[Magdalen] The Deen controversy

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Grace Cangialosi

>Oddly enough, I never actually heard anyone say the F-word until I was 29, 
>though I had seen it written on plenty of lavatory stall doors. Someone new to 
> >our therapy group said it, and I literally thought I was going to pass out or 
>throw up. Such power we give words...

I can tell you exactly when  I first heard the F word -- and a bunch of other 
words and phrases not used in polite conversation: second week of September 
1957.

My friend Timmy and I were on our way home from school -- I was in third grade, 
he was in second grade. We encountered Philip and Richie, on  the way home --  
they had been dismissed a few minutes earlier from their brand-spanking new 
parochial school -- Our Lady of Peace where their parents were now sending them.

Richie decides to give us a spelling test . . . "What does F-U-C- spell?" And I 
answered "Foos." "No the "C" is a hard "C" -- And I uttered the word.

Richie and Philip then took great delight in taunting "You sinned! Ha Ha Ha!" as 
only 6-7 year olds can taunt their peers.

And proceeded to tell us all the other **new** words they'd learned that it was 
"sinful" to say in their second grade class in the RC school.

Some people say there's nothing like a good Catholic education . . .

BTW == the parents of both Phillip and Richie also refused to let them play with 
the rest of the boys in the neighborhood if Peter Guill was involved -- Peter's 
family were Episcopalians, but the particular enmity wasthat they were from 
Puerto Rico and had cousins who were <gasp!> black.  They were no permitted to 
attend my eighth birthday party, for example. My folks thought that pretty 
awful, so when my tenth birthday rolled around, she kept the guest list a 
secret, with the party actually held as a picnic in the Nassau County Park at 
Salisbury (now Eisenhower Park), using both family cars and another belonging to 
a cousin so no one would know who all was there until it was impossible to "get 
away."

Another interesting lesson . . .

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie

Cheers,
Jim Guthrie