@AgonyandIrony you didn't say no, so here's a story.
Here in the town where I grew up, schools and all sorts of other places we split between the Catholic places and the Protestant places.
I think I told you, my father was your typical Roman Catholic Irish fat guy with a drinking problem and a superlative darts game. So, of course I got to walk across town, past the Protestant school, to the Catholic school--which I just recently heard described as looking like a prison, I shot you not.
As I intimated to
@Fawlty Elizabeth, none of the staff there were particularly averse to corporal punishment, a few of the sweeter nuns being notable exceptions.
Some liked rulers and some of them disdained the flat sides, throwing books appealed to a couple, but the men usually just grabbed you by the throat and educational stuff like that.
But the scariest person in the place was the principal, to my little eyes especially, a great hulk of a man, well over 6', shoulders as broad a the handle on a family sized shopping cart, with a booming voice to match; even his last name was Steele.
I got sent to his office once and he had what looked like a repurposed cricket bat mounted on the wall behind him on hooks, where he could take it down when needed. I near pissed my pants when I saw it over his shoulder.
So one day, everyone was at recess when a commotion started on the playground involving this one grade 6 kid, Ronnie Vaive. The book on him is that he was insufferable already living right across the street from the school, but he became even worse when his brother, Rick Vaive, got into the NHL. He thought he was too cool for school, but Steele was having none of that. To this day I remember seeing that giant dragging that awful little pipsqueek off the playground in a painful looking grip.
To be concluded in part II when I get on the computer instead of a tablet.
