Mr. James Wheeler was the school disciplinarian. You did not mess with Mr. Wheeler. He must have been pushing 60 years of age when I was there. He had short grey hair, combed to the side. He was maybe 5’10 and had a bit of a belly. His face was baggy and his eyes were deep set without any real personality. He was a guard dog and a certifiable badass. The students were genuinely wary of Wheeler and with good reason. I saw him manhandle students that dared to step out of line. I never had an issue with senior citizen enforcer myself. I was not the sort to cause any trouble, but I do recall once being in detention. I don’t remember what I had done, nothing very remarkable or interesting. Detention would last an hour. Wheeler barked at you when you arrived and there was nothing cordial about his greetings. He shared some of the same character traits as the drill Sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. The room was dead silent until your time was up. To be fair, he never laid into anyone who did not have it coming. But if you crossed the line, Wheeler would treat you like the “jagoff” you were and set you straight. “Jagoff” was a staple of the Pittsburgh vocabulary. I never heard that insult in Chicago. Wheeler was a LEGEND who commanded the halls of Central Catholic like a grumpy old troll patrolling the woods.
Let us move onto a personality quite different from Mr. Wheeler. The aforementioned Brother Clement taught Algebra II was certainly a unique character. He was around the same age as Wheeler, perhaps older and had white hair, but that is where the similarities end. Brother Clement was soft spoken yet stone faced, firm and pedantic. Well, he was a math teacher so an inclination towards being pedantic is in their nature, right? He was like a little gnome who had to have his garden arranged in a certain way or he would frown. My God, did I have a hell of a time in his class. No, not in a “Wow! What a fun adventure in mathematics that was!!” It was more like, “Christ Almighty, I do not understand these concepts and I have no interest in this material. How am I going to pass this goddamn class?”
Brother Clement also ran the work study program which I joined my sophomore year. This was a way for students that came from less affluent backgrounds to reduce their tuition. We would report to Brother Clement at the lower level of the building near the lunchroom after school. I was almost always assigned the job of vacuuming the classrooms with Sean Thresher. Sean was a decent sized kid with braces and dark hair that he wore a little too long in the back. I think he and Kris Apt went to the same hair salon. There were some bad haircuts at Central and Sean’s hair style was not one that would have aged well. Sean was good natured and easy enough to get along with. We would vacuum the classrooms and the library on a regular basis. There must have been dozens of students who participated in the work study program, but I only remember seeing Sean, and occasionally maybe Brad Martin.
Brad was the only Puerto Rican at Central to my knowledge. No relation to Ricky Martin. He was a black guy but mixed with some Taino blood no doubt. He was tall and lean. His hair had a lighter tint to it, and he had lazy, lighter eyes. Like most of the Puerto Ricans I knew in Chicago, he liked to talk trash. I would good naturedly trade insults in Spanish with Brad at work study or when we crossed paths in the library. “Chinga tu madre, cabron!” would have been one of my standard responses to Brad. I wonder if Senor Spechtold or Brother Mike would have given us extra credit for using Spanish outside the classroom? I remember in freshman year Brad letting me know that he had seen me shooting hoops by myself at a grade school playground in fall of 1989. Brad ended up playing basketball and running track for Central. I bet he would have an interesting story to tell of his Central experience.
Back to the academic side of the ledger, English class was taught by Brother John. He was a calm, thoughtful instructor not given to over excitement nor quick to anger. A man in his forties of medium height, with glasses and a full head of salt and pepper hair. He was heavier set with his soft belly hanging over his belt. Brother John’s class was an enjoyable experience that fell into my chief academic strengths of reading and writing.
Academic Struggles
I had passed the Algebra I class taught by Mrs. Bendis my freshman year with a C. However, in the fall of 1990, I found myself seriously struggling in Brother Clement’s Algebra II class. Halfway through the year I was failing the class. My grade was a 62, a low F. I had gone from struggling to drowning in the class. My mother was called into a meeting with Brother Clement and Brother Dave, the vice principal. I was present at the meeting and I recall the embarrassment and shame of the situation. Brother Clement was calm and soft-spoken, but very straightforward. I cannot recall ever detecting a hint of empathy or encouragement from him. For someone who was the “Director of Guidance”, Brother Clement was a cold fish. Brother Dave took a more sympathetic stance. I had been a student in his English class and had performed well. He knew that I was not an idiot, perhaps not a Rhodes scholar, but I was not a complete dunce.
Brother Dave called me into his office later in the week. He was trying to figure out what was going on with me. He could sense that I was drifting along without a purpose. He appeared curiously confused at my current plight. He asked why I did not play football since I was in his words, “As big as a moose”. Once again, I sheepishly shrugged my shoulders and deflected with a half-smile. This would have been the opportunity for me to open up and talk about some of the struggles I was going through. But I stayed quiet in an amicable, respectful manner without giving away much of anything. Brother Dave left a good impression on me. I wish that I had allowed him to know me a little better. I was shocked and saddened to learn that he passed away suddenly in 1996 from a heart attack.
I would spend the next semester attending math tutoring to try and bring my grade up. Mrs. Spechtold was one of the math tutors. She was married to the Spanish teacher Senor Spechtold. She had dark hair, dark eyes and was extremely thin. She was also patient and kind. This wasn’t a hot for teacher scenario, just recognition of how she was. The tutoring took place in a separate, small building. It was almost like a caravan or mobile home without the wheels. I was often accompanied by Joe Sciulli at these sessions. Joe was almost always a disheveled mess with his shirt often untucked. Joe would have been perfectly cast as street urchin in a film set in 1930’s New York. He just had that look to him. Joe seemed as mystified by the mathematical quagmire we found ourselves in as I was.
The trailer of shame where dumbasses like me and Joe had to go for Algebra II tutoring.
Mrs. Spechtold. A genuinely nice lady who helped me pass Algebra II.
Joe Sciulli’s facial expression sums up how we both felt about Algebra II.
One of my fundamental scholastic mistakes was that I would do my homework in front of the television. It was all part of the lazy, distracted habits I was falling into. You cannot actually think, evaluate, and carefully process questions to figure out the correct response if your focus is divided between Algebra homework and an episode of “Quantum Leap”. I treated math much the same way that I treated other subjects. I would use repetition and familiarity as my method for learning. That rudimentary method works at a very simplistic level, take spelling for instance. I write down a word five times on a page and then spend five minutes repeating the spelling out loud. Chances are I will remember how to spell that word and it will be married to memory. That method does not work with math once you get beyond basic multiplication and division. The gap in my junior high math education at Gospel Outreach had left me woefully unprepared for Algebra II.
Through tutoring and grinding away through each lesson, I had managed to put myself in a position to pass the class. My last obstacle was the Algebra II final. The class in general was dreading this test. It was comforting to know that I had company.
I somehow ended up pairing with Brian Helsel to study for the Algebra II final. He must have sat next to me or something, otherwise I cannot think of a reason why we would have studied together. I suppose it was similar to a sinking ship scenario, you look anywhere you can for a lifeline. Brian for his part appeared almost as fearful of the final as I was. It motivated us to study for the entire duration of a Sunday in late May 1991. He arrived at my place in a Volvo station wagon. I remember the car as an indicator of the class divide between us. We sat down at the kitchen table and covered all the material that would be presented on the final. An hour was taken for lunch, then we dug in for at least another 3-4 hours. Conservatively, we studied for seven hours. Thankfully, it paid off. Brian Helsel was the only kid from Central who ever stepped foot in my home during my time in Pittsburgh.
Brian Helsel, my Algebra II study partner. He already looks like a 30-year-old business executive.
We both ended up passing the final and I squeaked across the finish line with a final grade of 70. I was never so euphoric to receive a D on my report card as I was in late spring of 1991. I never put in so much time into a single class for such a meager return. But nonetheless I was massively relieved to have passed the class. Failing would have meant summer school in Pittsburgh. I was now looking forward to just one thing: Going back to Chicago for the summer.
I remember taking a cab to the Pittsburgh bus station where I would take the Greyhound bus to Chicago. The cab driver was a younger guy playing Metallica very loud. Strangely enough, it was dark so it must have been early morning before the sun was out. It was surreal as the cab raced through the darkness as Metallica blasted through the stereo. I was pumped for my summer in Chicago. It would prove to be the most memorable summer of my teenage years.
Gospel Outreach School and High School Memories 1988-1992 