8/28/20 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Welcome to three of our new teachers: L-R: Kathy Haninger (K), Corrie Sheshull (Grade 1), Mason Prater (Middle School Social Studies)

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:



50 years ago this fall, I was a freshman at St. Charles Preparatory School. I wanted to go to Bishop Ready High School where most of my friends from Our Lady of Victory were heading but our family had moved from New York two years earlier and single sex schools were preferred.



I didn’t know any other student except one, Steve Blubaugh, whose parents were friends with my parents. He was a sophomore. The first day, sitting on the bench near what was once the library and is now the Cavello Center, I met the only two black students in my class, Charles Pettiford and Adrian Powell. I don’t really remember why I went up to them but I suspect that they felt as estranged as I did that day which may have been the attraction.



There were 72 freshmen in the class and a vast majority of them were east side kids. For about five years St. Charles had closed down as a regular high school and operated as a seminary high school for teenagers thinking about becoming a priest. That didn’t work out too well, and so the year before I arrived they turned it back into a regular high school. During my freshman year, St. Charles still had some boarding students who were leftovers from the seminary and who lived at the school in dorms all week.



We were taught mainly by priests. The principal, Fr. Ralph Huntzinger, taught me freshman religion. In mid-October, impressed with a paper I had written for his class he tapped me to give a speech at the very first Open House that St. Charles had for prospective students. Deacon Frank Iannarino, who was a senior, also gave a speech that day. We ended up working together at Bishop Watterson for many years.



Father Bill Dunn was my homeroom teacher on Room 301 and he was also my Latin teacher all four years that I was there.



I remember that at lunch the faculty ate at a head table with a white table cloth and were served by an order of German nuns who worked as housekeepers and caretakers for the many priests who lived at the school. Times have certainly changed, havent’ they!



I joined the staff of the school newspaper, The Carolian, and eventually became the editor my senior year until I was fired for being a rebel. A story for another time. In the fall I got a pretty big part in the drama, The Devil’s Disciple by George Bernard Shaw. I was the younger brother of the hero of the play. In earlier years, just like in Shakepeare’s time, boys played all the parts, including the female roles dressed as females. In our play, the director simply changed the women’s parts to be men. Thus the minister’s wife became the minister’s brother. By the time I was a junior they were allowing girls from other schools to participate in our plays and we got to do the same at the girls’ school, St. Joseph Academy.



St. Charles had dropped out of the CCL when they became a seminary and did not re-enter until after I graduated. I was a terrible athlete and although I tried out for both basketball and baseball I was cut. Sophomore year they started a track team and announced there would be no cuts. I joined and still hold the school record for being the slowest two miler in the history of the school.



Neither Charles Pettiford or Adrian Powell finished at St. Charles. I lost track of Charles but Adrian became a state champion track star at Father Wehrle High School. By the time of our graduation there were 48 of us left. In the 50 years that have passed as quickly as a summer thunderstorm, five of my classmates have died. Even at my age that bothers me.



All of these memories and many, many more come flooding back to me as I prepare for the opening of school this week. While your children’s experience this coming year will be different in so, so many ways from mine because of the  pandemic, as well as technological advances, to all that has happened in the church and the country since 1970, the fundamental core remains. We meet life long friends, we participate in sports and clubs and activities that become over the years remembrances of fun more than wins and losses and accomplishments, and we are taught and inspired by teachers who sacrifice their time, their talents and certainly their income to help us grow. And having the privilege of being in a Catholic School, the center, Jesus Christ, remains as fixed and solid and bright as the North Star.



My prayer for your children this year is that no matter what road blocks are put in their way: masks, and shut down drinking fountains and a dearth of hugs, they will still come to treasure their time here this year. I look forward to hearing them and seeing them next week!



Jim Silcott