It was very imposing to an 11 year old boy, standing 3 stories high a magnificent structure built by stonemasons, Italian Immigrants, local neighborhood folk at the turn of the century.
I imagined it was a castle.
This was my elementary school, grades 1 thru 8, 3 classes in each grade with at least 50 students in a class.
Thats around 1200 neighborhood kids, from large Irish and Italian families taught by a dedicated group of St. Joseph nuns and a smattering of lay women.
Standing alongside was a beautiful Catholic Church, similar stone assembled by the same, a tribute to beauty and craftsmanship and a proper place to house the body of Christ.
Keeping order was no easy task, often an unruly student was made "right" with a ruler smack on the hand. Ruler smacking by nuns has its own legendary tales, but truth be told I never witnessed anything more than a light smack with just enough force to say "go sit down and behave". In any case the offended may have shed a tear or two, hardly a flood.
The demeanor of the disciplinarian was maybe a little angry, hardly enraged, regardless of the tales that are often told.
It was just enough drama to keep misbehavior in check.
On this day, in my 6th grade class, the nun told me to take this large bucket of erasers, along with my classmate John, and go down to the fire escape tower and clap them clean.
I don't recall if this was a voluntary job but in any case it provided the opportunity to remove myself from class, if only for awhile.
This was a welcomed change.
Neither John or I had ever had eraser clapping duty before and after a very short time we found inhaling chalk dust was very unpleasant and we began to question what we had done to receive such a horrendous punishment.
Putting our thinking caps on, and with all the ingenuity an 11 year old boy can muster, we found throwing the erasers against the stone walls of the fire tower not only helped to clean them, we could get a chance to improve our pitching skills and chose particular stones as targets.
We found this enjoyable but soon the fascination faded as 11 year old boys can get bored easily.
Now I don't know just who came up with the new game but we soon found ourselves covered head to toe in chalk dust, laughing hysterically, as we thought it fun to have an eraser fight.
Now young boys are really not known for their foresight, well developed brains don't arrive for at least another decade, so stupidity abounds. and that's why nuns carry rulers.
We began to realize that upon our return, covered in chalk,the remaining part of the day may not be favorable so we would delay our return as long as possible while we attempted to wipe away all the dust we accumulated.
Let's just say that idea was not working as we now looked like 2 guys wearing Casper the Friendly Ghost Costumes.
Our fate was sealed, we were doomed to a ruler smack and worse when we would arrive home and our mothers would see what we had done to our school clothes.
We both contemplated running down the fire tower and skipping the rest of the school day when a classmate was sent to retrieve us.
Walking back slowly, like prisoners heading to the executioner, we turned the corner and upon entering the classroom we could hear a radio broadcast on the schools public address system. We looked around the room to witness tearful classmates and a very sad nun who told us just to take our seats.
The broadcaster was telling America that President John F Kennedy was shot.
Nothing else mattered that day.
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