The Wisdom of Sister Jean

As a child going to Saint Peter's (sic) School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, I hadn't started out with nuns as teachers, the Sisters of Charity (but with very little towards anyone in their classrooms), but with Mrs. H. in third grade followed by Mrs McG. in fourth.

After that, perhaps because we had already been confirmed so our amateur eligibility as Catholics was exhausted, we had Sister Thomas Anne in fifth, Sister Rosita in sixth, an entirely different Sister Thomas Anne in seventh (only her hairdresser knows for sure) and Sister Mary Jean in eighth grade.

We weren't a whole lot better in her eyes than those mission babies for whom we were forever collecting, except, for the most part, we had shoes (that she hectored us to keep clean and shined (boys only)). And like all creatures NOT (yet) in a religious order, we were NOT (ever) to be trusted. I don't imagine any religion has a minimum height requirement (though I don't recall any Pygmy Krishnans) but Sister Mary Jean would have been close. Actually, she was already close-as in closer to the floor than farther away.

Her job was to take children in eighth grade and make them into young adults ready to attend high school. She was very good at it though with us, it took everything she had. But of all of the crosses she had to bear, the hardest one was gum chewing. Gum to us was what cigarettes were for our folks-an activity that happened almost anywhere at almost any time.

When Sister Mary Jean caught a student chewing gum (and her hearing was so keen she could detect the sound of foil-covered paper being slipped off a stick of Bill Wrigley's Finest at thirty paces during a thunder storm), she would loudly demand of the miscreant: "Do you have enough for everyone?" Since no one ever planned on getting caught, the answer was whatever "doh!" sounded like in 1966.

That would mean the following school day, we would all be treated to gum after lunch, recess and a return to the classroom because the offender would have to bring in gum for everyone. Coming across this story, I thought of Sister Mary Jean and how wise she was to have lived when she did. She subscribed to our Mom's favorite axiom, "don't ask the question if you can't stand the answer" and how, this time, she would have been silent, sullen and stunned. It's preferable to the alternative.
-bill kenny