St. Gabriel’s Elementary School

Ah, yes! I remember it well!

I’ve always had a phenomenally good memory, but only in a qualified sense.

Does anyone remember Marilu Henner, who, long ago, played Elaine Nardo, the art gallery employee on “Taxi”? She is purported to have a perfect autobiographical memory.

I appear to come quite close. Oddly, although I’m always forgetting where I most recently put my eyeglasses, keys, wristwatch, etc. , I seem to have quite an amazing memory to remember verbatim conversations, and all manner of arcane trivia, from decades in the past.

People are always passing comments about how exasperating it is that I can’t quite seem to remember to do the important chores, to run necessary errands, or otherwise to keep a promise, but I can always remember the times, in the tenth grade, when my theology teacher at St. John the Baptist Diocesan High School in West Islip told us that he’d never liked boiled hot dogs, and that his brother had a major foot problem. I haven’t lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, since September 11, 1971, five days before my twelfth birthday. My parents and I, during the first years of the twenty first century, went back to St. Gabriel’s, our old parish in East Elmhurst, for a couple of reunions. I attended grammar school there. Sister Catherine, of the Sisters of Charity, was on the faculty when I was there. At one of the reunions, I re introduced myself and explained to her that I thought I could remember that she was once named Sister Lawrence. She reacted with a stunned facial expression and replied: “Not since 1966!” Of course, I could come up with quite a large number of other similar incidents. I quite often enjoy shocking old friends, teachers, and classmates with these trips down memory lane. It would be nice, however, if I could as easily summon up the equivalent ability to remember to buy things I’ve run out of, to take out the garbage, and to meet whichever deadlines may arise in the here and now.

Mnemonic

you know my name (look up my number)

My Name Is Larry

My name is Larry. Officially I’m named Lawrence, after my mother’s father, who died in late August of 1959, slightly over two weeks before I was born. Although I never got a chance to get to know my grandfather, I grew up constantly in touch with my Uncle Larry and my cousin Larry, on my father’s side. Among my father’s relatives there have even been nine Joseph’s, and a bit too much repetition of other names too. Throughout the years, in order to differentiate from among us Larry’s, I was too often referred to as Little Larry, and even Baby Larry. My niece and nephews, knowing that my full name is Lawrence, have often asked if I have ever gotten any mileage out of that variation of my name. I remind them that under official circumstances it frequently comes up, in school, work, and anywhere else that may require me to be a bit formal. Sister Miriam Therese, of the Sisters of Charity, was my fifth grade teacher at St. Gabriel’s in East Elmhurst. It was in her class that I was first reminded constantly that my name was Lawrence. She was quite strict about each student’s always being addressed and referred to by his first name. Around the time of my twelfth birthday we moved from Jackson Heights to Lindenhurst. When kids in my new schools, Copiague Junior High School, and then Our Lady of Perpetual Help, asked me what my name was, I took a chance on introducing myself as Lawrence. The Copiague kids stuck with it for around the next three years. Somehow after that it faded away entirely. In my Catholic school, though, things were a bit different. The first kid I met there was Jerry Antonacci. He asked me my name. I introduced myself as Lawrence. He then asked if he may call me Larry. I said yes and that was the end of it. Unlike certain other names, such as Anthony, David, Michael, and Peter, the name Lawrence simply doesn’t strike people as that interesting as far as always calling somebody by his full name. I see no point in ever bothering to change it. There have been times over the course of my lifetimes when it has struck me as somewhat annoying. In general, though, it’s quite nice.

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Sparks From A Combustible Mind

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traumatic september 11

On September 11, 1971, I moved from Jackson Heights, Queens, to Lindenhurst, in Suffolk County. It was five days before my twelfth birthday and I had a difficult time adjusting to my new circumstances. Always having gone to Catholic school, at St. Gabriel’s, I was forced, for two weeks, to attend Copiague Junior High School, the local public school,until I got into Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I ended up spending many decades in Lindenhurst but my early days there were quite a quirky trip.

On September 11, 2001, five days before my forty second birthday, the Moslem terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in Manhattan, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.,also hijacking United Airlines Flight 93. People on the left still don’t quite seem to understand that Islam is ruled by Satan. I was at 9:00 a.m. Mass that day at Our Lady of Perpetual Help when Father Edward M. Seagriff told us about the attacks.

to grandmother’s house we go

The school year has ended for St. Gabriel’s in Queens. My father drove us to the Port Authority. My mother, my younger sister Mary Anne, and I are now on our way to my grandmother’s house in northeastern Pennsylvania on a Martz Trailways bus.

For a ten-year-old city kid, all this farmland is amazing. The only sound I hear is Johnny Rivers’ “Mountain Of Love” playing quietly on my transistor radio. I wonder what it’s like to ride a tractor instead of a utility bus. I think I’ll count the cows and horses for the rest of the trip.