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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOKWhat They Did to the Kid 2279December 25, 1963Silent Night. I faced the music. Christmas at home was a showdown game of chicken. Like Kennedy daring Khrushchev, I risked announce into the oncoming headlights of all my parent%u2019s friends: %u201cI quit.%u201d Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful. On Christmas Eve, before Midnight Mass, people still reeling from Jack Kennedy%u2019s death stammered in the snow outside my parent%u2019s parish church and looked at my face, looked at their feet, and started to say, %u201cOh, I%u2019m sorry,%u201d then stopped.%u201cI quit,%u201d I said. Dashing through the snow. %u201cThe world is changing. Faster than you know.%u201d They buried their heads in their fur collars and scarves. %u201cEven in Peoria.%u201d I could never have preached to them. I could never have warned them. Christmas was lights and presents and %u201cYoo hoo, Santa.%u201d%u201cYou would have made such a handsome priest.%u201d They looked at me, really looked, perhaps for the first time, at the amazing invisible boy, then said the same lines, all of them, the same lines: %u201cBetter to find out now, courage of your convictions.%u201d Chestnuts roasting. They stared at me like some shape-shifter. Come and behold him. %u201cGirls?%u201d they asked. %u201cWho%u2019s the girl?%u201d They drew their daughters in closer to them. Round yon virgin. They kidded me. %u201cNow I don%u2019t have to watch my language around you.%u201d Barump a bum bump.My father%u2019s best friend, the rich Mason, pulled me aside and said, %u201cCongratulations. You were always too good for that.%u201d Everybody knows.People took my hand and pulled me to them. %u201cNow you have to make up for lost time.%u201d Jingle all the way. I was shocked they were so relieved. Oh, what fun. Grown-ups who loved me had kept their opinions quiet out of respect for my vocation. All is bright. They breathed a sigh of relief, as if abducted, I had rescued myself.They welcomed me back. Quitting made me one of them again. For the first time in almost eleven years, I had no identity. I was not the best little boy in the world, up on the altar serving the priest at Midnight Mass and ringing the altar bells and swinging the incense in the faces of two thousand parishioners. Oh, Lord, I prayed, I can%u2019t trust anyone. They all