Papa the Priest

NOT Dad.
(image:
http://tyronetribulations.com/tag/altar-boy/)

My mom recently sent me an email that got me to thinking about religion and the military, which got me to thinking about Papa.  Few people know that my dad was a priest once, for a few hours.  That's probably because he wasn't, he just pretended to be.

I think this story starts with Papa the failed altar boy.  Papa grew up Roman Catholic.  Back when he was a boy the mass was always in Latin.  Papa tried out to be an altar boy (they were only boys back then too) but he just couldn't get the hang of the Latin.

Move forward maybe twenty years.  Papa was a police officer and they had a particularly troublesome person in custody.  He was locked up, but he wouldn't stop causing trouble and he kept yelling that he wanted to talk to a priest.

This was the middle of the night in a terrible neighborhood and there were no priests available.

My dad, the ever resourceful said he would talk to the man.  He turned up his collar and buttoned it so that you couldn't see it was an ordinary shirt under his jacket.  I think he arranged it so that only a small square of the white collar was showing.  Then he went to the man and asked him what his troubles were.

The man said he wanted to confess his sins.  My father did his best to imitate what a priest would do when hearing confession (he had been to confession plenty of times himself at St. Edward's grade school).  The man made his confession (that's what they called the sacrament of penance back then) and Dad told him to say ten Our Father's and ten Hail Mary's.  The man thanked him and settled down.

A few days later, feeling supremely guilty Dad went to the CPD chaplain and told him what he had done.  The priest was a very worldly and understanding man.  He asked if Dad had shared what he had heard with anyone.  Dad said, "no."  The priest told him that God hears confession through the priest.  As long as the man was talking through Dad to God then the confession is legitimate and Dad was okay for doing it.

Then he told Dad to say ten Our Father's and ten Hail Mary's and never do it again.

One Year Gone

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Papa's final adventure.  We spent the previous day at Boushette's house.  We had no ceremonies, and didn't really do anything special except my brother's and I smoked Backwoods Smokes (I still have one left for you Mike).

Ironically we had spaghetti for dinner.  I allowd myself ice cream even though I'm on a diet.

One story did come up, The Music Class story (really two stories).

Dad was, well, he couldn't sing.  When the nun came in the classroom to teach music she had a pitchpipe and she would go to each row and play a note.  I can still see Dad pretending to be the nun with the pitchpipe when he told this story.  He would hold his hand up to his mouth and say, "tweet."

Dad always sat in the sixth row, sixth seat.  When she got to his row she would stop.  "Is Bill La Fleur in this row?"

"Here sister."

"You don't sing."

Tweeeet.  "Very good."

He played in band once, only because everyone had to.  He played triangle.  Actually, he didn't play triangle.  They made him stand there and pretend to strike the triangle with the tiny little stick.

I have no snappy ending for this post so I will just say bye for now, keep a song in your heart.

2 for Second

Here are two stories from Dad's 2nd grade year.
2nd Grade Downfall

When Dad was in 2nd grade he moved into the house on Kostner and started school at Saint Edward's. Until that point he had been a model student loved by teachers and peers alike.

At St. Ed's Dad was seated in the sixth row in the sixth desk. When it was time to take their first spelling test the boy in the fifth row, sixth desk told Dad to pull out his spelling book.

"Lay it on the floor here between us, open to the chapter test. That way we can both look at it during the test. That's the way we do it here."

Dad complied and sure enough, when the test began the nun found the book almost immediately. Without asking the boys, she turned to the front of the book where Dad had dutifully written his name.

She moved him to a desk that she placed just outside the door of the classroom in the hall. He spent the rest of the year there, and in fact spent the rest grade school there. He also spent every summer in summer school. His grade school career had been ruined, and he would not recover until he joined the military.

From the Church on Kostner Avenue to the Church on Kostner Avenue

That same year, Dad joined Cub Scouts at St. Ed's, on Kostner and Sunnyside. I think it was Pack 3904 back then. It certainly was when we went to St. Ed's.

One night very early in the year Dad got kicked out of the meeting for being too loud. His Mother, Nani told him that it was okay and they would just go two blocks south to the Baptist Church on Irving Park and Kostner.

At that time the Irving Park Baptist Church had chartered Pack 3881 and Troop 881. The pack welcomed him and a grand tradition was born.

Happy Birthday

How William George La Fleur Got His Name


When Dad was born there were already four William's round the house, both his grandfathers, his father, and a cousin. There were so many in fact, they went by Bill plus whatever your middle name is (like Bill-J for my grandfather).

When Nani was expecting Dad she already had two daughters, and although this might be her only son, she said that she was going to name him Jeff, not William.

The night Dad was born, my grandfather was on duty, and actually fighting a fire that night.

When he got back to the fire house and found out he had a son he raced to the hospital without evening changing or cleaning up.

When Nani saw her hero, still sooty from the fight, she couldn't possibly bring herself to name his son Jeff. When the nurse asked the baby's name, my Papa said, "Marie?"

With a tear of pride in her eye she said, "His name is William."

Don't ask me where the George came from.
 
Sorry this took so long to post.  I actually wrote it while at Owasippe, but I had a bit of trouble getting it off the electronic storage I had it on.  As it turns out it's a pretty good story to start with and a good story for his birthday.
 
By the way, that was 6 Aug 42.  On Dad's third birthday we dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  If anyone knows the fire his father was in please leave a comment.