Labor Day Flashback

As I was surfing the internet for a bit of inspiration for the blog, I came across the headline of “Labor Day Student Invasion”. I immediately couldn’t wipe the smirk off my face from so many summers before. Yes, this is the weekend for college kids to move into their apartments. Been there, done that.  This is a post St. Mary School story, but involving SMFs as we continued our life’s journey together.

I know many of you have heard the story before, but the smirk remains and the story bears repetition. The year was 1971. We had graduated high school & headed for the city at the end of the summer for higher education as so many kids do.

Now we have all helped one another move from time to time, but this time it was me & Linda moving Joe into the Seminary. It may have been the one & only time that two girls moved a freshman into the seminary. We had no trepidation about carrying all those boxes up into the dorm room. Halls were very quiet. We were the only sounds to be heard. No one else was moving in at that time. Yes, the Holy Spirit was present in the eerie silence…but not for long. It wasn’t until we were hanging curtains that one of the priests cleared his throat from the corridor.

“Ahem.”

Pause

“What’s this?”

The vision of us standing on chairs in our miniskirts, (denim, $12.99 at the Harvard Coop), hanging curtains, must have given him pause.

“We’re hanging curtains.” Certainly there were curtains elsewhere in the seminary. Are curtains not allowed?

“And who might you be?”

“We’re Joe’s cousins.” Point blank. Deadpan faced. I didn’t bat an eye. Linda nodded in agreement. Perhaps he was looking for the family resemblance! The Holy Spirit may have been silent, but we were sure He/She was smirking around the corner. It was a small fib, but only in a fashion. Joe was like a brother, definitely family, extended not to be messed with chosen family member. We belonged there helping him & no one was going to stop us.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” Visions of a confessional circled the brain.

He paused, rocked back & forth on his heels with his hands behind his back.

“Joe, I will need to speak with you later.”

We continued with the curtains, waited for the clicking of heels to subside down the corridor and did a holy spit-take while breaking into laughter. Thus my smirk today so many years later.

To my knowledge, there were no repercussions; but I do believe there was good reason to keep an eye on Joe from thereon in.

Now we jump ahead thirty years to a related point in time. We were talking to one of our favorite priests, not Joe, and he started talking about his days in the seminary.

“My dorm room had quite a story attached to it.” As he progressed, he mentioned the legend of room # _ _ _ of the two girls caught in the dorm hanging curtains by one of the priests. This was time for another spit-take by me & Linda.

“What, you’ve heard the story?”

“Heard it, we are it! We were the ones hanging the curtains!”

“No way!!!”

“Way.”

It’s now a total of forty years later. It’s not easy being legends in our own time. We just muddle through with the burden of infamy!  We live to tell it another day. (Smirk & wink!)

Cathy