The Last Catholic In America

John R. Powers, “The Last Catholic in America: a fictionalized memoir,” Saturday Review Press, 1973, 228 pp.

I found this book very entertaining and even personally biographical in some parts. Probably because I spent time as an inmate in a few Catholic schools during my childhood, I could easily relate to the trials and tribulations of Eddie Ryan as he progressed in Chicago from first grade through eighth grade at St. Bastion Grammar school in the 1950’s. Although I did not dream of Dinah Shore and the Virgin Mary like Eddie, I did dream of Virgina Mayo. I too wasn’t well behaved as an altar boy and sure dreaded Lent. Eddie’s first confession is a disaster: he wrote down his sins but found later he had forgot one—now what does one do? I actually have a better story, although it was my second, not first confession: in second grade I stole a case of pop off the delivery truck and when reporting this serious sin was asked loudly by the priest: “What’s your name?” Of course I quickly said “John Smith” and exited the stall before penance was…(need I go on?).

A couple of excerpts that I found particularly interesting and typical:

Pg. 20: A nun told Mr. Depki, at the only parent teacher conference that he had ever shown up for, that she was sorry to tell him that she thought he had a socially maladjusted child in his family. Mr. Depki said he thought so, too. He asked her if she know which one it was.

Pg. 74: Any time that Cub Scouts venture out into the world, they are always paired off into groups of twos, or ‘buddies.’ Scout leaders will tell you that the idea behind it is for each kid to keep track of his ‘buddy’ and therefore increase the chances of getting everybody home alive. But a Scout leader I know in my later years told me the true reason. Like all organizations that wear uniforms, the Cub Scouts want to be well organized and keep everything neat and orderly. With the ‘buddy’ system, they figure I one kid gets killed or lost so will his ‘buddy’ so there’ll still be even lines on the way home.

Pg. 84: Among the faculty at St. Bastion Grammar School was Sister Diane. “Dynamite Diane,” so called because of her pestilent impatience. Before coming to St. Bastion’s she had taught at a school for truants in Brooklyn for ten years. Strangely, it wasn’t a school for truants when Dynamite Diane began teaching there but quickly became one after she’d been around for only a few months.

Pg. 117: Dirty Shirt Andy owned what passed for a grocery store on the corner of 103rd and Allen Street. He went under a number of aliases such as ‘The Slob,’ ‘Fat Man Andy,’ and simply ‘The Pig.’ But Dirty Shirt Andy was his real name. No one could wear a shirt as dirty as Dirty Shirt Andy.
Most of us kids liked Dirty Shirt Andy because he didn’t treat us like kids. Adults would like you because you were a kid or would dislike you because you were a kid. Not Dirty Shirt. He hated us because we were people. Child or adult, it made no difference to Dirty Shirt. If you showed the signs of a human being then he hated your guts.