CONFESSIONS OF AN OVER THE WALL GRATEFUL RECOVERING CATHOLIC

First Communion, Confirmation, parochial grade school & high school--the whole mackerel snapper smear. I was brought up in a working class family where the church was the center of our little community.

My mother was a pretty good singer & got jobs singing at church weddings. My uncle called bingo in the parish hall, the height of catholic experience. I went to grade school run by the Sisters of Perpetual Punishment. They were quick to rap you on the knuckles with a ruler

They seemed very concerned the boys would see what was under the girl's skirts by watching the reflection in patent leather shoes. I looked but no luck. They also seemed concerned blacks were pushing whites off the sidewalk during Reconstruction.

I went to Catechism class to hear the bread wafer & wine became the body & blood of christ, which sounded like cannibalism, & god was 3 parts (the trinity), & christ died for our sins. After awhile this became blah-blah-blah background noise to me.

My uncle was an usher. I helped him pull people who had feinted out of church, which they did a lot in those days. Today they'd call an ambulance. Then it was smelling salts & good to go.

In high school, they had a hazing of freshmen. The boys were forced to dress & act like girls. I was disgusted.

The priests all seemed like apparatchniks from a hostile foreign power. Finally I found one I liked. He came into catechism class one day & said, "Good Morning, All you bitches & bastards." I was thrilled. Unfortunately he left the church a few months later & got married.

I became enamored by books. My father had a 6th grade education & became threatened by my growing intellect. He forced me to give up my library card. I snuck back 6 times.

I liked Thoreau & Emerson. On Sunday morning I would sneak out of the church & walk in nature in the nearby mountains.

I got in fights with the local bully boys who resented my rebellion . Some of them I won. Finally the school kicked me out for preaching atheism & socialism in the halls (they called it communism).

I escaped to Greenwich Village, which was very exciting in the 50"s & 60"s