I owe a lot of (now) old women apologies of a sort.
Early on, maybe grade 8 or 9 if my mom was in earshot I could not speak to a female classmate without my mother asking the same quesstion time after time after she got out of earshot.
"Is she a GoodCatholicGirl? What does her father do?"
Mom had plans for this kid. I was supposed to marry a GoodCatholicGirl, give my mother a whole ringtailed passel of grandkids and have my rich father-in-law pull a few strings for me and take me all the way to the top.
This grew tiresome fast and early on I decided that there was not going to be a single Catholic girl with a white collar successful career in my entire graduating class.
It got pretty bad. Dad knew it, too. Once during my senior year in high school mom said something about making sure whoever was a GoodCatholicGirl and my father looked at me and said, "Son, it speaks very highly of your patience that you did not run away and join the circus!" Dad got a dirty look from Mom for that one.
Anyway, there's probably about three dozen female classmates (probably a lot more than that) that I mislabeled when my mother asked.
Now my self-imposed rules were that I could not use the same religion or job twice. It was off to the library and the religion section and while there were a limited number of mainstay religions, there were enough sub-religions and sects so that I had well over a hundred to work with if I broke things down.
Then there were made up religions. My favorite one I stole from my father when he got angry over dinner when the tired discussion came up. "I don't care if he marries an Estemenian if it makes him happy!"
I saved that one and shortly after put it to good use.
Shortly thereafter I passed a classmate that I knew pretty much only by name and face. Exercising the basic manners of being civil I said hello to her and she returned it.
A minute later when mom asked I answered "No, Mom. She's Estemenian and her father was a swineherd that moved here from Tibet after the war."
"What's an Estemenian?" she asked.
"Ask Dad," I said.
Of course she did. She explained on of my classmates had a father from Tibet that was an Estemenian and wanted to know what that was. Dad gave me a look that was a combination of being pissed off at me and amused at the same time. It wasn't the first nor the last time I got the look.
''I guess it's probably a religion from Tibet," he said, squirming out of it like a pro. I think that's when he figured out what I was doing and said nothing.
I have no idea what an Estemenian is. I have Googled it a couple of times and it just goes back to where I have used it on line before. I think my father just pulled that one out of his ass somehow.
Anyway, then there was the girl that was in my home room for six years.
Sidebar here: Just before I retired as my consigliere said might happen to me I started to remember all sorts of strange stuff as my responsibilities dropped off. An early memory of this woman appeared as almost a vision.
We made our First Communion together.
She was a beautiful child and in her white communion dress she looked like a sweet, pious little girl with a heavenly glow around her. She was a Norman Rockwell painting of sweetness and virtue. She was of Italian heritage and her slightly olive complexion just glowed.
In school she remained quite attractive and was alway courteous and kind to everyone. Later at reunion 50 we chatted briefly. She's still very attractive after all these years and reminds me of an Italian contessa. She's still a beautiful woman.
Where were we? Oh yeah.
Our paths crossed downtown somewhere and the usual GoodCatholicGirl inquisition happened. Her olive complexion made it a slam-dunk for me. I also made a one-time exception for white collared jobs.
"She's a Muslim. Her father is an A-rab that's here because his company sells oil to Gulf Oil(a big outfit in Boston at the time).
He keeps her and her mother here and his other wives in Saudi Arabia.
"Other wives?" she asked, in horror.
"Yeah. Muslims can have four wives but I think he only has three and keeps the other two in Arabia somewhere." I replied. "There's a mosque in Quincy and they go there Friday evenings."
"You can't have four wives!" She shot back.
"You can in Saudi Arabia," I replied.
"Well, stay away from her!" she said.
"I was thinking of asking her to the CYO dance in a couple of weeks," I replied, innocently.
"Well, you're not!" she snapped.
I was just ready to say, 'Betcha dad'll let me." but thought better of it. My poor father had enough problems as it was.
The next day she snapped at me, "You're not taking a Muslim girl to the CYO dance!"
"OK, Mom," I said.
Dad was in the next room and heard the exchange. A minute later I wandered through and Dad asked me, "What was that all about?"
"You don't want to get in the middle of that one," I said and kept moving.
"Wellthankyouverymuch," he said.
The next day was probably a Saturday because when dad saw me I knew he had probably gotten an earful. He looked at me and said, "Three wives? Kid, where do you come up with all this crap?"
"Probably from you," I said. He scowled and started to walk off. But the Old Man got the last word in on the subject. as he was leaving he said, "Wow! The poor bastard has three mother-in laws!"
The one that got me busted was the one that I spoke to only once in the whole four years of high school. One Saturday morning Dad sent me to go along with my mother to pick up a piece of hardware in the center. Our paths crossed and we simply said 'hello' to each other.
Inside the hardware store the interrogation took place.
"They're Coptic Christian, I said. It's a Christianity from Ethopia." I explained.
When she asked about what her father did I told her he was in prison for the next 20 years.
"Oh, my God! What did he do?" she demanded to know.
"He murdered a woman that kept asking her son too many nosy questions about his daughter," I replied.
"Your father's going to hear about this," she snapped.
He did and hauled me into the basement where we sat and looked at each other a while. He shook his head. I think he told me to go upstairs and pout for about 20 minutes or something like that.
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