A High School Memory
For several years, following my request, O'Dea High School, the Seattle Catholic boys school from which I graduated, dropped me from their solicitation list. In the last year or so, they have started including me to the extent I periodically receive a newsletter from the alumni office.
The newsletter that just arrived included memorial acknowledgement of the deaths of 40 alumni or their relatives. Three of them were in my class year. One, Russ Ferrelli, who did not actually graduate with our class of 76 boys, is the only one with whom I had experience. In Sophomore year, he and I developed the "Hit Parade", where we both kept a count of the number of times our home room teacher, Brother Popish, rapped each student on the head with his knuckles, a typical Irish Christian Brother teaching technique of the time. Our "Hit Parade" was named after a TV show, "Your Hit Parade", which performed the top ten songs of the week and went off the air the year I graduated from High School, a vicitm of older mainstream singers feebly trying to deliver the new rock 'n roll songs.
One day, as Ferrelli and I were comparing scores across the classroom after a rapping incident, Popish noticed our communication and asked what we were up to. He came and stood over me and I explained to him what we were doing and showed him the class list with the tic marks after the names. Instinctively he showed his displeasure by rapping me on the head four times with his knuckles, affording me an excellent opportunity to show him how I then entered four more tics after my name.
Brother Popish irately grabbed and destroyed my score sheet and as I recall probably did the same with Ferrelli's, but I felt we got our point across, that routinely knuckle rapping the heads of high school students was a practice deserving of ridicule. If Popish got the point, he did not heed it, and knuckle rapping heads continued.
I don't know if knuckle rapping played a part in Ferrelli not finishing up at O'Dea. However, knuckle rapping was one of many O'Dea memories that made me a non-contributing alumnus who never considered sending any of his three sons there.
The newsletter that just arrived included memorial acknowledgement of the deaths of 40 alumni or their relatives. Three of them were in my class year. One, Russ Ferrelli, who did not actually graduate with our class of 76 boys, is the only one with whom I had experience. In Sophomore year, he and I developed the "Hit Parade", where we both kept a count of the number of times our home room teacher, Brother Popish, rapped each student on the head with his knuckles, a typical Irish Christian Brother teaching technique of the time. Our "Hit Parade" was named after a TV show, "Your Hit Parade", which performed the top ten songs of the week and went off the air the year I graduated from High School, a vicitm of older mainstream singers feebly trying to deliver the new rock 'n roll songs.
One day, as Ferrelli and I were comparing scores across the classroom after a rapping incident, Popish noticed our communication and asked what we were up to. He came and stood over me and I explained to him what we were doing and showed him the class list with the tic marks after the names. Instinctively he showed his displeasure by rapping me on the head four times with his knuckles, affording me an excellent opportunity to show him how I then entered four more tics after my name.
Brother Popish irately grabbed and destroyed my score sheet and as I recall probably did the same with Ferrelli's, but I felt we got our point across, that routinely knuckle rapping the heads of high school students was a practice deserving of ridicule. If Popish got the point, he did not heed it, and knuckle rapping heads continued.
I don't know if knuckle rapping played a part in Ferrelli not finishing up at O'Dea. However, knuckle rapping was one of many O'Dea memories that made me a non-contributing alumnus who never considered sending any of his three sons there.
posted by Tom Blake | 3:59 PM
5 Comments:
Tom, just thought I'd comment on this post since no one else has.
I enjoyed hearing about your experience at O'Dea, although too bad it wasn't on circumstances other than one of your classmates passing.
I guess I enjoyed reading this post because of the history you and my dad have that goes back as far as O'Dea (maybe further, I'm not sure). Funny as it may seem, every once in a while when I'm at my parents place, I get dad's senior yearbook out and look at the pictures of him and his friends (such as yourself) that I have come to know during my lifetime. Unfortunately, the only yearbook he has is from his senior year.
I just thought I would let you know I enjoyed the post regarding your past. Sorry to hear about your high school buddy.
~Rake
Reiko, your Dad and I met in Freshman year at O'Dea, which means this Fall we will have known each other for 50 years. We were in the same home room the first two years and both rode the #2 Madrona bus to and from school. John from Phoenix was also in our high school class. He and I were in the same home room the last two years. I have all four yearbooks and will let your Dad know that in case he wants to borrow them or have me make copies of anything.
The O'Dea High School that Tom and I attended had the feel of early 20th century English boarding schools you see in depicted movies. The culture of the school was anachronistic in the early 60's. But, as Dylan was singing then, the times they were achangin. The younger brothers treated the students with respect and emphasized learning instead of authoritarianism. Popish was relatively young and an exception to this as Tom has pointed out. Although I have no personal experience, I think O'Dea is a much better school today than it was in the early 60's, but the change started then.
John from Phoenix
While I didn't go to O'Dea, being a Catholic school kid in Seattle, I got to know several people who attended O'Dea.
Other than being all boys, most of my friends had good things to say about the place -- as good as you can say about any Catholic school I guess.
My friends were there during the time that O'Dea was a national football powerhouse, and all of these guys were on the team -- so maybe that played a part.
Chris in Bangkok
O'Dea obviously is a good school for student athletes. Former Sonic coach Nate McMillan, just hired by Portland, is going to keep his Seattle home and let his son, who is a junior basketball player at O'Dea, graduate from there.
As for Russell, I tracked down his obituary and found that he died a year ago today after a seven year battle with cancer, survived by his wife of 43 years and his children and other family. He obviously kept his sense of humor to the end, as the obit mentions he requested family and friends remember him with a "potato gun salute".
Post a Comment
<< Home