“Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. — Matthew 13:8
Last Friday morning, I took a ride up to Ridgewood, NJ, the town I was so fortunate to grow up in. While I have not lived there since my college days, I often visit the town to see my siblings and attend a weekday Mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, the parish community of my youth.
But on this day, I decided to spend time visiting my old grammar school – Our Lady of Mount Carmel School (OLMC) – which sits directly across the street from the church.
Much has changed since I graduated in June 1969, as the school was forced to close its doors in the early 1980s as enrollment pressures intensified. It’s an unfortunate story that has affected many Catholic grammar schools across the country, but with the Archdiocese of Newark’s helping hand, OLMC successfully merged with Saint Catharine School in nearby Glen Rock in 1990, renaming the new school the Academy of Our Lady, which has thrived ever since, earning Blue Ribbon status from the Department of Education in 2013.
So, I parked my car on Passaic Street and began to walk around the school grounds. The school building itself hasn’t changed much over the years and is now known as the Windsor Bergen Academy.
As I stared at the front entrance of the building, I began to see and hear the voices of so many people who left such a huge mark on me during those formative years that take us on the journey from kindergarten through the eighth grade.
As I walked along the side entrance of the school, I could almost hear the school bell again. I saw my classmates jumping rope, playing tag, kickball, or dodge ball, and that game the guys loved called Buck Buck. I could see Sister Michael pitching that pink Spaldeen ball to us for the daily game of punchball. And then I imagined hearing that sound nobody wanted to hear: the ringing of the school bell, reminding us that recess was now over.
And then it quickly dawned on me that we didn’t really need much back then to have fun: there was no grass field like all the other schools had, just a blacktop playground and a ball or two with classmates to play with. No cell phones, no laptops, just the imagination and curiosity God blessed each of us with. Somehow, that blacktop playground was more than enough.
I soon began to stare at the side view of the school building, fixating first on the third floor. Even though I was not able to get inside the building, I could see all those classrooms and their blackboards. I remembered all those times a nun or teacher would ask one of us to wash the boards with a pail of water and a sponge. Or asked one of us to take that special pole we would use to open the windows on a warm day. Those black-and-white TVs, neatly tucked in a corner of each classroom, always tuned to Channel 13 for our French and Spanish lessons. Oh, yes, and those trays of ice-cold cartons of milk for the bologna or PB&J sandwiches we would bring for our lunch, and those cherished monthly Hot Dog Days.
I turned around to look at the old convent building and thought about the great Sisters of Charity and the lay teachers who educated us. Our Principal, Sister John Maureen. Sister Rose Thomas comforting me, a frightened first grader when my finger got jammed in the doorway of our classroom. Sister James Irene playing Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sounds of Silence for my fifth-grade class. Sister Cordis Marie getting me hooked on Math in 8th grade. Sister Margaret Roderick and her love of English, who taught us how to write, diagram our sentences, and helping Brian Alcock and me prepare for the county and state spelling bees. I remembered Mrs. Rombalski once buying Tommy O’Connor and me chocolate milkshakes after we stayed after school one day to clean her classroom. Miss Hoagland for 2nd grade, Mrs. Hessian for 3rd, Miss Egan for 4th, Mrs. Ronai for 5th, Sister James Teresa for 6th, and Miss Pulling for 7th grade.
As children, how could we possibly have understood what these remarkable women were giving us in the moment? My love of mathematics, of language, of writing, and learning didn’t simply happen — those seeds were planted in our classrooms, in soil that had already been prepared to receive them.
As I walked along South Broad Street, I noticed that those old monkey bars were no longer there – just more blacktop. Gone as well were the three car dealerships that adorned the borders of the school – Nadler Chevrolet on one side, Brogan Cadillac across the street, and, of course, Higgins Buick on the corner of Passaic Street. I smiled, remembering all the times we were out there playing during recess, and you would hear the PA system from one of those dealerships saying, “Will so-and-so please pick up the telephone.”
Or the many times my best buddy to this day Robby Kiernan and I would visit those showrooms in early October, when the new model-year cars were unveiled—including that memorable day when, as two nine-year-olds, we climbed into the front seat of a 1965 Impala, decided to start the car, and were promptly chased out of the showroom by a salesman. Little did I know that these were the seeds that were planted for a successful career as a Wall Street analyst who followed the global auto industry.
Finally, I looked up at the windows of the upper gym and could hear basketballs hitting that wooden oak floor. I remembered those Saturday morning intramural games where our moms and dads watched us from courtside. I could hear Coach Kessler and Coach Barone blowing the whistle for our CYO practice. And I thought about all those great CYO games and the other parish teams we used to play and how fortunate I was to be the starting point guard for our seventh and eighth grade teams, and that my brothers Dennis Class of 1966 and Matt Class of 1974 would also wear the coveted Mount Carmel uniform. That little gym, for us, was our own version of Hoosiers.
And then I thought of so many of my classmates — some of the best friends a youngster could ever hope to grow up with — guys like Brian Alcock, Robby Kiernan, Tommy O’Connor, Danny Lenihan – the best basketball player I knew, Frank Forrestal, Tommy Connelly, John McPartland, and so many more. All five children in the Kirnan family would graduate from Mount Carmel, an experience shared by so many other families in the community. Mount Carmel wasn’t simply our school; it was that fertile ground that became part of our family’s story and an important part of the broader Ridgewood community.
I finished my visit by crossing the street over to the church and sat quietly in one of the pews.
I remembered the May Crowning and all the First Friday Masses; my first Penance, Holy Communion, and Confirmation. Serving as an altar boy with my brother Dennis, and our meetings in the church chapel; how we memorized the Latin responses like “Et cum spiritu tuo” before Vatican II; all the priests who served our parish community during that special time of my life — Monsignor James Kelly, Father Vincent Quinn, Father John Finn, and my favorite priest, Father Matthew Hamel, who would often come to our house for my Dad’s Sunday dinner of roast beef, and whose booming voice I can still hear from the pulpit.
At 14, I had no way of knowing how deeply those nine years at OLMC were forming me in my faith, my friendships, and in the blessings that can come from discipline, curiosity, community, and service; and the broader understanding that each of our lives belongs to something larger than ourselves.
And now, nearly 60 years after my graduation, those memories of OLMC run deeper and are much more appreciated.
Perhaps that’s one of the gifts of growing older and being in that fourth quarter of your life. We finally recognize how much of who we became was shaped by the people who entered our lives long before we could understand just how important their presence really was.
So, as I headed back home on Friday afternoon to the Jersey Shore, I felt profoundly grateful for the foundation OLMC gave me, for the person it has helped me become, and for the person I believe God is still calling me to be. Fertile soil that continues to bear much fruit and still multiplying. Wow!
