DAYS OF EIGHT – More on public versus parochial schools ********************************************** I want to thank everyone for the replies and responses to my postings. They were wonderful. In addition to the online comments, I got a lot of private ones. That was great also. Given the feedback, I thought it would be helpful to clarify a few things. I spent an afternoon with a bunch of relatives and we were talking about the role of the parishes relative to street gangs associated with various “Saints” and other things such as who hung around the parks near churches and the like. As a lot of parks and playground were near churches, they were populated with the Collegiates. The Rats seemed to hang around the bowling alleys and places like Charles Street, Florida Street, and Templeton Street. The segment I posted was in the context of comparing the Rats and Collegiate groups. We concluded that it was unlikely a leather clad Rat would have been allowed in a parochial school. As the uniforms were generally plaid skirts, plaid ties, etc., leather jackets would have been frowned upon. I was also trying to distinguish the Catholic rituals from non-Catholics. One of my relatives mentioned the perception of superiority relative to the public school kids of which, I am a product of. As I do when I write and talk to people, I encourage them to speak candidly as lots of folks do on this site. As I prefaced on the posting, I anticipated I would cause some turmoil. As a writer, that is a good thing as it is a good sign when one stirs up comments. As many folks deduced, I painted with a broad brush and was hoping for some feedback and I got it; I am grateful for that. I am constantly refining this work and will continue to whittle and clarify. As I stirred up some emotions and reactions, that means I hit a nerve and if the book is going to be a success, it needs to fuel some kind of reaction. As a general observation, I noticed that both in personal conversations and some emails I got, several parochial school graduates wanted to be painted harder while some of the public school “rats” wanted to be painted softer. That was interesting. To the extent anyone was slighted, forgive me. I am a writer and this is the process of writing. Thanks again and please feel free to weigh in as you have. I was out for dinner last night with some more family members and we sat around creating characters and nicknames to use in the book. It was a lot of fun and it churned up a lot of memories!
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 16:58:14 +0000
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