Shut Up, O’Neill!

I saw a meme that asked the provocative question, if you could relive your high school days, would you? And all I could think of was, If I could poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick [again], would I?

The answer to the question is definitively no. Irrevocably no. Indubitably no. Unquestionably no and finally, f-

[Editor’s Note: STOP!]

OK, you get the message. High school for me was like riding a tricycle into a biker bar, and wondering why everyone there was giving me funny looks. I did not fall over on my trike; I maintained perfect balance and I was even wearing my helmet. Still, everyone made fun of me.

The kids at St. Martha’s, where I went from third through eighth grades, had accepted my idiosyncrasies without undue attention. Or maybe I had just developed them slowly over six years and no one even noticed them-who can tell? Not so at Bishop Amat, where I became acquainted with the new kid on the block, sarcasm. 

Maybe having three older brothers and three younger brothers made me more apt to seek out unwanted attention. I don’t know too much about that. It’s the theory I’m going with, anyway, but it didn’t really matter. Every time I opened my mouth, someone hollered out, “Shut up, O’Neill!”

On the first day of my freshman year, I was ready for action-ready for danger, with all my books, Pee-Chee folders, pens, pencils, protractor, slide rule, et al, safely ensconced in my locker.

When I arrived the following day-early-my locker was empty, ripped off by Angel Olmsby, who sat behind me in homeroom, after he watched me open my locker (probably a hundred times). The books had not been free; my wages at Sunrize Market had paid for them. But pay for them twice?

Mama was fit to be tied and marched down to Bishop Amat, looking for a scuffle. I never did pin down her strategy but in the end, she walked out of the front office with a satisfied expression on her face, and I was sent off to the book store.

There, that nice Mrs Kiefer, mother of none other than Msgr. Kiefer, hooked me up with a second set of books “on loan” for the year.  On-loan? Mama must have had her boxing gloves on to have pulled that off.

Angel and I had homeroom together, and at one point during the year had hatched a plan of action, designed to get both of us A’s on a Latin test. We had Latin first and second periods, respectively, and Father Barry used to have first period correct second period’s tests, and vice versa. 

Birthday card from my
sister, JT (class of '71)

So I scrambled when Father was distributing the tests to find who had Angel’s test, and did the correcting. Who could have imagined Angel pulling off a 94% on a Latin test? Or, for that matter, me getting a 92%?

Certainly not Father Barry, on either count. He smelled a rat when my test popped up on his radar, and he knew right where to look, when he got to Angel’s. See, we had to sign our name when we corrected the tests. What could possibly go wrong?

So what was I supposed to do about Angel, who told me flat out, on the last day of school, that he had ripped off my books? 

I smacked him right in his face, and stomped on his hand on my way out the door.

OK, that’s a lie; I just asked him why, whereupon he looked at me like I was a moron. “I sold them,” he said and walked out of the door. Angel did not return after his sophomore year. What was I supposed to have done? Turn him in?

For three years at Amat I tried to say nothing and be invisible, two impossible goals. My mouth received crystal clear instructions every day of my life, but my jaws flapped on anyway, incapable of anything resembling silence. My mouth was its own (and my) worst enemy. 

The only time my mouth ever listened to reason is the time John, Glen and I ended up sitting right behind Fathers Aiden, Barry and Luke at a Friday night football game. We were wasted, which probably explains why we were sitting behind them in the first place. 

I told myself, Don’t say a word. Don’t say a word. I kept it up until halftime, when we were able to gracefully escape. In retrospect, it has occurred to me that the good fathers were also imbibing, but that can’t be right. Sacred Heart fathers having a libation?

Perish the thought!

As it probably did for most of us, my senior year made up for the other three. I was working, I had loot and as long as I had a ride, I was allowed to go out on weekends when I did not have to work. My circle of friends had expanded mightily to maybe five now, and if not a rock star, at least I was no longer someone’s cat being kicked all over the place.

With our fifty-one year reunion on the horizon, it has occurred to me that there may be one or two graduates, who are just not all that certain there is any reason to go to this function. After all, if you were not a jock or a cheerleader or part of the Lancerettes, and if your memories include that sharp stick-in-the-eye kind of perspective, then why would you?

Squelch...

I can only speak for myself. I am not the same person now that I was in 1970. Then, a person could squash me like a Jerusalem beetle with a single word. I was fragile, unsure of myself and desperate to avoid the spotlight. I was tired of being told to shut up and I just wanted to get out of that place. Maybe you felt that way too.

But now? If nothing else, fifty-one years of battling life in the trenches has taught me that no one can rock my world without my consent. No one can take away the accomplishments of the last five decades. No one could ever make me question my own place in the cosmos again.

Ben, Annie, Lito, Casey

I spent forty years with the most beautiful woman I ever met, we brought three hard-working, community-minded sons into the world and I live on a farm on a ridge-top, off the grid. Sarcasm rolls off of me like sweat when I worked with a pitch fork.

I stopped wearing shoes when I turned sixty, and I probably don’t have to mention that I dress in a style I find comfortable. One of the [many] perks of aging is that you get to do what you want simply because you are an old fart. So I have had ample time to absorb folks’ amusement at my expense.

Ask me if I care and the answer is no. The Divine Bette Midler had a catchy expression to cover these situations: “F**k ‘em if they can’t take a joke.” If that sounds rude, I can only say that for all the years I taught and was raising my sons, I never let an f-bomb fly under any circumstances. Now, having let loose the dogs, I no longer make any effort to keep them at bay.

No, I would not miss this reunion of high school graduates for anything. Of course, with my normal bedtime being seven o’clock, I am going to have to work fast for that first hour, to get all of my ducks in a row. Oh yeah, I forgot. I don’t have ducks-I have squirrels, and they’re all over the place.

I’m going to round up as many as I can and take them with me to the reunion. You do the same and I’ll see you there.

Mohawks on the wide for me and my sons
May, 2020