How I Learned to Hold It

Sync up with the nuns

Photo by kyo azuma on Unsplash

I attended Catholic school through fourth grade. The summer between fourth and fifth grade my siblings and I were abruptly pulled from Catholic school and put into public school.

I don’t remember ever knowing why we were moved. I do remember my Mom telling me that the things I had learned at Catholic school would help me in public school. Ok Mom.

In Catholic school we had nuns, very serious nuns. Our nuns looked like penguins. They wore all black habits with the white hunk of poster board on their forehead. It probably wasn’t poster board, but we all wanted to scribble on it just the same.

It was the mid 60’s and in our school boys and girls were kept separate. We were in class together, but boys were on one side of the classroom and girls were on the other.

Twice a Day Bathroom Parade

We were also kept separate for our twice-a-day bathroom parade. Twice-a-day may not seem like frequent enough bathroom visits, but you learned quickly to sync your bladder with the nuns.

Our school building, attached to the church, was one long hallway with classrooms on both sides. The hallway was tiled with beige 9x9 inch tiles (probably asbestos) with a row of dark brown tiles strategically placed down both…