Clever Magazine, Vol. llI, Issue #9 "Sister Mary Psycho" (www.clevermag.com)

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Sister Mary Psycho

by Victoria Reggio

In 1960 I started school and for eight years, when I wore my navy blue jumper, Peter Pan collar blouse and bow tie, I was a little Catholic girl who earned good grades, but I detested the nuns and the way they baited and hit us every day.

My fifth grade teacher, Sister Mary Timothy, was a master at this. She would teach her class filled with Italian, Black and Puerto Rican kids, hokey Irish ballads and then when the lunch bell rang, hit us with a ruler if we got up before she gave us permission.

As a class, we all stayed together from grade to grade so camaraderie and ground rules developed. You never laughed if someone was getting hit and you didn’t tell your parents. Regarding the latter, we knew we were tough enough to take getting hit by one of the “penguins.” Plus, many of the parents would believe the nuns were right and we didn’t want a second beating for misbehaving in school.

An example of Sister Mary Timothy’s psycho behavior took place during Christmas card sales. Each student was given a box of religious cards that sold for $1.00 and it was assumed that the parents would make that purchase. If you sold more boxes, the Sisters would praise you and you would get little incentive gifts like rosary beads and medals.

One of the boys, Anthony, decided to take on the challenge of selling five extra boxes. His parents didn’t need all those cards and he couldn’t find anyone to buy them so when the deadline to bring in the money came and went, Anthony had to face a very angry Sister Mary Timothy.

She knew he could take getting his hands slapped with her metal ruler. So she decided to humiliate him by parading him around the school wearing a dunce cap. The color drained from Anthony’s face while Frankie, the leader of our class, turned beet red. Frankie started screaming, “What the hell are you doing? Leave him alone!” The rest of us just sat there in disbelief. Frankie grabbed Anthony, threw the dunce cap off his head and they both ran out of the classroom.

Sister tried to get us to take out our geography books but we were completely out of control and got up to look out the window. Several minutes later, the door opened and Father Baretta came into the classroom with Frankie and Anthony in tow. The two of them sat down and Father Baretta motioned Sister to join him outside. Naturally, we huddled around our new heroes and Frankie told us how he didn’t know where he and Anthony were going when they left. Father Baretta saw the two of them and that’s when Frankie spilled the beans to the priest about what she was going to do to Anthony.

Sister Mary Timothy was very flustered when she returned to class and finding the dunce cap on her chair with her name on it didn’t help matters.

Now she was the one with the red face.

For the rest of the year, she occasionally hit us with her ruler but it didn’t seem to be so much fun for her. The best part was we didn’t have to sing those stupid songs anymore.