St. George Parish

Since we were Catholic, we attended St. George church in Long Lake. Fr. Nolan was the pastor at the time and lived in a small house at the rear of the church. Every Sunday, after Mom had put the roast in the oven, dressed in our Sunday best, we'd drive the three miles or so to Mass. On Saturdays, Steve and I would go to Catechism classes taught by the nuns in the Church basement. We'd ride our bikes to Church, carrying our paper lunch bags, and sometimes, if we had any, a few cents to spend in town after classes. We had only one problem: just before we'd get to the church, two big kids from Long Lake, (whose names will go unmentioned), would pull in front of us on their bikes and take our money. When we protested, they'd bang their bikes menacingly into ours...making certain we knew what lay in store for us if we failed to fork over the dough.

When I was seven, it was time for me to have my first communion. For a number of weeks beforehand, we had classes instructing us in the theological mysteries involved in this holy action. I must confess to being terribly confused and somewhat nervous about the whole idea of swallowing Jesus...being careful not to even let the host touch our teeth.

When the day finally arrived, the weather was perfect. It was late spring and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. My parents had invited many of their friends to the big event. Everyone met at the church, attended the Mass, watched me, wearing an all-white suit that I think we must have gotten as a hand-me-down from my cousins, go up to the front of the church and receive the communion host on my tongue. What no one could see, however, was that all of a sudden, my mouth became as dry as dust. Try as I might, I simply could not swallow Our Lord's Body. I could not manufacture any moisture to ease His passage into my throat.

I felt my face starting to burn and knew I must be bright red...then I knew that since I was bright red, and could not swallow Our Lord, that everyone in the entire church was staring at me. So I got redder, and hotter, and tried to manouver that wafer into my throat.

Finally, I managed to break it up with my tongue against the roof of my dry mouth, and, mustering all my courage, began to swallow...hoping that I wouldn't choke and that Jesus would forgive me for treating him so badly.


The party turned out great. Dad cooked hamburgers on the grill, Mom made potato salad, and I got to wear that white suit all day long while playing with my cousins and friends.

After our first communion, Steve and I were tapped to become Altar Boys. In those days the Mass was said in Latin which meant that we would have to learn the Latin responses. Mrs. Kaster volunteered to be our teacher and she suffered no nonsense on the part of her two pupils. Every day at a set time, I'd ride down to Steve's house to memorize our Latin. We had small booklets with the words of the priest, the expected movements of the Altar Boys, (because the Mass was very formally structured at that time, both the movements of the priest and of the servers was critical), and our expected, and prayerful, responses. It seems that we did this for a couple of months until Mrs. Kaster deemed us ready to assume our responsibilities at church.

In the beginning, younger guys like Steve and I, would be teamed up with older and more experienced boys. I remember serving with Pete Rettinger on more than one occasion and feeling great relief... for I knew he'd whisper over to me what I should do next if he had an indication that I was lost...or sleepy. Within a few months, however, Steve and I both became quite confident and often served daily morning Mass by ourselves.

Eventually, when I was about 10, we left St. George's and switched to St. Bartholomew's in Wayzata. I heard something about Dad arguing with Fr. Nolan about something...but I don't know the reason for certain. I continued my Altar Boying ...this time for Frs. Demetrius and Marcellus.