Holy Trinity

January 10, 2017July 27, 2019

An Alter Boy Vignette

Paul Dodd, Andy Finn and Rick Switzer from the Holy Trinity bulletin

The two paragraphs below accompanied the photo above in a Holy Trinity church bulletin from the early sixties.

“An alter boy’s performance is not all glamour. Parading before the congregation is only part of it. These fellows, thanks most often to diligent parents, get up at (and sometimes before) the crack of dawn and are “in uniform” before 6:45.

Most of them like to receive Holy Communion when they serve. This presents a breakfast problem which they solve very well. After Mass we find them huddled (these mornings) around the new alter-boy-sacristy gas heater enjoying their own chow. In the photo below we see, left to right, Paul Dodd, Andrew Finn and Richard Switzer fueling up.”

Some people may not know that in order to receive Holy Communion back in the day you had to fast from food for three hours before receiving, an heroic sacrifice for growing kids and reason many in my skinny family fainted during the service. The nuns in the convent next door made the hosts and they would stock the shelves of the priest’s sacristy. If we were there before the priest had crawled out of bed we would dig into the bags of hosts (unconsecrated, of course) and swallow them by the handful. As you can tell from the photo, we had a good time. Our main objective became cracking the other alter boy up during Mass. Things like pronouncing the Latin responses so badly that that we would laugh uncontrollably.

Rick Switzer, on the right, lived in Union Hill and his family had a trampoline built into the ground in their yard. Rick sat in front of me. His mom packed a lunch with a macaroon cookie in it everyday. Rick didn’t like macaroons so he would give it to me, often before lunch time even rolled around. We spent a lot of time carving our erasers into tiny bulldozers and street sweeping vehicles. We’d push them across the desk collecting the eraser filings and running them out the side of the vehicles. Andy Finn lived in an old farmhouse. They had a big barn and field big enough to play baseball in. His father owned the Texaco gas station in the center of town and his family rented a cottage on the lake down near Hedges Nine Mile Point. The old folks sat around drinking beer while Andy and I caught carp, big, sluggish fish that lingered close to the shore. He now resides in Finn Land.

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December 21, 2011August 19, 2019

Deer in meadow near Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, New York

Last time I posted a picture of a deer Steve Piotrowski painted a picture of it and used it as his holiday card. The card arrived today and is stunning. I’ve known Steve since our Holy Trinity days. We were in a split class together, 5th and 6th in the same classroom, about fifty kids in the class.

We were just talking about Catholic school at dinner last night. My memories of it play like a Fellini movie and I have a deep well of stories but they go over best with other one time Catholics so I’ll restrain myself.

Wooly Bully

The party room attached to the bar at the VFW in Fairport last night was flooded with florescent lighting and the acoustics from the hard surfaces made conversation tough but the class of 1968 rose to the challenge. Just like old people, everyone pretty much showed up at once. There was about a third of the class there along with a poster with the faces of the fallen. Three of my best friends from high school were on the board and it felt strange. Everyone knew Charlie Coco and Tim Schapp (in the glasses below) had died of AIDS but a number of people asked me how Dave Mahoney died, Patti Cowie, Dave’s old flame, among them.

Row I - Nancy Barry, Bill DeMar, Dave LaPlante, Richard Poe — Row I – Nancy Barry, Bill DeMar, Dave LaPlante, Richard Poe Row 2 – Bernard Finch, Mary Renz, Tom Kalupski, May Piotrowski, Bill Hargarther, Debby Wiechman, Joe Barrett, Rena Wojack Row 3 – Darlene Hilfiker, Richard LaFrois, Ruth White, Bobby Gray, Barb Mayer,Tom Schneider, Martha Schneider, Albert Williams Row 4 – Andy Finn, Jean Meier, Paul Dodd, Sandy Argus, Bob Brooks, MaryAnn Wojaick, John Abrams, Irene Palermo Row 5 – Marty Schreiber, Tim Schapp, Eileen Amen, Roger Miner, Michael Coffee, Linda Fry, Steve Zelimier, Michael Kubrich Row 6 – Gary Nagel, Dave Wilson, Fred Lorman, Richard Switzer, John Welch, Bob Leiberrnan, Milan Beh, Alfred Williams

Someone brought old class photos and I was knocked out by this one of our fifth grade class at Holy Trinity. My family moved out of the city that year and I joined the class midyear so I didn’t expect to see my photo in here (with tie above). Bill DeMar was in the photo. I heard he is dead too. He figured out how to set the clocks back so the bell never rang at the end of recess. Andy Finn, who has his own talk show, was in the photo and Tim Schapp and Joe Barrett were there even though they were not in attendance at the reunion. Bill Grey, whose father started Bill Grey’s restaurants, was in the photo and John Abraham, a good friend from grade school. He died in a car crash right after high school. Albert Williams was in the photo and in attendance. His twin brother, Alfred, was in the photo but still in Las Vegas. Dave LaPlant was in the photo and he was standing right next to me. He helped me identify the rest of the class. Jean Maier was in the photo and she was there too. And Irene Palermo was on the end of row four. I called her over to show her the photo. We were boyfriend/girlfriend in high school. She told me I looked thin. I took it to mean “too thin”. She looked great.

I was too overwhelmed to take photos and that is not like me. I did get a good one of Nina Gaby and Leeann Birdsall and another of Karen Mahoney and Laurice Densmore. I couldn’t tell if I was overloaded from seeing so many familiar people or emotionally drained from replaying so many scenes from the past. I wasn’t even able to make good conversation. I felt like I was back in high school. Mike Allen took me out to his car to show me something. He was in working bands in high school and he gave me an announcement for an upcoming gig. I checked to see how Peggi was holding up. I was in her place earlier in the year when we went to her reunion outside Detroit. She was talking to Mary Kaye and Shirley Zimmer and was all smiles so I felt better.

We did the twist on the dance floor and we all snaked into the bar. Marianne Gocker was hanging on to my hips. Holly Clark became the Queen of Soul for “Respect”. The class was dancing in a big circle and Jeff Munson and Doug Klick did a WWF interpretation of Wolly Bully in the center of it all. The dj had a pretty good segue with Louie Louie but it wasn’t the Kingsmen version.

The committee took home mums and leftovers from Proiettis. I was still out of it today so we snuck over to Rick and Monica’s hot tub for a soak and then watched Mystery Science Theatre reruns on VHS.

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