A Boomers Fascination With Failure - The Numbers Four, Five, and Six 

Okay I will admit it, I have a fascination with failure, at least when it comes to my early life.  My reminiscences tend to focus around the two most difficult years, bar none, of my life.  That would be fourth grade with Mrs. R. Reid, and sixth grade with a more likable Sister Margaret Jean.   Those of you who have read my book are aware of the major circumstances about those two seminal years in my youth.  For the rest of you, keep reading, you will catch on soon enough. 

I was never a good student, I had my own agenda and very seldom did it coincide with agenda of my teachers.  My mind was sluggish when it came to dealing with numbers.  The new math was a mystery my brain was incapable of grasping and the frustration I felt quickly emptied any enthusiasm I had for school work.  My thought was, if you can't do it, then don't do it.  This attitude made my life harder than it needed to be.  

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with was how I was treated by my peers.  I could never understand why I treated so poorly by peers.  I felt I was a good person.  I liked to have fun and wanted so badly to have friends in the quantity that some others did.  But by the fourth grade that was something that could not happen because I became terminally shy.  Fourth grade was the year when I crashed and burned and the time of my life when I was most despondent.  I felt alone, hurt, and completely humbled by my surroundings.  This was the worst year because Mrs. R. Reid sent signals as to who were the weak ones in the herd and thus fair game to be culled from the herd.  I was laughed at, teased, and mentally bullied that year.  I was spared from physical bullying because my best friend at the time was Dennis and he liked nothing better than a good fight so physically I was left alone. 

The sixth grade was another hard year for me, but it was also a year that I look back at very fondly because remembering the lessons of fifth grade, namely, Miss Powaga taught us in many ways that year that we were all important, we were all very special people.  I find it funny that none of the nuns I had ever preached that lesson.  So, in sixth grade I had become an expert at keeping a low profile but it did little to help me in relations with the other children.  I was not Michael or as my family knew me Mickey, I was "Spoula" as if one half my identity had been stripped away from me.  I always thought of myself as Michael and that is what I prefer people call me today, not Mike but Michael. I think that the name Michael has a certain dignity that I want to be associated with. Now there is the exception of course of my family and my two childhood friends (Big Jim and Dennis), they have the irrevocable right to call me "Mickey." 

In one chapter of  my book "Glimpses of God" I describe the story of Michael the prisoner who spent many lunch hours standing detention in the hall of St. Joseph and St. Anne's School watching for any sign of life in the statue of Mary at the end of the hall.  It all started of course when I stood up for myself against Sister Margaret Jean when she once again picked her pets for key roles in her stupid class play.  To her my insubordination were like the events at Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Maine, and the sacking of Washington D.C. all rolled up into one.  She could not let me get away with telling her in front of the whole class that I didn't want to be in her play because she picked the usual class pets for the cool speaking roles one of which I lusted for. Thankfully for her the demerit system was in place to deal with insubordinate people like me. Over the next semester she piled demerit atop demerits and I was sentenced to week after week of detention during lunch play time.  I served five weeks detention one semester and accumulated fifteen demerits from the prolific pen of Sister Margaret Jean.  One of those weeks was justified by my conduct, the other four were not.  


I have come to a conclusion about this time in my life.  While it is true that this was the very first time I stood up for myself for something that I dearly wanted and it is true that it helped start me on the road to recovery, it also fulfilled another less noble purpose.  When I was standing alone in that hallway watching the statue of Mary for signs of life, I was safe from playground taunts and bullying, it was a way to achieve some much needed peace in my troubled life because I was not a boy who enjoyed fighting.  When and if I rewrite my autobiography I will include this in the chapter on grade six. 

One funny thing about this is that while even today when I think about Mrs. R. Reid I get angry at what she did.  Her methods at least in my case were hurtful and personally harmful.    

On the other hand I think only good thoughts about Sister Margaret Jean.  As a person I liked her then and I like her now.  I bore her no ill will and even in my tiny little sixth grader brain box I realized we were both just doing what we needed to do, it was business and nothing personal.

I also have thought long and hard why these two years occupy such a large amount of space in my book and have determined that it is because these two years hardened me in ways that were important and that would serve me in my adult years.  Today in a crowded room of strangers I still do my best to blend into the woodwork because of the injuries suffered in these two pivotal years.  But I also, after a few moments will try to break the ice and that is progress in my life and it would not have been possible with the bad experiences of fourth and sixth grade and the wonderful oasis that Ms. Powaga gave to me in fifth grade. 

One thing about me that is important to know about me is that while I learn from the past, I live in the present.   Since the name of this blog is Boomer  Talk it really should talk about the boomer years. 

What about you?  What experiences did you have in your early life that made you who you are today?