The Patron Saint of Fish Sticks

I was driving into work today and went past by my old high school. In my day it was Routt High School but officially now it is Routt Catholic High School because apparently the uniforms the guys wore and the long skirts the girls wore are no longer required so they have to let people know it is a Catholic school.

There is an alley on the east side of the school where there are steps down to the band room and then further down to the back of the cafeteria. Immediately into my head popped a memory from my eighth grade year. Our Saviour’s Grade School which had classes up through the eighth grade was across the parking lot to the north. Both schools utilized the Martha Routt Room as cafeteria as Martha Routt was apparently the patron saint of fish sticks. This was well before most child labor laws so they utilized junior high school boys to clean all the trays used for dining. It wasn’t that dangerous although the machine that cleaned the trays did reach a temperature over 1,000 degrees Celsius. The machine was like a car wash for cafeteria trays. We boys loaded the little carts that held the trays and pushed the carts into the machine. No junior high boy ever had any skin left on his arms after about October of each school year. The school uniform for boys required long sleeved shirts so most people were unaware of the issue. Good times….

The memory of scalded arm skin while fond for me was not the memory I was thinking of. Vatican Council II back in 1962 required all Catholic School children through the 12th grade to eat fish sticks every day for lunch. The only times schools were able to deviate from this was on holy days of obligation when a fish sandwich may be substituted or by papal decree such as when they allow the Irish to eat corned beef on St Patrick’s Day when it falls on a Friday during Lent.

For whatever the reason, the day I remember we had sandwiches. I remember this because it was customary for the lunch ladies to give the boys working that day leftovers and as I walked out the back door I was pelted with a sandwich in the face by one of the students I had worked with. I just kept going while the boys continued to chuck food at the other boys walking out. I was about at the corner of the high school when all the remaining boys came up behind me yelling “run”. Come to find out, the guys tossing the food ended up hitting a couple of the lunch ladies and one of the sister’s from Routt.

I’d say it was about 15 minutes later that I found myself and the rest of the guys standing in front of the Sr Laurencia’s desk, the Our Saviour’s principal. Since the Spanish Inquisition, the need for finding out if someone was involved or not was not a priority in the Catholic Grade Schools disciplinary code. Sr Laurencia was so angry that she actually slammed her hand on her desk and broke the pane of glass that covered it. And I believe our laughing at that time added to our punishment.

Every once in a while when this memory pops in my head I think about going to McDonalds and getting a Filet-o-Fish and driving by one of those classmates homes and hitting them in the face with it for fun. I never do it though. I just throw it in their yard.