Life Lessons Learned

My family was involved in the Roman Catholic Church. Those were the days when the highways were not completed and families were just getting used to the idea that a car, rather than bus or the vanished trolley, was becoming a necessity.

The Church was located around the corner from our home. Periodically, my father and older brother would clean the Church hall. I would beg to tag along. When I got there, I was more a nuisance than anything else. After all, I was going on five years old!

There was a large trap door that led to an upstairs area where the Church Drum and Bugle Corps would store their equipment.

My father warned me never to go up there.

Of course, the first chance I got, when he was in another section of the hall, I did go up.

I thought of all the stories I’d heard about Heaven. The Band Master was there, and I remember asking him if he was God.

My father made sure I never used that trap door again!

My mother sometimes helped my father and brother clean up. They soon learned it was better for me to play outside then stay indoors and be a pest.

The nuns came by now and then. I was struck by their gentle, Godly demeanor. One day, I roamed through the lawn and picked all the dandelions I could and, when the nuns came by, I offered it to them, thinking it was a grand floral bouquet.

They reacted in a very sweet manner and I felt I had done such a good deed.

Later, my mother chastised me and taught me a cold fact of life: that dandelions were weeds!