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%u00a9Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights ReservedHOW TO LEGALLY QUOTE FROM THIS BOOK70 Jack FritscherThe secret bonded us.%u201cScrew you,%u201d he whispered.%u201cYou are more pathetic than boring,%u201d I said.Around our little movie scene, the crowd of milling extras sniggered.%u201cSilence in the ranks!%u201d Gunn yelled from half across the room. %u201cClose up the file or I%u2019ll bring you all about-face.%u201dIn a high-pitched ventriloquist-whisper into the fist of my thumb over my forefinger, I said, %u201cNo! No! Not that! Not the %u2018about-face.%u2019 I might turn and see Hank.%u201dAll the boys near me laughed into their hands and into the crooks of their elbows.I turned and walked out.Hank the Tank was hard behind me as we filed two-by-two up the stairs, into the chapel where we all knelt together for our after-supper visit to the Blessed Sacrament.March 17, 1957 Saint Patrick%u2019s DayIn the refectory, after supper, on the Feast of Saint Patrick, Rector Karg, in his schnapps, ordered me up the ten steps to the lectern, all the boys looking up, and made me sing %u201cDanny Boy.%u201d Ha ha ha.The Irish, Karg liked to say, missed twenty-five percent of Catholic history, because the Micks were pagans until 500 A.D. In the last election for U. S. president, when all the priests liked Ike Eisenhower, Karg had not liked me liking Ike%u2019s Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson, because he was governor of my home state. If Karg had a wrong side, I was always on it.%u201cSing %u2018Danny Boy%u2019 again,%u201d Karg commanded. %u201cThis time, louder, in German.%u201d Ha ha ha. Lock stood up and joined me, and saved me.March 19, 1957Feast of Saint JosephTwo days later, in the middle of lunch, Father Gunn, the once-and-always Chaplain to the United States Marine Corps, strode like a Fury into the refectory. He rang the brass hotel-desk bell on his table%u2014pounded it repeatedly, a touch of urgency%u2014to silence the grand Peter Rimski who