Am I Allowed to Eat During Mass?, The Final Installment

Christmas time always provided a bit of entertainment in our Catholic kindergarten.  The halls of the school were decorated with all kinds of Christian imagery, and few December days went by without special candies or other treats being made available to our class.  I became quite adept at stuffing extra food into my pockets, and I even learned what the “melting half-life” of the various treats were, such that I rarely left any food stuck to the inside pockets of my trousers.  If there was anything that angered me as a Kindergartener, it was losing food to the inside of my pants.  I had worked hard for those candies, and I wasn’t leaving anything stuck to the inside of my pocket.  It would be eaten, fuzzy or not.

When it came time for our school Christmas play, I was selected to play Joseph, husband to Mary and father to Jesus.  At the time, I thought this was a great honor.  I got to stand in the stable during the entire production, looking a little bit useless and dazed (not a far cry from the real Joseph, I would guess).  I remember being excited by my father’s presence in the crowd that afternoon.  I stood there; crook in hand, proud to have been cast in such an important role.  Little did I know that in reality, it was Joseph’s exclusion from the process that made the whole Christmas story a special one.  As my dad told the story later, he noted that Mrs. Moran had selected the closest thing she could find to a Jew to play Joseph in our Catholic class – pudgy, Protestant Bret.  Such is the plight of my people.

Another Catholic tradition that bewildered me as a child was Ash Wednesday.  We would all trudge over to the church, praying silently for a short service and an extra donut, only to be herded into line to be smudged.  The hope was always that the priest would give you a little extra ash; enough to leave little black smudges on the walls, desks, and carpets of the classroom upon returning. 

After Kindergarten each morning, I walked with my friend Jonathon to a house across the street from the school.  There was an hour or so gap between the end of my school day at my father’s ability to retrieve me; therefore, I stayed with Jonathon at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Head.  The front room of the Head house was dimly lit and contained walls full of books.  Jonathon and I occupied ourselves by watching TV and reading most days; although--occasionally--we would venture out into the backyard.  I remember very little about the Heads as people, other than that they seemed old.

Jonathon was normally picked up by his parents shortly after me, on most days.  But on one occasion, I can remember Jonathon being picked up before my dad arrived.  Normally this wouldn’t pose any sort of problem, but I had recently seen a film on television where a mother left several of her kids to fend for themselves in a shopping mall parking lot.  The kids went on to raise themselves for a while before they were forced into foster care.  In my mind, a foster family was a cruel, decidedly evil family which sort of rented unwanted kids so that they could perform experiments on them or force them to eat only roots.

With this scenario in mind, shortly after Jonathon left for the afternoon, I began contemplating my fate.  Where was my father?  Had he decided that he was through sharing his cookies with his kid and his ever expanding appetite?  Had the inconvenience of continually dropping me off and picking me up at the Catholic school finally become too much?  I was terrified.  I went outside with Mrs. Head to help her hang clothes from a line in the backyard, and I thought to myself, “I guess I could make it here.”  I also wondered if I could run all the way home.  In reality, it wasn’t that far, and I had a knack for cartography, so I could probably have made it.  The minutes drifted by, and terror further clouded my mind.  I was convinced.  They had left me.  I played back through recent weeks.  Was it because I threw up my dinner after I ate until I nearly burst?  Had I “back talked” one too many times (“back talking” was one of the seven deadly sins in our house)?  Mrs. Head was nice enough, but she was so old, and the house was so dark.  I longed for my old home and parents.  I would be better.  I wouldn’t throw up any more.  I wouldn’t even sneeze.  I’d go to bed by 8:29.

As my delusions reached a level of unprecedented panic, my father arrived.  I was relieved.  I think I was probably even crying by the time he rolled in.  He told me later that he’d only been about an hour late, but an hour to a five year old feels like days.  It’s funny that such a seemingly small experience can be so terrifying at the time that you can still remember it vividly almost 30 years later.