions. Or more accurately - you ask them but you don't expect many answers. And relative to the childhoods experienced by others, trust me - I know fully well that I came out ahead of the game. And if on some days it just so happens that I don't quite believe that, I just factor in the memory of the really snooty girl who got straight A's ripping off an especially choice and embarrassing "chair fart" and things even up pretty quickly.


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