I wasn’t sure what to make of the figure.  I had never seen anything like it before.  My heart was beating so hard I feared the figure might hear it.  I clung tightly to Mum’s hand and shrunk back behind her as the figure came toward us.  “What kind of place is this?” I shuddered silently.

Mum had told me that we were going to register me to begin school in the fall.  She said I might meet my new teacher.  I had never been inside a school before, and knew not at all what to expect.  But never in my wildest dreams had I anticipated that the school was a place where such creatures as that one live.

I stared at “it” with an incredulous fear; it was tall, taller than my mother - taller even, I thought, than my father.  It was black from what looked like might be the head, all the way down to the ground, except for an open square which revealed a face, and two openings, one on each side from which protruded two hands.  The square face was bordered on the top by a very rigid, hard white vinyl cover over the area that should be the forehead.  And from the chin hung a border that was large and round and also hard white vinyl, covering the whole chest area.

I hoped that they kept these creatures restrained somewhere; surely this was one the likes of which I had never seen and hoped would not have to see often when I came to attend this school. And I wondered what this apparition had to do with registering for kindergarten.

“What is your name?” the figure said, obviously to me.

I wanted to run, but I was paralyzed halfway behind my mother.  I tried to open my mouth, but nothing came out, my mouth was paralyzed too.  Only my heart wasn’t paralyzed.  And it was beating so rapidly now that I feared I might faint.

 “Tell me, what is your name?!” the figure repeated.

My mother was somewhat annoyed at my uncooperative silence, and she said, “Well go on now, tell the teacher your name.”

“The teacher?!?” my mind screamed in disbelief as my head whirled in confusion and panic.  “The creature is going to be my …….teacher?!?!?!”

 I didn’t understand why they were doing this to me.  Warren never planted in my mind such a picture of his teacher.  He’d been in school a whole year now, and he never let on that teachers wore Halloween costumes to school.  But Warren went to a different school, one that I wasn’t allowed to go to.  I had asked why, but I didn’t understand their answers.  All I knew was that Warren went to First Grammar and I had to go to Saint Francis.  Maybe it was because I was so bad, always so bad like Dad so often said. He told me that if I didn’t become good, they might send me to a reform school that had a moat around it with alligators in the moat — so that you could never run away.  Maybe bad kids had to have these special teachers.  But why did they have to wear their Halloween costume?  It’s the middle of summer.  Maybe to scare us, because bad kids need to be scared.  I truly didn’t think I was more “bad” than Warren.  But I did know I was very bad.  That’s what I was told daily.
 
“Paula, we’re going to go inside the school and the teacher is going to talk to you.  I want you to behave now, and show her how smart you are.  I want you to recite the alphabet for her and show her that you know your numbers too.  Ok?”

It was like those bad dreams I so often had at night.  I’d wake up with my whole body shaking.  I never remembered the dreams.  And I didn’t try, I just wanted to forget them.  This time I was having a bad dream with my eyes open.  Mum tugged me in the direction of the massive school building.  It had three stories, with a long porch the on the entire length of each floor.  As I turned toward the school, I froze.  There were two more of the creatures up on the porches.  I guessed now that this was a whole school of these creatures.  Mum was tugging and I was moving sort of in a daze.  It was one of those dreams.  It must be.  I’ll wake up with my whole body shaking and then I’ll forget about it.
 
We entered a large classroom and the “teacher” told me to sit down.  By now I realized that the creature was female.  At least it spoke with a woman’s voice.  She told me she wanted to talk with me for a little while. Mum pulled her hand away and I looked at her in panic.  I blurted out so quietly that my voice was almost inaudible, “Mum please don’t close the door and please stay next to me.”  The teacher said that she must talk to me alone, and motioned Mum to leave.  A little louder, I begged Mum not to leave me alone, and especially not to shut the door.  The creature went to the door with Mum, and whispered something to her.  Then she turned back to the room and closed the door.  I don’t remember anything else.  I don’t remember anything more until the first day of school.

Mum walked to school with me that first day.  We entered the schoolyard which was teeming with boys and girls.  Everyone had a new schoolbag, and I did too. I wasn’t sure yet what it was for, but I loved the smell of it. It smelled like my dolls.

 A loud bell rang, and all the boys and girls stopped still in their tracks.  Then another loud bell pealed, and everyone walked toward his perspective line.  Mum took me to my line, and told me just to do what the other kids do.  We waited for a short while, then a third bell sounded and we marched into the school in total silence. My place was at the back of the second row on the girls’ side.  At the back, because I was so tall.  I was still only four years old, and hadn’t passed the cut-off date for turning five which was what made one eligible to enter kindergarten, but Mum had insisted that I begin school this fall anyway, because even at four years old, I was taller than the five-year-olds. Taller and bigger.  Mum thought I’d develop a complex if I waited another year to enter kindergarten.  After all, if I was taller than the five-year-olds now, how much taller and bigger than next year’s five-year-olds would I be if I waited for the children of my own age?  Much better, Mum thought, to go in with kids older than me.  I wouldn’t stick out quite so much.

The creature rang a small bell which always sat on her desk.  The children rose.  She rang the bell again, and everyone kneeled on the shiny hardwood floor.  She said that we were now going to pray.  So I sat back on my heels, folded my hands, and closed my eyes.  Someone nudged me.  I opened my eyes.  The creature was saying something, and everyone in the class was looking at me.  I became paralyzed again.  I didn’t understand what was happening.

“You there in the back, kneel straight!”

I looked around, not having a clue what was going on.  “You there, in the back, I told you to kneel straight!  Now kneel straight!” she insisted, her voice rising.  Why was everyone looking at me?  I tried to spot someone who wasn’t
kneeling, but everyone seemed to be poised for prayer.  A girl whispered, “She’s talking to you!”  I just looked at her.  I couldn’t figure out what the teacher wanted me to do.  I was kneeling, like I always do when I say my prayers at home.

The girl near me said, “You’re sitting back on your heels.  Kneel up straight!”

Kneel up straight?  But this was the way I had said my prayers for as long as I could remember. But I didn’t take the time to sort it out in my mind,  I shot up straight.  I fought the tears, and forbad them from falling. Then the teacher said something I didn’t understand, in an irritated tone of voice. Then she began the chant of morning prayers, and the class joined in unison, kneeling up straight which was the new way one must pray, I guessed.

After the prayers, the teacher rang the desk-bell and everyone stood up.  We pledged allegiance to the American flag, sang a religious song, then she rang the bell again and everyone sat down.  One boy was rubbing his ears.  The teacher told him to take his hands away from his ears.  A short time later, he was rubbing his ears again.  The teacher now told him in a voice tinged with sarcasm that he was not a baby anymore, he was in school now, and that he must no longer rub his ears.  “And, when I speak to you, you are to answer, ‘Yes Mother.’”  He whispered the proper response, and I could see a look in his eyes that I would come to know so very well -the look of terror.  The next day I noticed the same boy rubbing his ears again.  The teacher had noticed too.  She came over with a roll of tape, and taped his ears to his skull.  She told him he would have to wear the tape all week, or until he learned not to tug at his ears.  His eyes filled with tears, but he didn’t dare to cry, at least not out loud.  He wore the tape all that week.

I sat in my seat and didn’t move, from fright.  I was petrified that I would be caught breaking one of the creature’s rules.  I sat so still that I started to loose feeling in my arm which was folded up on the desk in the “proper” way, but I didn’t dare to reposition my arm.  I didn’t dare to move at all.  I kept my whole body rigid lest I forget and be found not sitting properly.  Lest that creature turn in fury on me.

We were duly told the rules.  One of the most important ones was that the side of the schoolyard between the building and the sidewalk was the girls’ side, and the yard on the farther side, after the sidewalk, was the boys’ side.  Woe to any boy caught on the girls’ side, or girl caught on the boys’ side! That was fine with me.  I didn’t play at recess, because the other children didn’t invite me and were just generally unfriendly and I was way too timid to assert myself.  I didn’t mind though.  I went over to where my “line” would be forming when the bell rang, and secured for myself a sure place in “the line.”  I felt safer being there ahead of time.  What, oh what might happen if I were to forget about that sidewalk, and inadvertently let a foot cross over to the forbidden side?

The creatures’ eyes seemed to be everywhere, and not a thing went unnoticed.  I wasn’t sufficiently familiar yet with all the rules, so the only safe place to my thinking, was to stand where the queue was going to be.  The loud bell rang, and everyone stopped in their tracks.  We were told that if we happened to be bent over when the bell rang, that we were to stay in that bent over position, or in whatever position we were found when the bell sounded.  Then the second bell rang and everyone straightened themselves and stood at attention. The third bell rang, and we all walked silently to our queue.  A wiry girl with dark hair and glasses pushed me aside and said, “I get to be first in line.”  I didn’t answer her, because I sensed early that it was of utmost importance not to bring attention to myself.  So I moved to second place, but was pushed out of that place too.  I walked in the procession up the stairs with anger and hatred raging in my heart.  But I knew to remain silent.

The teacher rang her desk-bell and everyone stood at silent attention next to his desk.  She rang it the second time, and we all kneeled next to our desk.  Then she began the chant of afternoon prayers.  By the third prayer, my knees ached and I felt lightheaded.  But I didn’t move.  When she finally rang the third bell I arose slowly, because my legs were stiff and my knees were red from the hard floor.  She then rang the final bell and we all sat down.

Shortly afterward, there was a knock on the door.  The boy who sat nearest  the door was responsible to rise and open the door whenever someone knocked.  He did so, and two teachers entered.  The class stood to attention.  We were then told to sit, and the two teachers brought into the class a boy dressed in an ugly dress.  He didn’t make a sound, but tears were streaming down his face.

“Class, this boy was found on the girls’ side in the  schoolyard,” the older teacher said.  “This little sissy wanted to be with the girls, so we’re going to treat him like a little girl now.  Everyone take a real good look at this little sissy.  If any of you boys want to play on the girls’ side, this is what we do to little sissies.  We’ll dress them like the girls, and treat them like the girls.  Now class, what do you think of little Sissie?  Come on, what do you think, isn’t he pathetic?  Laugh at him!”  The class started laughing and jeering, and the two teachers took the broken little boy to the next class, to be made an example of.  They eventually took him before all the classes in the school.  I felt a strange fierceness coming from the older teacher.  It was obvious to me that she was thoroughly enjoying this sport.  I hated her.  Then I stiffened in my chair.  Maybe someone would see the horror in my eyes, or detect the hatred in my heart.  I folded my hands and offered a forced laugh, so that I would appear to laugh like the others.  But something happened in my heart that I would never even know had happened until many, many years would pass.

There were many incidents that I was to witness during my education at Saint Francis de Sales.  But we were told that the nuns were the “Bride of Christ,” (therefore beyond reproach,) and they even wore a gold band on their fourth finger to witness that they were “wedded to Christ.”  They had left all the pleasures of the sinful world, we were told, to dedicate themselves to the vows they had taken when they had wedded Christ.  They had taken three vows, the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  Poverty, we were told, meant that they did not own anything that they had, it all belonged to the order.  In fact, when they took their final vows, they had to bring a dowry from their father which would go toward the expense they would cause the order.  Thereafter, if anyone were ever to give any of them a personal gift, the gift had to be presented to the Mother Superior, who would then decide how to dispose of it.  The second vow, the vow of chastity, was explained as their acceptance of a totally chaste life.  In my younger years of course, I didn’t understand what “chaste” was.  However later on when we were old enough to go to confession, it was explained to us that “chastity” meant the total denial of all sexuality, including thoughts and desires.  We were repeatedly warned that when we bathed we were to be especially careful not to touch ourselves in “impure” places lest we might cause an impure thought or desire to be aroused.  In fact, we were told, we were not even to scratch if we should itch in an “impure” place.  We would be hearing a lot about these things before we left the loving care of the nuns.

The third vow, obedience, meant that the Mother Superior was the highest authority in the convent, and that they had pledged to obey her implicitly, as well as to obey all the rules of God, the Church, and the order which they belonged to.  They were not allowed to leave the convent.  If a teacher had need of something, such as materials for the classroom, she would summons one of the children and tell her to go into town and purchase the things for her.  Many a mother was called upon to do “errands” for the hostage nuns, and most tried to avoid that even at the cost of a hastily made-up “excuse,” because all knew that when the nuns found a willing means of transportation, that poor mother would thereafter never cease to be called upon to do the bidding of these poor holy creatures who had to stay within the confines of the convent. We were also told that if any of us had a “calling” to become a nun, and did not heed that calling, we would be relegated to a life of misery because only in one’s calling can one be happy. Eventually I was persuaded that I must desire to become a nun. Like these creatures.

I was still four years old.

My father was a complicated man. He was the product of some severe disappointments and humiliations in life. As a boy of 10, he left home to spend a year in a convent school in Canada, a year away subsidized by the church, to take the financial burden off from his parents who were finding it challenging to raise 5 children on a sparse income.

While at St. Come, it was Dad’s turn one day to bring laundry up to the top floor of the building. On the way, he passed a boy who was sliding down the railing from one floor to another, and Dad told him he really shouldn’t be doing that because if he fell, he’d never survive it. The boy chuckled and continued on. Lo and behold, he DID fall. He was in a coma for weeks, and Dad was accused of pushing him.

This was an experience with a kind of emotional tearing that would follow Dad around for the rest of his life, a messenger of Satan, if  you will, which would hound him again and again and again as long as he lived.

The accusation and the humiliation - for one thing, the old French nuns loved using humiliation to keep kids in tow — just about did him in and he ran away from the school. He was caught, of course, and returned to the school - to find out that the boy who fell was coming out of the coma. Only then was the truth to come out — “no, of course Von didn’t push me, in fact he tried to persuade me to stop.” And Von was exonerated, but only after the wound to his soul, the accusation of attempted murder - had left its damage.

Years later, while still in high school, Dad suffered a perforated ulcer, for which he was operated on by a doctor who had never performed this operation before. Remembering that this was in the 1930’s, it’s remarkable that he survived the ordeal. Afterward, however, he never recovered full health in his stomach, but had to avoid many foods that would leave him in discomfort if he even tasted them.

That wasn’t, however, the worst of it. In the 1940’s World War II broke out and most of the boys from Waterville and Winslow went to war. His friends went. His three brothers went. But the military rejected him because of the scar on his abdomen showing he had had an ulcer. Crushed and humiliated, he contacted all branches of the armed services trying to get into the war. He even tried to get into the coast guard, but they all rejected him. Finally, he wrote to the president of the United States, telling him of his sincere desire to take his place among all the other boys and fight for our country. The president did answer the letter, sending his regrets.

Dad was crushed. He was mortified. He wouldn’t go out publicly, not wanting to be seen on the streets while all the other guys were overseas. He went to work, but aside from that he stayed home inside.

Dad was a very religious man, and developed a close friendship with the priest in his parish. Oftentimes he’d spend a weekend at camp, or go hunting or fishing with him. One day -this was well past the end of the war -father Frawley told Dad that he was going on a trip to Japan, and would he like to come? What a question - travelling would always be the thing Dad liked most in life. He spent a lot of time preparing, and when the time came, he was in a state of near mania, so overjoyed was he. That lasted until the night before the trip. Father Frawley called Dad and told him the trip was off. I never understood why that happened, but I understood the depth of disappointment that took over my father, another wound that went deeply, as though he had been the victim of a cruel hoax. He called it “the Maillet luck,” trying to brush it off, but no one who knew him doubted the depth of the disappointment -on the night before no less!

The next major wound in Dad’s life was the news that his mother had cancer. She was only in her 50’s. Again, this was back before medical science could do much about it. In absolute desparation, Dad begged God not to take his mother. He did novenas, Catholic ritual prayers for a specific favor, he did all he knew to do, but his beloved mother died, and not only died, but had a horrible death after months of terrible pain. At this point in his life, Dad considered dumping God. To say he was devastated is to greatly underestimate the state he was in.

All of these things contributed to a negative attitude which would stay with him for the rest of his life. He forgave God, because he ultimately believed in the integrity of God and the foolishness of finding fault with a God who has told us that His ways are beyond our understanding. But Dad was crippled by these heavy disappointments in life. These disappointments seemed to be the pattern of life for him, and they left him with a deeply ingrained fear that would rule him throughout adulthood. One day I was visiting with him and I asked where my mother was. He said with an air of disapproval that she was out shopping. I asked why that bothered him and he said, “She always wants to go out. She should stay home. That way, nothing would happen.”

I didn’t see the vulnerability in Dad until not long before he died. He had been a hard man. A man filled with fear covered over with a feigned macho-ness designed to convince anyone and everyone that he was what he actually wasn’t.  He was a man filled with rage toward anyone who wouldn’t allow him to control them. The Lord himself showed me many years later that a “spirit of control” comes into a person through severe pain or trauma, especially when the trauma comes in childhood and the child has not developed skills to deal with overwhelming pain. Often what happens inside is the development of a conviction that they absolutely must be in control of everything “so nothing will happen.” This is all on the subconscious level of course, and something that just so takes over the personality that it becomes part of them, and a personality flaw that never leaves them, all the way into old age. I would learn this later on, in another setting, with another person whose “spirit of control” came against me in a very powerful way, but when given insight into it, it made all the difference in the world in my attitude toward that person, and led me finally into the ability to forgive my father for the hardness and cruelty with which he treated me until his final sickness.