Posted tagged ‘blinders’

“I’m a detective, but nuns could stonewall Sam Spade into an asylum”

April 24, 2015

Today is yesterday and it’s the day before that. The temperature is in the 50’s and it is sunny and cloudy. The breeze, almost a wind, makes the day feel colder. I have things to do so Gracie and I will be out and about including a trip to the dump where it will feel like winter when the wind whips across the dump’s expanse.

My father loved to go to the dump. He usually went every Saturday and always asked for someone to go with him. There were few takers. That dump was a dump of old with high piles of trash and seagulls flying overhead squawking the whole time. The piles and the seagulls could be seen from the highway. I always told people coming to visit to keep their eyes peeled for the dump as we were the next exit.

My father would be disappointed at the dumps now with all their recycle bins and trash bins. The fun is gone and so are the seagulls.

I always found nuns mysterious and a little bit scary. I used to wonder what their hair looked like under their habits, and I also wondered why they had white handkerchiefs stuffed up their sleeves instead of in their pockets. I thought it was sort of gross. My first nuns had white blinders so they couldn’t see sideways without turning their heads. It was always to our advantage that by the time the nun turned we weren’t doing anything. She could hear the whisper but not pinpoint the source. The nuns also had a piece, sort of a half veil, across their foreheads just below the wimple. We got quite the shock  when we went back to school when I was in the eighth grade. The blinders were gone and all that was left was a little visor across the top. That nun could see everyone and everything. Nuns 1, kids 0.

“‘Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.”

August 27, 2013

Gloomy is the best I can say for today. It was late last night when I heard the rain start. It wasn’t a dramatic storm with thunder or lightning was rather quiet and gentle. I could almost hear each drop as it fell on a leaf or the deck. When I woke up, it was still raining, still a quiet and gentle rain. Since then, the rain has stopped. Everything is still except for one raucous crow.

I didn’t go to the dump yesterday. I didn’t feel like it, but today we’re going. I have collected all the recyclables from the cellar and put the trash bags by the car. The rest of yesterday’s to-do list got finished. I felt quite accomplished. I even filled some bird feeders which were not on the list. I’m thinking some sort of a trophy would be nice. It should be engraved.

My first grade teacher was a menace. She scared the heck out of me. Her name was Sister Redempta. She was really old, at least to my six-year-old eyes. Her habit was black and white. She wore blinders on each side of her white coif (I looked up what that was called. I always just said headpiece). It wasn’t until I was a little older that I realized that coif gave us an advantage. The nuns had to swivel their heads back and forth to catch us so we had a bit of time to do whatever. Every nun I had in elementary school kept a handkerchief up at the end of her sleeve. A bit of white always showed. That’s sort of gross when you think about it. We could always hear the nuns coming because the giant rosary beads they wore around their waists made a lot of noise. It was like an early warning system. I had more good nuns than bad throughout my elementary school years. Considering it was baby boomer time and some classes were huge, with 30 kids, you’d think discipline problems, but there were none. Our parents would have killed us.

When I was in the seventh grade, the habits were changed, and the blinders were replaced by what looked like small visors. Now the nuns could see everything. They had the advantage. That was a sad day for us.

My aunt is a nun. That’s all I’ve known her as. She used to wear habit. Now she wears regular clothes. We all call her my aunt the nun as if she has no other name.