Page 38 - WTP Vol. VIII #4

Ihave a supporting part in “Unknown,” a short film scheduled to be shot this weekend in Lynchburg, Virginia, about 70 miles south of my home in Albe- marle County. It’s a low-budget project, the cast is un- paid, and I’ve been corresponding via email with the person responsible for wardrobe, hair, and makeup (usually three jobs on a movie set) because I have to put together a suitable costume from my own clothes closet. A few years ago I told my wife I wouldn’t work gratis, but I took a break from acting, and, now that I’m starting again, I have to update my demo reel. And, anyway, here I am, writing about it, also for little or no money: my opportunity cost is approximately zero. I’ve printed the script, highlighted my lines, recorded them in an app that allows me to rehearse them solo. Once I have the lines down pat, I can give myself a back-story and start getting into character. My call time is early Saturday morning, and I’ll be there, ready to take direction.
I could not have had better training in memoriza- tion than the parochial school education that
began when, in 1953, I entered the first grade at Holy Family in Fresh Meadows, Queens, New York. The class stood when a nun of indeterminate age, wearing the black habit of the Sisters of St. Joseph, entered the classroom, said, “Good morning, chil- dren,” led us in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the morning prayers, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be. “Be seated.” Unintentionally noisy, we seated ourselves in manufactured chairs, with laminated wood seats and backs, attached by tubular steel to our equally spare desks.
We had recess in a paved schoolyard enclosed by a chain-link fence. Mother kept me in short pants too late in the season, my legs were cold, my overcoat made it look like I wore no pants at all, the boys who laughed and made me open the coat were too big
to fight, and, in any event, I wasn’t the scrappy type. I complained, Mother objected (“But you look so cute!”), relented, bought me long pants.
No champion in the schoolyard, I excelled in the classroom, learned to write in flowing script un-
der the Palmer method, still have some of my early report cards, signed by my father as often as my mother. The words of the prayers still come to mind, and my handwriting is refined to this day, just, sometimes, a little shaky. It should not surprise me that my grandchildren don’t know how to hold a
pen; they don’t pray, either, would probably find memorizing a prayer or a poem pointless.
Our fourth- or fifth-grade teacher, an ageing nun, was to be late one day. The school, evidently short- handed, selected a girl from one of the upper classes to monitor our classroom. She took her responsi- bility seriously, made it clear she would brook no misbehavior: we were to read in silence. I wrote a note, “This one is worse than the old bat,” passed
it to a classmate, one of the popular boys. The girl saw motion, confiscated the note, read it, kept it, presented it to the teacher. Sister said, “Nobody ever called me old before.” Shame, I learned, feels worse than humiliation.
In the sixth grade, after we moved again, I trans- ferred to St. Agnes Cathedral School in Rockville Centre, became an altar boy, learned the Latin Mass, wore a white surplice over a cassock, black in ordinary time, red on holy days. I came to love the ancient words, the hymns, candles, incense, altar bells, the shining colors of the priests’ vest- ments marking the course of the liturgical year. The celebrant faced the altar, spoke over his shoul- der. There were laminated crib sheets on the sanc- tuary floor where the servers knelt, P for Priest, R for Response. The official translation was unpre- tentious, the pronunciation, printed in red. I was a Pharisee, left the crib sheet on the floor, reeled off the responses from memory.
P: Introibo ad altare Dei. In-tro-EE-bo ahd al-TAR-ay DAY-ee. I will go to the altar of God.
R: Ad Deum, qui laetificat juventutem meum.
Ahd DE-um kwee lay-TEE-fee-kaht YU-ven-TU-tem MAY-um.
To God, the joy of my youth.
Under watchful eyes, children become agents of their own indoctrination. The words I learned by repeti- tion are still with me, the prayers I memorized are
in my bones, their meaning is inescapably part of
my identity, however poorly I may keep the faith today. Dogma carries weight, becomes, in time, the weight we carry. And how we learn matters, what we learn by heart, as children, may follow us to our graves or, in the absence of critical thinking, lead us to them. There is much to deplore in the par-
31
Learning by Heart
pHilip laWtoN