Puppy Love

Something strange began happening to us between grades 5 and 6. Hormones began raging through our now-pubescent bodies. Through the adult conspiracy of silence on the matter, I was kept unaware of what was going on with me physically, although I did wonder why there were little spots of white fluid appearing on my pajama bottoms in the morning. (Nocturnal emissions!) And here's proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. At some point someone would mention that a "discharge" was a symptom of venereal disease, so I began to panic, thinking that I might have such a disease—without ever having had intercourse. That was a vital piece of information I was not given.

Although I had no idea what was going on, some of my classmates began figuring things out. So, that year, some of the boys began drawing stick figures with huge secondary sex characteristics, and then they passed them around the room so that I would be caught with them. Also, for some reason, 95% of the boys thought that it would be incredibly funny to punch each other in the testicles every chance they got. When I discovered this new pastime of theirs, I quickly adapted a very fast defensive move of turning to the side and raising one leg to block the oncoming fist. I must say that I was never actually struck in the testicles by any of them. Unfortunately, old instincts die hard; even now, when my wife approaches me and starts to grab for me in a romantic and intimate manner, I still react the same way.

So—thus far we have: hormones raging, dirty pictures circulating, boys whapping each other's testicles—and into this recipe we mix the world's oldest nun. Sister Ada taught many of our parents, and some of our grandparents as well. She was from a very holy family. She had three sisters who were also nuns, and she had a brother who had become a priest. At one time, this was looked upon as a great thing. The call to the religious life was a greater vocation than married life. (Don’t ask me why, since you would eventually run out of Catholics, except for converts.) Anyway, to us, a group of twelve-year olds, Sister Ada seemed ancient. When we would get to high school, the teachers there would seem so much older than us, and they were just recently out of college at 22 or 23 with their BAs. Sister Ada was in her seventies.

On the positive side, Sister Ada was a very nice, gentle nun, and a good teacher. Unfortunately, she also had a few strange and distracting quirks. Because of her age she wasn't in the best of health, and it caused some problems for all of us. First, she never walked around the classroom; instead, she perched on a high chair behind the podium and lectured from there. Also, she often had to belch during class. It surprised us that she did, since she told us that all she ever ate was boiled potatoes. I think that was all that her agéd digestive system could handle. Barely. She'd be sitting behind the podium, talking, and then she'd stop, burp, and say, "I'm sorry, boys and girls, but you don't know how good it feels to get that out."


PUPPY LOVE
Something strange began happening to us between grades 5 and 6. Hormones began raging through our now-pubescent bodies. Through the adult conspiracy of silence on the matter, I was kept unaware of what was going on with me physically, although I did wonder why there were little spots of white fluid appearing on my pajama bottoms in the morning. (Nocturnal emissions!) And here's proof that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. At some point someone would mention that a "discharge" was a symptom of venereal disease, so I began to panic, thinking that I might have such a disease—without ever having had intercourse. That was a vital piece of information I was not given. Although I had no idea what was going on, some of my classmates began figuring things out. So, that year, some of the boys began drawing stick figures with huge secondary sex characteristics, and then they passed them around the room so that I would be caught with them. Also, for some reason, 95% of the boys thought that it would be incredibly funny to punch each other in the testicles every chance they got. When I discovered this new pastime of theirs, I quickly adapted a very fast defensive move of turning to the side and raising one leg to block the oncoming fist. I must say that I was never actually struck in the testicles by any of them. Unfortunately, old instincts die hard; even now, when my wife approaches me and starts to grab for me in a romantic and intimate manner, I still react the same way. So—thus far we have: hormones raging, dirty pictures circulating, boys whapping each other's testicles—and into this recipe we mix the world's oldest nun. Sister Ada taught many of our parents, and some of our grandparents as well. She was from a very holy family. She had three sisters who were also nuns, and she had a brother who had become a priest. At one time, this was looked upon as a great thing. The call to the religious life was a greater vocation than married life. (Don’t ask me why, since you would eventually run out of Catholics, except for converts.) Anyway, to us, a group of twelve-year olds, Sister Ada seemed ancient. When we would get to high school, the teachers there would seem so much older than us, and they were just recently out of college at 22 or 23 with their BAs. Sister Ada was in her seventies. On the positive side, Sister Ada was a very nice, gentle nun, and a good teacher. Unfortunately, she also had a few strange and distracting quirks. Because of her age she wasn't in the best of health, and it caused some problems for all of us. First, she never walked around the classroom; instead, she perched on a high chair behind the podium and lectured from there. Also, she often had to belch during class. It surprised us that she did, since she told us that all she ever ate was boiled potatoes. I think that was all that her agéd digestive system could handle. Barely. She'd be sitting behind the podium, talking, and then she'd stop, burp, and say, "I'm sorry, boys and girls, but you don't know how good it feels to get that out."
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		© 2004 Stephen A. Schrum
		My favorite story about Sister Ada concerns "impure thoughts." She told us that as we were getting older and as our bodies began to change—whatever that meant—we would begin to have "impure thoughts." The devil himself would stand behind us, on the left, and incite us to have impure thoughts. Of course, she never defined exactly what these impure thoughts were, but we were definitely not supposed to have them. In order to be more helpful, however, besides simply telling us we shouldn't have them, she gave us advice on how to cope with them. Whatever they were. One day she said to us, "Boys and girls, if you start to have an impure thought, you should try to think about something else. Something like…well, like Charlie Brown's dog. What’s his name?” One girl raised her hand, Sr. Ada nodded to her. The girl stood up and said, “Snoopy.” “Yes!” said Sr. Ada, as the girl sat down. “If you find yourself starting to have an impure thought, think about Charlie Brown's dog, Snoopy." Now, thinking back on this, it occurs to me that this was perhaps not the best advice to give young hormonally-imbalanced adolescents in the throes of puberty, and that this would have had a horrific effect on my classmates had they heeded her advice. A boy starts to have an impure thought, and he says, "Well, let me think about Snoopy...." And slowly, inevitably, this boy would be drawn into the dark world of bestiality. I wonder if this ever happened, and I imagine going to a high school reunion years later, and seeing one of my classmates from the sixth grade. He’s drooling into his drink. We get to talking, and he tells me about his life. “Been married for a while now, had a couple of pups." As he scratches furiously, he confides in me: "But I think I been married too long, yeah, yeah, I wanna stray.” Suddenly he glances over and sees one of our classmates, who had been a cheerleader in high school, and has not lost her looks. "Look at that bitch!" he says; his tongue extends and he starts to pant. I grab him by the collar and hold on tight before he can run over to her and start humping her leg. Talk about being scarred for life!