The devil makes them do it

Being raised in an Italian-Irish American Catholic household as an only child was not an easy task. Especially for my parents.

The jury is still out on whether their methodology worked, whether their discipline helped create a more responsible individual.

For 73 years I’ve attempted to continuously make them proud of my decisions and follow their teachings. I have stumbled numerous times along the way and learned from those adventurous trips and crashes.

My parents were extremely talented working middle class people and had help raising me and molding my character during those early years. My mother was a devout Catholic, as were all my Italian relatives.

For the first few years of my life I kept looking for my siblings, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph’ until I realized my mother was adding, ‘pray for me’ at the end of the phrase. I realized later the only time she said the prayer was when she was attempting to mold my character.

They insisted I attend Catholic school knowing of the character molding techniques the nuns use. They most likely stretched and struggled to pay the tuition, but a job transfer from Boston to Detroit in 1960 almost certainly added to the family coffers allowing for my Parochial education.

The Sisters of St. Joseph, all childless by the way, watched over me during the day, teaching right from wrong, good from evil and the difference between a hand with a ruler mark on it and the other one that didn’t carry such a swatted sting.

They also defined the difference between God (good) and the devil (evil).

Many of those days began at 5:30 a.m. when I rode my bike — even during Detroit winters — to Epiphany Catholic Church to be one of two alter boys assisting with mass. The nine-block ride was always tough, but I figured if God was looking down it wouldn’t hurt to be on the altar by 6 a.m. I knew I’d be needing future credits, especially after the good and evil talks.

Early on we were taught swearing and profanity were bad, only the devil swore. We were instructed not to make fun of other children no matter how different. Only the devil would do that.

Calling people funny nicknames, made up out of their own name was also frowned upon, by God. It was evil. Only the devil would do that. Lying was a tactic of the devil, according to the sisters, in order to get you to stray, and join the devil in his plight of fighting plain simple goodness.

I was excited after all of these teachings to get confirmed, until I realized I had to go to confession, weekly, in order to receive the body of Christ. You had to be clean of sins, venial and mortal. And you had to confess to the priest every time you did one of those devilish things mentioned above.

I was also told the devil would one day return. However, they didn’t say when, but there are signs…