Читать книгу Rage. The Legend of "Baseball Bill" Denehy онлайн

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If I had trouble controlling my temper, my time at St. Mary’s Catholic School didn’t improve my disposition. In fact, how I was abused by the nuns only made me more resentful and angry. I don’t really know why I was even there but for the fact that my grandfather was one of the school’s founders.

For disciplinary purposes, the nuns would put a dunce cap on you, make you stand in the corner, or beat you with a ruler.

They tried to humiliate you. A friend of mine told me about the Catholic school he went to. He said the nuns would make him kneel down on upside-down bottle caps and say the rosary. Today they would be arrested and thrown in jail. But back then, well, people tended to look the other way as long as the children received a good Catholic education. If you were punished, you probably deserved it.

When I was in the seventh grade I was given an IQ test. The nun-teacher presented me with a dozen pairs of words. For instance, one pair of words might be basketball and arena. Or another pair might be book and library. I had to read the twelve sets of words and memorize them, and the nuns would discuss another topic for five minutes. Finally, after five minutes, I was asked to recall the twelve sets of words from memory. I was tested three times. I couldn’t remember one damn word.