Hot Dog Day

I was cleaning out an old trunk the other day and ran across the hat I wore to Mass in 3rd Grade, at St. Rose Catholic School in Santa Rosa, California. It was blue plaid wool, not a hat, really, as I think about it, but rather, a triangle of fabric with plastic bands sewn onto the edges that held it to my head like a vice. We didn't need it for warmth. It was part of our uniform at a time when girls had to cover their heads in church. (This picture is not of me, but put brown hair in place of the blond and I'd say it's a pretty good likeness...and THAT'S the hat). I looked at the hat, smiled, and then tossed it out. I kind of regret that now, because seeing it brought me right back to my first day at that new school. I was a student there for less than a year. Yet it left a lasting impression.

The school year had already started when I was enrolled. It was my first experience with Catholic school rather than public. The jumper I wore was scratchy, my saddle shoes were stiff, and I was scared to death. I didn't talk to anybody. After lunch, bladder bursting and standing in a hall that was rapidly emptying as children found their classrooms, I finally discovered a heavy oak door marked "girls." Getting in was easy. Getting out was not. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get that door to open again, not in or out. After 15 minutes of trying I sat down under the sinks, tucked my knees up under my chin and started to cry. A short time later the door swung open and one of the nuns in a long black habit, with rattling Rosary beads and a wimple around her shiny red face sailed in. I knew I was not where I was supposed to be and I feared the worst. She bent down, saw my face, and smiled.

"I don't believe I've seen you here before," she said, and held out her hand, which I grasped like a lifeline. She hauled me to my feet. "What's the trouble?" I explained that I couldn't get the door open and she put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin, then said, "Ah, now that is confusing." She led me around the stalls to a door on the other side of the long room, one I hadn't seen until then. Of course, the "Out" door. "One swings in, the other out, you see?" she said, then led me back to my classroom. (Okay, that's Ingrid Bergman, but the habit looks right).

The nuns at that school were kind, and because they were, I grew to love my time there. I learned to stand when I was called on in class, or when the priest came into the room. I learned to make the Sign of the Cross whenever the bell rang, a habit I had a devil of a time breaking when I went back to public school. By far the best days, though, were Hot Dog Days. There was no hot lunch at St. Rose. We brought our lunches in brown paper sacks, or in lunchboxes shaped like school buses with the thermos hooked in the flip-open lids. We ate on the playground that was really an asphalt parking lot surrounded by a chain link fence. We sat on the cement sidewalks with our backs up against the brick building. Most days it was bologna sandwiches or peanut butter and jelly on white bread. But once a month we each brought a quarter from home and lined up for Hot Dog Day. If I close my eyes I can still smell it. The hot dogs came wrapped in white paper with a packet of mustard tucked in beside the bun. If you got there early and got a good place in line they were still steaming. They were accompanied by a carton of Foremost milk, tall and skinny with a cap on the top that flipped open. Dessert was a tiny cardboard cup of orange sherbet with a flat wooden dipping spoon under the lid. It was heaven. There was excitement in the air, for no other reason than that it was Hot Dog Day.

I looked the school up on the Internet to see if it would spark any memories, and the old building doesn't appear to be there anymore. There's a modern school now, probably one with hot lunch and a real playground with swings and slides. The little girls no longer have to wear those vice-grip hats. Dockers and polo shirts have likely replaced the scratchy wool uniforms. But we had something they don't have, unless of course, they still have Hot Dog Day.