Those Were The Days: 1964

We went to a small Catholic school called Sacred Heart on the Southside of Chicago. So small that when I was in 3th grade and Michael was in 2nd grade we were in the same classroom together. The following school year was the first time we were going to have school photos taken, it was a very exciting day.

We didn't have to wear our uniforms to school that day so I wore a skirt, white blouse, and my favorite orange sweater. Michael and I were late for school as usual (our family was late for church every Sunday, my mother would march all of us kids up the center aisle to the our pew, the first pew in the front of the church).

Michael and I were running up our tree lined block, no other kids were around, 7 more blocks to run...we were really late...when suddenly a bird crapped right smack in the middle of Michael's freshly combed head!

He stopped and let out a yell!! I carefully surveyed the top of his head, I was taller so I had no problem seeing a really gross milky white gooey glob of bird crap. He began to wail really loudly. He wanted to go home to wash it out but we were late so I convinced him to hold still while I.............

spit in his hair and cleaned up the mess with my recently ironed white hanky. I can still remember standing there spitting and carefully wiping to it out of his hair while my heart was pounding knowing that the nuns were going to kill us for being late!

Here is a photo of (me) Maureen, age 9,

on that fateful day. Notice the orange sweater.

Oh! Notice my goofy bangs, the nun was just as nervous about photo day as we were. She had a comb in her hand so as we stood quietly in single file line she combed each kid's hair. My bangs were straight bangs, why she combed them to the side I'll never know, but of course I was scared to death to change what she had done so my bangs will live on in infamy, combed to the side.