Wandering around my hometown of Bloomfield, NJ, my son John and I found ourselves with time to kill. We cruised by my old grammar school and I impulsively slowed down. “Let’s stop and see if someone will show us around,” I proposed. “I’m sure they remember me. It’s only been 41 years.”
From the outside, St. Thomas The Apostle School has not changed much since it was built in the 1940’s and certainly not since I attended school there in the 1960’s. Inside, we appropriately found ourselves in the principal’s office explaining that I was an alum and was hoping to get a tour of the school. The secretary left us alone as she looked for someone with more authority.
So here I was in the principal’s office half expecting the voice of my old stern principal Sr. Adrian to call out “Mr. Carroll – what brings you to my office today? Please sign the book.”
I glanced around the small office for “the black book,” a register of shame that visitors to the office signed. I later learned that the book had been retired many years before but a signature in the book guaranteed detention.
Instead of Sister Adrian, we were introduced to friendly Sister Joan, who had been doing God’s work as a teacher there since 1974. While I had graduated 8th grade four years before her arrival, she knew my name well. It wasn’t my reputation as a scholar or athlete at the school though – it was my mother whom she came to know over the years.
The first sign that I was getting old – make that really old – was that all of our teachers from the 1960’s were gone. Some quick math convinced me that Sr. Jean Jose would be 113 years old if she were still there. I was able to compute that in my head because Sr. Jean Jose whacked my knuckles with an old ruler to help improve my math skills. She would be proud that I learned my times tables and that my knuckles healed that summer.
As we walked up the narrow staircases I realized how familiar the school was – especially the top floor. Grades 6-8 were housed there and the little kids rarely ventured up there. There was one key exception called detention.
The assistant principal and chief enforcer was Sister Agnes, the 8th grade teacher. She held detention for those lucky enough to sign the black book that week. It was an intimidating experience for 3rd graders who sat alongside grizzled 8th graders in desks where their feet didn’t even touch the floor.
I would imagine that detention was about 45 minutes long but it seemed like hours. The only sound was the rustle of Sr. Agnes’ habit and rosaries as she walked around the room. The windows were opened wide to let in the sound of cheerful, law-abiding Catholic children playing outside.
Sister Agnes and I got to know each other well when she became my 8th grade teacher. We came to an understanding that I would be a compliant young man and she would not invite me to her weekly detention club. It worked.
I apologized to my son that there were no plaques honoring my accomplishments of eight years at STAS. But somewhere, in a musty old box in the storeroom, is a black book and oh the stories it could tell.
