Oz Legacies

     This month's column is not about a person, but about a place: Oswego Catholic High School.

     Fifty years is a long time, unless of course you're a tree, which measures each new year of growth by rings. As human beings, we measure our years by the intensity of memory, and thankfully, as I look back over the 50 years that have passed since I marched down the aisle and across the stage of St. Francis Hall as a graduating senior, (class of '64) while the buildings that once housed Oswego Catholic High School may be gone, the memories of my four years there are etched indelibly into the fabric of my soul. 

     It started out as a converted orphanage, with two buildings that included the school and a convent, occupied by the Sisters of St. Francis from the motherhouse on Court Street in Syracuse. They wore long black robes and starched penguin-like head gear that would make Darth Vader look on with envy. Whoever designed this nun costume apparently had no regard for peripheral vision. It didn't matter anyway because most of the nuns had either x ray vision, since they could see right through you, or eyes in the back of their head so they could see what you were doing behind them, even as they wrote on the blackboard.

     St. Francis Hall was a newly built structure originally consisting of only an auditorium stage and basketball court, but was later filled in by classrooms on its outer flanks. Those classrooms were brand spanking new compared to the drab stuffy rooms in Bishop's Hall, where the Principal and Vice principal were located. Everything was connected by either long hallways or a skyway to the convent building, which was always a thrilling experience to walk through. 

     When we passed classes in those hallways, we were expected to do so in silence, and single file, and student hall monitors could issue you a "demerit" if you broke the rules, which required you to stay after school in the "detention" room. Now that was a scene right out of "The Breakfast Club" movie. The detainees were usually a motley crew of rebellious spirits or star struck lovers who were there for passing notes. We didn't do texting back then. We actually wrote notes and folded them over and sent them through a series of couriers to their intended recipient, all the while risking demerits and detention if caught passing one.

     I remember having one of my notes intercepted by a nun. It was greatly embarrassing. The outside of the note read: "To a sweet girl from a boob," and in the body of the note I confessed to acting like a jerk and sought my girlfriend's forgiveness by my abject confession of stupidity and callousness, and a very long winded apology. The object of that note eventually became my wife, and somehow, she managed to get the note back and keep it in her diary until her dying day. And you think text messages and e mails have staying power? A well crafted note can survive for even 50 years, but the memories of those notes live on forever.

     As do the memories of the basketball games in St. Francis Hall, and the red and white cheerleading squads, and the record hop dances after the games, and the magical mystery tour of the transformed and theme decorated  St. Francis Hall for the senior prom. I remember the May Day Crownings, and the basement cafeteria, and Father Taylor (nicknamed Wild Bill) and Coach Naioti (Bluto) and Sister Edward Daniel ("You get your Every Week every week, and if you don't get your Every Week every week you get your Every week every other week")nand Sister Edwin (who looked like Grandpa Munster's sister), and Sister Judith ("It takes sowid knowidge to get to cowidge"), and many more. 

     I remember the pep rally in St. Francis hall on Nov. 22, 1963 which was interrupted by Father Eugene Yennock informing us that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas and had just died. I remember the numbness I felt in that moment, and the immediate expressions of grief on the faces of my fellow classmates who walked dazedly out of the building into the bright fall sunshine. We came of age that day, and nothing would ever be the same again.

     The buildings that once housed the school are no more. There is a senior living center, a nursing home, and a day care facility where they once stood. But the memories of being a student at Oswego Catholic High School, "bearing thy ideals" as the alma mater went, will truly last for a lifetime and beyond, because those ideals of hard work, responsibility, and Christian charity are worth remembering and valuing. As the words of the alma mater go: "clearly thy praises from our voices peal." And, so be it.