Snowball Fight

The talk about speeding tickets and guilt and authority has called to my mind  an episode from my 8th grade days at Visitation Catholic School.  It was winter.  When the gaggle of kids walking home south of York Rd headed out, a snowball fight ensued.

I intend  that passive-voice to say something right there.  No one starts a snowball fight.  Snowball fights start themselves. 

A snowball fight is not a game where captains pick teams.  It's a spontaneous combustion of the energy of youth that has been percolating in the pressure cooker of a Chicago-land-crazy-damp-too-cold-to-do-anything-outside-and-run-around-winter.

But then the sun shines all day and wets the snow into primo-packing powder and it's warm enough--finally!--to walk with your puffy winter parka unzipped and when you had walked into the school that early morning, the sun had only just risen, but now it's over 7 hours later and it is time for the lid to blow.

And, boy, does it blow.

I remember feeling sorry for all my friends who walk home to the north and all my rich friends who take a bus home to their rich neighborhood that they had all missed it.  30? 35? 40 kids (?) at least! 

No one got hurt. Everyone had fun.  4th graders all the way through 8th graders--just a marvelous, marvelous snowball fight!

I should have known that some nun would object.


That evening, I was at the girls volleyball game,  spectating.  Sister Thomas Leo called me over to where she sat at the end of the bleachers. 

She wanted names.  From me.  Who, from my class, had "thrown snow"? 

My heart was in my throat.  It always was when this woman spoke to me.  I call her "woman" now, because I'm 37.  But as a girl of 14, it did not occur to me that she was a woman.  Or even mortal. 

(This mortality is still somewhat in question.  She was so old back then, and she is still principal of this school 23 years later.)

She was "Sister,"--the teachers called her this, as in "Sister has asked us to remind you that you must wear hats, boots and gloves when outdoors" (Sister called this "Mandatory membership in her HBG Club") or "Sister will be coming in at 2:00 to speak with our class" and when she arrived at the door, we all stood to the sides of our chair-and-table-in-one desks and said, "Good afternoon, Sister Thomas Leo" which was the only time we ever said her whole name.

Who was this person?  She was a force.  Discussions with her never ended with my feeling good or confident about myself.  I only ever felt, vaguely, that I had somehow miss-spoken.    Whatever I'd said, it had probably been somewhat wrong. 

So there at the game, when she asked, "Miss Ferrone, which students were throwing snow?"  I thought, "Almost everyone" but I said, "Not me." 

This was true.  I hadn't thrown snow.  Because I knew that a by-law of Sister's HBG club was that students cannot throw snow when in school uniform.  Reflects poorly on Visitation.

 More than having the raucous kind of fun my peers were having in that snowball fight, more than wanting to laugh along not just as a spectator but as a participator, I wanted Sister to think that I was wonderful.  I hated the idea of some important authority like her, or any teacher, not thinking of me as one of the good girls. 

That afternoon, had I even been tempted to join in the fun--30 kids! at least!--no.  I admired them all as they went for it.  Maybe even took a hit or two myself in the commotion.  But I wasn't one of them enough to be one of them.

Not that I was mindful that afternoon that she had been watching.  But rule-keepers keep rules, regardless. 

Sister said, as we talked at the end of the bleachers, "I know you didn't throw snow."  That was it.  The end of the conversation. 

She didn't ask me, again, to inform.  And if she knew I hadn't thrown snow, then she must have known because she witnessed it, in which case, she'd have seen for herself that everyone else had been throwing snow.

"You may go sit down now," she said.  And I did.  Feeling as though I should have said something else. 

Maybe she knew I hadn't thrown snow because she knew I was a rule-keeper.

Maybe she knew about the snowball fight because the residents of that block, on whose lawns the fight had taken place, had called to complain.

The next day in school, Sister's voice came over the PA. 

Whenever she spoke to make her own announcement--which hardly ever happened--she did so without the slightest sense that she should be brief, or efficient with words. But this time, she called all students in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grades who walk home South of York road to report at that instant to the 8th grade Chemistry lab room. 

I reported there.  It was next door to my classroom.  And the other 7th and 8th graders who reported had a few moments to exchange glances and questions before Sister could complete the long walk down to our wing from where she'd just made her announcement in the school office.

What was this about? 

My friends were not at all worried.  Especially the boys.  Albert, Larry, John--all rolling their eyes.  Who cared what this was about?  Another stupid BS thing that they had been hearing about and getting into trouble over for 8 or 9 years.

Then Sister stepped in and those boys all stood a little straighter and seemed to care a bit more.  We were confused as to protocol.  To go from sitting to standing and to say your thing when Sister walks in is clear enough.  But what if you were already standing?

No matter, younger kids starting filing in, too.  The 4th and 5th graders looking quite worried, indeed.

I knew all along what this was about.  And Sister wasted now time filling the others in.  She didn't raise her voice--never did, come to think about it--and she didn't berate or use hurtful words.  She calmly informed us of what a disrespectful, embarrassing, poorly chosen, ill-conceived, undisciplined and shameful thing had happened the day before.

A snowball fight.  In school uniform. 

We would all answer a question right then, to her face, looking her in the eye.  "Did you throw snow?"  And she would believe whatever answer we gave her.  The "No's" were to leave the room after answering.  The "Yes's" were to remain.

She started at one end of her line-up of students and the answers came one by one, some, "No, Sister," and some, "Yes, Sister" but all of them somber. 

The "No's" left.  My 7th and 8th grade friends answered, one after another, "Yes, Sister," and seemed to do so without fear, probably without regret because whatever was coming would be worth what they'd enjoyed the day before. 

Then she got to me and knew already what the honest answer was.

And I said, "Yes, Sister."

Her eyes blinked at this, the only sign in her wrinkled, impassive countenance that she was not sure what to do.  Either I was lying then, or I'd been lying the night before.

Sister stared at me.  I stared back, terrified. She moved on. 

If Sister felt any commendation towards me for throwing my lot in with my peers, she never mentioned it. 

If Sister was disappointed that I'd lied to her face at least once over the matter, she never mentioned that, either.

Sister never told me that she thought I was wonderful.  Never made any remark to me that suggested I stood out to her in any way come graduation. 

I saw her years later, actually, when I found myself on the grounds of that church and I spoke to her in friendly tones and would have launched into how much I appreciated my school days at Visitation, except that she had no recollection of me whatsoever.  Understandable.   Plenty of kids have passed through those doors during her tenure. 


The punishment for being part of that snowball fight/claiming to have been part of it?

We were to draw a map that showed the school and our house and all the streets between and we were to draw a red line demonstrating the most direct route from the school to that house, a route that, of course, we were to follow every day, as expeditiously as possible, without throwing snow on the way.

We were to have a parent sign this map, which, she presumed, would prompt a discussion, "Why on earth did you have to draw this?" and our parents, therefore, would know about the snowball fight. 

Did any of our parents care?  Did anyone get into trouble at home over this?  I don't even remember what my own mother's reaction was, it must have been that slight. After all, and I haven't yet remarked upon this classically Catholic School theme of turning misdemeanors into small crimes, the offense we'd pleaded guilty to was throwing snow.

Finally, we were to write a 300 word essay on 'Why God Gave Us Snow.' 

Possibly the stupidest writing assignment I've ever been given, but what I wouldn't give to have the essay I wrote.