It's been two years since I've graduated from catholic high school in rural Pennsylvania. My graduating class had just over 40 people — this school was so tiny that the elementary school, middle school and high school were contained in the same building. Going to a school with such a wide age range, yet so few people made for a truly unforgettable experience. Here are some of the weirdest things that sometimes make me wonder if my education was real or a dream:
1. Odd forms of rebellion.
High school is a strange time for a lot of people, there's no getting around that. Some people are greasy, most people are angry and flailing around, trying to figure things out. Sometimes students will lash out and get themselves into a bit of trouble. One of the most creative (and disrespectful) forms of rebellion at my school happened when I was in middle school and the person who got into hot water was in high school. Because of the age difference, I didn't witness any of this firsthand, but I heard about it more times than I can count.
So, from my understanding, a high school kid attended the weekly Mass ceremony. Pretty typical. When it came time for him to receive the Eucharist, things get tricky. He took the host, slipped in into the sleeve of his sweater (mandatory part of the dress code on Mass days), and mimed eating the host. Once lunch time rolled around, it was nacho day (yay!), but this boy decided he didn't have enough tortilla chips or something, so he took the smuggled Eucharist, dipped it in nacho cheese (boo!) and ate it. The body of Jesus Christ. Covered in cheese. Needless to say, teachers were shocked, parents were appalled, etc. The student got suspended for his actions.
2. Liturgical Dance.
As mentioned in the previous point, my school had weekly Mass services that were mandatory for students who were part of the Catholic faith. During Advent, the liturgical dance club dresses up in black leotards and does an interpretative dance down the aisles and on the stage during Mass. Usually, they just take long, light strides and do some airy, elegant motions, but sometimes they would mime Jesus' death on the cross.
3. White Supremacist Headmaster.
In defense of my school, the man who was later discovered to be a white supremacist was only hired as the headmaster because he changed his name and fled from his home state where he was a well-known racist person. He did everything in his (white) power to get away from his past, but in the end, it caught up with him.
It turns out that this man has several books published that are filled with his white supremacist views. The cover of one of his books has a photograph of him resting a baseball bat on his shoulder as he stares forward. This bat-over-shoulder pose became a bit of a school-wide meme after he was fired, and there have been countless recreations of this infamous photo. In this same book, the man was quoted as saying, "Diversity is a weakness." Yikes.
Thankfully, he was fired after only two months at my school when his true identity was uncovered.
4. Rubber fetuses.
A controversial issue that the Catholic Church has been very outspoken about is abortion. Its opposition of abortion stems from the belief that all life is sacred. To drive home my teacher's belief that a fetus is a person and should be protected, this teacher somehow acquired a bulk order of one-inch rubber fetus models that were handed out to all of her students. I believe it was during pro-life week that this happened. She printed out cute little prayers and cut around the edges of the prayers with special scrapbook scissors. It was kind of nice. As usual, high schoolers ruined the nice thing.
Within a week of having these rubber fetuses, some people made paper clothes for them and glued the clothes directly onto the tiny bodies. They then kept a fully clothed fetus in the breast pocket of their button up shirt with the head just peeking out so it could see what was going on.
Other people had their fun by twisting the rubber fetus head around and around and throwing the fetuses, which, it turns out, bounce quite a bit.
Still other people discovered that these keepsakes work very well as erasers.
Somewhere along the line, the term "Fetus Friday" was coined, and for a while, everyone's fixation on these little rubber fetuses was amplified every Friday for some reason.
And even after all of this, I still ended up at a Catholic university that I happen to love very much. Go figure.
