My Dad Got Me to a Nunnery Read online

  We also visited grocery stores to indulge in their mini-samples of foods, especially

  promotionally featured candies and cookies. No one deterred us. We pan-handled the poor

  among us as our would-be donors. Not much gain there. We were not supposed to disturb the

  few aunts and uncles that lived in our town, but sometimes we wanted to stop by just to, ahem,

  say hello. Or was it something good to eat, no matter how little. Their fruit bowl on the table

  was certainly inviting. There was, of course, never, ever fruit in our home. Besides, we didn’t have fruit bowls either. Even vegetables and meats were hard to come by, except on the

  weekends when Dad came home. Bread, pasta, and dried eggs were our staples. A visit to the

  good relatives might also rein in some find sweets and cookies, too.

  Walter, Jr. and I did have a temporary break from life in our white Lewiston ghetto.

  Since he was blind, he was entitled to a four-week experience at Agassiz Village, a most

  decent camp located in Oxford, Maine. Expenses would be borne by a charitable organization

  devoted to the support of blind youngsters. As it happened, Walter did not want to spend a

  whole four weeks at this camp. However, he was permitted to split the time with me, his little

  brother. Hence, for a two-week sojourn for the two of us at this country village, we had an

  experience of great food, some friendships, and enriching activities that came of a

  professionally run operation.

  The year1960 was to be the swan song for sustaining our family, our heritage at

  Lewiston, Maine. Dad was determined to punctuate his intention of finally succeeding in the

  abandonment of his children. Brother Bobby and Sister Connie, disconcerted with the

  ubiquitous presence of hunger in their lives, decided to confront Dad about it. They knew that

  he was courting a new lady friend a couple of years after Mom’s death whom he treated well,

  especially on weekends. Hanging in his closet was a new dress for this tramp. Left cooling in

  our Frigidaire were several bottles of Narragansett beers he would enjoy with his belle each

  weekend. Enough already. Bob and Connie were hungry teenagers and determined to have

  him take responsibility for once for his children. The solution: court. The charge:

  malnourishment of his kids. When asked by the judge for his appraisal of these charges, Dad’s response was that if these children need to eat, let them go to work and feed themselves.

  Understandably, this did not set well with the judge. As a temporary measure, he obeyed the

  judge’s order to provide for his children, including me. I received three dollars a week from

  that judgment which I would be able to count on right up until I finished high school. But I

  get ahead of myself.

  With no longer any serious adult supervision, coupled with having learned from the

  convent how to survive, our mischievous behavior paralleled those of TV’s “Little Rascals.”

  We might call the fire department just so we could watch the red trucks showcase their work.

  After all, we never saw fire trucks at St. Louis Home in action. We might board city buses

  without paying (silly us—we never had money) to tour the city until we found ourselves lost

  at the other end of Lewiston. When the driver caught on to our shenanigans, we were dropped

  off and found ourselves to be really gone astray. We might enter the attics of neighboring

  buildings to steal Christmas decorations that we thought were carelessly left there. During

  some hot summer Lewiston nights, the city swimming pool across from the city police

  department seemed particularly inviting. We would hop over the tall fence to enjoy an

  evening swim. No bathing suits? No problem. Skinny dipping we went. And we ignored the

  city’s curfew. In due time we were visited by the local cop who reprimanded us from outside

  the fence. Leave it to Junior to challenge him, “Catch us.” We grabbed our clothes upon

  climbing back over the fence and scampered away home from yet another misadventure. On

  another summer’s day, we had yet another brush with local law enforcement authorities. We

  were enjoying the water hose in a lady’s garden, bothering no one. A cop arrived on a complaint of trespassing. He was, as luck would have it, the lady’s husband. Angry, he

  demanded that Junior apologize to her and “open his eyes,” which, of course, his handicap did

  not permit him to do. He refused to apologize. We all ran off. In retrospect, it was we who

  took to the higher ground.

  As I finished my seventh grade year while at Lewiston, I did pass my classes sufficient

  to become an eighth grader. My wish was to quit school, though I knew I couldn’t do that

  until I was sixteen. Gosh, if only I could make money—like maybe twenty-five dollars a

  week. Now, that would be wealth! No? Well, that turns out to be nothing like how my

  aspirations would eventually play out. Instead, I hanged about the streets of Lewiston that last

  summer of 1960. Supplication. Pilferage. Scrounging. Craving. Covetousness. These were

  the real experiences from which it seemed I could never flee.

  Then came the Gamache family again—the parents of Danny, whom I tended to back

  at St. Louis Home. The gratitude they demonstrated for the work I did for their kid was

  sincere; I was in their view, saintly and should be rewarded. Actually, I felt pretty much the

  same way toward these benefactors. They had periodically invited me to spend weekends at

  their newly acquired old farmhouse in bucolic Lisbon, Maine. Mr. Gamache eyed me, an

  Oliver Twist in need of a break, from his station wagon idling on Maple Street. Yes, he saw

  this pathetic adolescent soul, dressed in rags, roaming the streets aimlessly. Here was a

  wannabe do-gooder wanting to make good on a long overdue reward for serving as peer

  leader, if you will, to his cognitively challenged child when we lived at St. Louis Home Well,

  that’s probably overstretched, but the idea is honorable. Mr. Gamache, on seeing me so frequently in the neighborhood fewer than 500 yards from his paint and Venetian blinds

  business, decided to invite me to his home for not only a weekend, but indeed for two weeks

  at the start of the summer of 1961. Off I was to Lisbon Falls for two weeks at the Gamache

  family farm, minus the animals.

  In early 1962, our home broke up—Dad’s final pronouncement. Each of us in the family was

  left to fend for ourselves. The only ones left to their independence were sibling elders Lionel

  and Mary Ann and Junior. The rest of us found our way as wards of the state to foster homes.

  My albatross, it seemed, disappeared.

  the quest toward resilience

  With Dad’s eventual break up of the family early in 1961, we were all left to fend for

  ourselves. Or so that was his final pronouncement. Some were bounced in and out of foster

  care. Dad’s interest in our family waned further than ever. Those left to their independence

  were Lionel and Mary Ann. Walter Junior was assigned to the Perkins Institute for the Blind;

  Mary Ann was taken in by a reluctant aunt, resulting in a short-lived stay there. Sisters Flora

  and Florence and Connie were to continue doing time in the girls’ orphanage at the Marcotte

  Home until each would reach the prescribed age of sixteen. All of us became wardens of the

  state or guests of foster families, where we became their submissive domestics—not to be

  confused with our presence as irresponsible vagrants
. Taking practical responsibility for our

  chores was fair enough. Despite their free access to any services from us at any time of day,

  some of these families found their monthly compensation of $ 38.00 per month from state

  government to be inadequate—and they frequently reminded us of that.

  With St. Louis Home a distant though painful memory, I was about to enjoy a whole

  year absorbed in my deliverance before Dad would succeed in reaching his long-sought

  aspiration: to dissolve our family. The culmination of a full year in grade seven at Lewiston

  provided me with newfound perspectives: a taste of street acumen, a trivialization of authority,

  a lapsed responsibility to duty, and a renewal of creativity in coping with poverty.

  My streetwise self-determination was the antithesis of proscribed life at the convent. A quest

  for grand adventures became my enduring short-term goal.

  Indeed, the summer of 1960 left Bobby, Junior, and me to our devices. Junior had accumulated a little bit of spending money from working at chores while at Perkins Institute

  for the Blind in Massachusetts. Bobby, as poor as any orphaned street kid could be, was

  Junior’s partner in artful adventures; as for me, I was but a faithful disciple. With Junior’s

  help, the two brothers traded some presumably pilfered vinyl 45 r.p.m. records for arm tattoos

  as part of a barter with an inebriated merchant. Meanwhile, Lionel, our more straight-laced

  brother, toiled at a brickyard by day and a bowling alley by night as he assumed responsibility

  for helping Dad pay household bills. He was also our self-anointed guardian and family

  disciplinarian. That was good enough for us. We lumbered on.

  Besides Lionel, Mary Ann continued to live at our Maple Street while Dad continued

  to work in Portland. She carried on as a waitress at local restaurants by day and sought the

  company of many young studs by night. She accumulated many lines of credit at mom and

  pop stores in our neighborhood to sustain her daily need for cigarettes, ice cream sodas, and

  pizza. I genuinely enjoyed her company as I merrily hanged out with her on her pay day.

  When she asked me, her cherie[dearie] but pronounced incorrectly as “shitty,” that I

  accompany her as she cashed her check and shopped at her favorites stores, I agreed—as long

  as there was a hot dog and soda in it for me, maybe a dime or a quarter for my troubles. She

  obliged. She pretty well depleted her paltry wages a short time after cashing her shoestring

  scratch.

  After Walter Junior left Perkins, he and I lived left alone with Mary Ann and Lionel

  during the summer of 1961. Bobby had gone to an “Opportunity Farm” with other kids from

  wrecked families—an experience he savored. During midsummer, Junior was invited to spend a month at a spectacular camp: Agassiz Village. This was a cool summer community, a

  camp that specialized in supporting Maine children with disabilities, though it included the

  non-disabled as well. As it happened, Junior was initially reluctant to attend because the very

  notion of camp reminded him of the Volunteers of America Camp experience that seven of us

  siblings so loathed during summers past. With a little nudging from a Maine charity dedicated

  to serving he visually impaired, he was offered a compromise: attend the camp for two weeks

  with his younger brother. That would be me. Fair enough. We acceded to the offer. Despite

  our earlier misgivings, the camp proved a fabulous summer fortnight for us two. There were

  organized recreational events, delicious victuals, and a welcoming atmosphere all-around.

  When this wholesome camp experience for the two of us ended, we retreated to the streets of

  Lewiston, returning to our naughty ways as we sought new misadventures.

  Enter the Gamache factor of 1961. I had finished seventh grade. The start of summer

  portended zilch for a summer of merriment. on the streets of Lewiston. Mr. Gamache, dad to

  the cognitively disabled kid I attended to at St. Louis Home, drove about my neighborhood

  noting that I seemed a little more than a young castaway, a wandering vagrant.. Soon after

  school ended for the season, Mr. Gamache, A well intended do-gooder, invited me to his

  farmhouse home for a weekend a half-hour away. I had nothing else to do; so, I hopped into

  his station wagon and left word with Lionel that I’d be with the Gamaches in case he had any

  concerns. Lucky me. June 10, 1961, my birthday, fell on a weekend. And what a bonanza it

  was! I was to have my very first birthday with cake, ice cream, and yes, gifts—mostly new

  clothes. Nirvana had arrived. My days of frequent hunger, ragged clothes, and an uncertain

  The Gamache Residence Lisbon, Maine

  tomorrow would no longer haunt me. As that

  weekend came to a close, I braced myself for

  a sad return to my domicile as a pauper—to

  our roach-infested apartment in Lewiston.

  Ah—not so fast! My blissful weekend

  expanded to a week—yeah, Hooray! Then

  two more weeks, then two more months. Fan

  tas-tic! With the looming end of summer

  vacation approaching, I acquiesced to the

  reality that the fun was over; I would return to my same old troublesome occupancy at our

  Lewiston joint. Stunned by a proposal that I extend my stay with them at Lisbon, I was

  welcomed to commence eighth grade at the newly built Lisbon Elementary School! Mr.

  Gamache assured me that he had sufficient connections in the town that he would have me

  enrolled there “…like shit through a tine horn,” as he often bellowed. Just a couple of

  elective demands seemed, not only acceptable, but very much inviting: tending to his kennel

  of nifty German Shepard dogs, helping in renovating their house, and sharing in routine

  duties of housecleaning. It was a fair deal to me as I acquiesced to their charitable offer. I

  had finally arrived. I felt deserving of my new

  lot. I had been saved from the white ghettos of Lewiston. The grace of God surely shined

  upon me.

  Opening day at Lisbon Elementary School was an incomparably euphoric experience. I was zealously welcomed as the new kid on the block. I knew that I no longer needed to

  play the pauper , that I was, alas, something of a bourgeois—and smugly so. Smugness

  extended to my francophone ethnicity, which I loathed. Though I understood that I was a kid

  of 100% French extraction, I fancied myself as not a realFranco-American. Denial made

  sense, recalling constant slurs about Lewiston as a home to “dumb frogs.” Not only did the

  affront seem silly and insignificant, the sobriquet surely could not be attributable to me.

  Besides, teachers liked me; so did the other kids at school. A small school. No bullies to be

  found. Good grades. Good friends. Good girls. Paradise.

  I was a smugly good speller. So good that I often goofed off during spelling class. As

  the impermanent class clown, I found myself in the principal’s office for having shown my

  ham-laden prowess for spelling by reading the newspaper comics in my first row seat. Yes,

  some showoff! The principal called the Gamaches. Despite my anxiety about facing my

  guardians on arriving home, I had little to worry about. Nothing came of my childish

  escapade. I did what Red Skelton or Woody Allen might have done for a tasteless laugh.

  Lisbon Elementary School and my new home were what they should be. I was “normal.”

  I relished s
chool—never wanting to be away from it. The only school vacation that I

  welcomed was, yes, the Christmas break. I knew that the Gamaches would play Christmas

  music; they decorated the house for Christmas with my fervent assistance. Though there was

  little elegance in how they decorated for the holiday, they were generous gift-givers. They

  gave me cash to buy gifts for them, including money to spend on their son, Danny. Among

  the gifts under the Gamache tree were presents for everyone in the household.. I welcomed my abundance of new clothes. I was Oliver Twist no more.

  A neighbor across the street from us was an eccentric Mr. Yenco. He was a

  concentration camp survivor who fell victim to the abuse of far too much rum each day. His

  old bungalow sported doors limited to those hinged to the exterior walls of the house. Since

  all doors reminded him of the horrors he endured during Nazi Holocaust, no door in his house

  would ever be locked. His delicate presence in our neighborhood left me numbed to the

  horrors that I could only imagined he must have endured. His was a needed sobering

  contribution to my world view.

  Our other neighbor across the street was a bone-dry fundamentalist evangelical, Mr.

  Card. His proud conservatism governed his behavior, though he rarely attended Church. I

  viewed him as a misanthropic killjoy acknowledging no personal faults that he might own.

  He was intolerant of all Catholics, Democrats, Franco-Americans, Jews, minorities, and

  bureaucrats. I fit four categories of those qualities, though he overtly liked my company and

  hired me to work at his turkey farm. Despite this dour curmudgeon’s shortcomings, he

  married a saint. The Cards were a couple not unlike TV’s celebrated Edith and Archie Bunker

  of the seventies sit-coms, Allin theFamily.Mrs. Card was distinctively special:

  she baked pies and brownies which she served with ice cream bars that she delivered to Danny

  and me almost daily. To her, there was no dilemma that couldn’t be solved with a warm slice

  of blueberry pie. On one occasion when my twin sisters Flora and Florence were invited to

  visit me on their birthday, awaiting them at the Gamache household so that she could provide

  them with a beautiful coconut-coated lemon birthday cake that only a loving baker like Mrs. Card could prepare. My sisters have never forgotten that angelic and munificent lady from