The Pigeon Incident

I will begin this story by telling you about some of the nuns who taught at my school, and who are an important part of this tale. I went to St. Mary's, a small Catholic grade school in the heart of Chicago. All of the teachers at St. Mary's were nuns, except for old Mr. Samson, the janitor. These are the Sisters who are key to this story:

Sister Agatha, who always played baseball with us boys at recess. She was always the first person to picked by the team captains, and could really hit. There was also Sister Francis Mary, who would go out to the back alley and shoot the pigeons sitting there with a shotgun. Sometimes in the middle of class, we would hear a bang! bang! and knew Sister F.M. would have those pigeons pushing up daisies in no time. And then of course, there was Sister Elizabeth, an older nun who was probably in her mid-60's, but who we all thought must have been at least over 100. She was tougher than steel and strict, strict, strict. Everyone was scared of her. Even the other nuns.

It was a day in early September, 1934. Now I can't remember the exact date, but I do remember it was a perfect day, a day so perfect, no one could believe that it was being ruined with school. The sky was a clear blue, the sun shined, and it was hot, burning hot. It still felt like July or August weather, even though it was Autumn. St. Mary's brick structure soaked up the heat, and inside it felt like an oven. All of the windows were flung wide open to try to cool off the classrooms (not that it worked). It was this that gave us the idea.

Just imagine it: a bunch of sweaty kids and a nun in a hot classroom, quietly reading out of a boring textbook, with the windows wide open, through which the distant sound of gunshots and squawking birds could be heard coming from the adjacent alley.

Suddenly, the boys started to whisper. Then the boys started to whisper to the girls. The talking and whispering increasingly got louder and louder until Sister Elizabeth told us to be quiet, shouting to be heard above the noise. All of a sudden, someone (no one ever found out who) yelled: "Go!" and the entire class jumped out of their seats and promptly threw their textbooks out of the wide-open windows. Everyone started to cheer, but stopped when they saw the look on Sister Elizabeth's face. However, the chaos was not over yet. I mentioned before that Sister Francis Mary's favorite pastime was shooting pigeons in St. Mary's back alley. Well, after we dropped our books, they must have landed in the back alley where the pigeons were because suddenly a flock of the gray-feathered birds flew up into the air (startled by the falling textbooks) and then straight through the open classroom windows! Never have I experienced such chaos. There were birds flapping everywhere, kids laughing, others shooing away the birds, and some pigeons trying to fly into the hallway! At that moment, Sister Francis Mary burst into the room, still holding her shotgun. "I'll take care if these pigeons!" she said, raising her arm and preparing to shoot. Several kids screamed and ducked. But then Sister Agatha rushed in wielding a baseball bat. "Sister, hold your fire! I've got his under control." She then started slamming pigeons with her bat! Unconscious pigeons were flying left and right, some kids were still screaming, some were praying, and then Sister Elizabeth yelled "STOP!"

Immediately, all motion ceased. Even the pigeons went silent.

"Thank you! Now then...let's get this mess cleaned up."

"Yes, Sister Elizabeth," everyone muttered guiltily. Sister had that affect on people, as I mentioned earlier.

Strangely enough, we weren't given any formal punishment. I guess Sister Elizabeth figured that the punishment of scrubbing pigeon droppings off the carpet was enough.

From that day on, I believe Sister Francis Mary hung up her shotgun for good. Algebra class was a whole lot quieter afterwards, I can tell you that much.

Years later, this event, known as the "Pigeon Incident", became a legend at St. Mary's. Only people like me, who saw it really happen, know that it's true.

I can assure you that none of us ever looked at a pigeon the same way again.