One
afternoon, the summer before fourth grade, we were playing “pitcher’s hand out”
in the grass field behind the St. Clare convent. That’s a form of slow-pitch
baseball played when you’re short on players. There were only six of us that
day so each team had a pitcher, a shortstop and a left-fielder. The team that
was batting supplied the catcher, but in the event of a play at the plate, the
pitcher would cover home to avoid any conflict of interest on the part of the
catcher. We were all right-handed hitters, so anything hit to the right-field
side of second base was an automatic out. And since there was no first baseman,
if the infielder relayed a ground ball to the pitcher before the batter reached
first base or the pitcher successfully fielded a grounder before the batter
reached first, the batter was out. Hence the name “pitcher’s hand out.”
Way
out in the deepest part of left-center field was the convent’s fence. (The
convent was the building our parish nuns lived in.) Most of the fences in our
neighborhood were 4-foot-high cyclone fences – easy to see through and easy to
hop over. This fence was a true privacy fence – 6-feet high and made of solid
wooden planks that ran horizontally. You couldn’t see through it, under it or
over it. That fence was so far from our home plate there was no way any of us
could ever jack one over it. Except for Kenny Bartkowiak. Seemed like no matter
how deep outfielders played him, Kenny somehow managed to hit the ball over
their heads. And on this particular day he got all of one, as he often did, and
hit the ball over that fence.
After
Kenny finished rounding the bases, we all gathered around home plate to assess
the situation: we didn’t have a back-up ball; it was way too early to call it a
day; and it was too far to anyone’s house to go get another ball. So it was
decided we’d retrieve the ball from the convent’s yard. As simple as this might
sound, it was not an undertaking to be undertaken lightly. If it were any other
fence in the neighborhood, the outfielder would have just hopped it without a
second thought to fetch the ball. But this was not just any fence. It was a
fence with no gaps or holes to peek through anywhere. For all we knew, the yard
was inhabited by the kinds of monsters one sees depicted on old sea maps. And nuns lived there. So if any of us did try to sneak a peek over the top of that
fence, he did so at the risk of being struck blind.
So
we decided that all six of us would go get it. But when we found ourselves
gathered in front of the back gate, we stood as still as fence posts, unsure of
how to proceed. After all, the security at a convent must be incredible. The
gate was certainly double-bolted and chained shut. Then suddenly, without
warning, Kenny lifted the latch and swung the gate open. Considering what was
there, we could not have been more surprised if we had seen Hoyt Wilhelm
pitching BP to Billy Williams.
Whenever
I recall that moment, I invariably hear harp music (although there was no
musical accompaniment whatsoever) as that gate swung open to reveal … an
attractive, smiling woman in her mid-twenties, wearing a light yellow,
sleeveless blouse, shorts and sneakers, refinishing a small dresser. I wondered
“What kind of a sin gets you ‘Ten Hail Marys, an Act of Contrition and refinish
a piece of furniture’ for penance?” but was jolted from my reverie by five
little words that shattered a lifelong stereotype in an instant: “Hi boys, I’m
Sister Kathleen.” Our jaws dropped to our shoe-tops. She didn’t look like a nun! She didn’t dress like a nun! And she certainly didn’t smile like one! “Yer a nun?” gulped Tommy. “No lie?” asked Joey.
“Get out!” protested Greg. “No way!” remonstrated Bob. She was quite tickled by
our disbelief, and when she reiterated she was indeed a nun, we peppered her
with questions about where she was from, how she was dressed and what she was
doing at St. Clare. When she told us she’d be teaching fourth graders in the
fall, we lost it all over again and told her we’d be fourth graders in the fall. She beamed
beatifically and asked us our names. As we all introduced ourselves I kept
thinking that every nun we had ever encountered before had been a lot older. A
lot more reserved. And dressed in black habits that covered everything except
hands and faces. But this new
nun was different! This
Sister could have been one of our
sisters! She could have been a nurse or a waitress or a teller at the bank! She
looked just like a regular person! Plus, she didn’t yell at us for hitting a
ball into her yard. And she smiled a lot.
After
we’d chatted up Sister Kathleen for a while, one of the guys found our ball and
we returned to the field to finish the game. And while I can’t speak for the
others, I had a tough time concentrating on baseball the rest of that
afternoon. Because for the past couple of days we’d all been complaining about
the fact that summer was coming to an end and we’d be going back to school
soon. And then we met a new, young nun who was really nice. And friendly. And
pretty. And seemed to actually like us. And she would be our teacher that fall
at St. Clare, along with other new nuns. And while it might not have met the
criteria required by The Vatican, I gotta say I’m pretty sure that was a bona
fide miracle. And suddenly it seemed as if maybe the fourth grade at St. Clare
de Montefalco wasn’t going be so bad after all.
