At the end of day one, my class of seven-year-olds was marched like penguins out of classroom, along hallway, down stairs, out building, and disbursed. Nuns had warned us.
"Eyes straight ahead! No talking in classrooms, the lavatory or while marching!"
I'm slow at new things and often need reinforcement. It arrived while being marched double-file down St. Cecilia's second-floor hallway toward the school's outside stairwell.
Happy that day one was over and keen to get home, I glanced 45° left and flashed an unauthorized grin at a pal being marched in the opposite direction. My sin was seen by Mother Saint Edward, a brawny, wire-rimmed nun who was school principal. She stood at the second floor's stairway door to assure exit discipline.
The eyes of the pal at whom I'd smiled widened as he saw terror on my flank that I'd not yet noticed. Mother struck as I was swiveling my gourd right to see what had alarmed him — an ill-timed move that positioned my right cheek for her roundhouse left. Five decades later, I can still see her inflamed mug as she rushed from my right.
Pre-impact sounds were the jangling of Mother's waist-to-knee rosary beads and penguins scurrying clear. Her crimson mug and raven's garb distracted me from noticing her left arm cocked behind its shoulder. Leg-speed intensified the whack's force, which swiveled my gourd hard-left, like weather-vane yielding to typhoon.
Her oomph knocked me out of file, so Mother yanked me back via my necktie. My feet left the deck but I didn't cry. Not from bravery but because I sensed tears would make matters worse.
Stunned and expecting more, I stood silent as Mother admired her handiwork, which tattooed me from eartop to lower jaw. I got whacked but her target audience was all who saw what happens to the disobedient.
She let my file of penguins exit down the building's outside stairs. Content, she stepped out onto the landing with hands on hips, like Mussolini preening on palace balcony above a captive audience.
Using virgin flesh as blackboard, Mother had bold-faced her message: Do as you're told or get thumped. My response shaped me for life: Eyes and ears open, wear a poker face, shun the spotlight, use stealth, smile inwardly.
Mother felt need of a punch line. Poised triumphant atop the second-floor landing, she barked my name as I trudged homeward. I froze, turned, and looked up as she delivered the day's coup de grâce.
