Irmy the Wormy

I first caught sight of her a few years before she became my 8th grade teacher at St. Kevin School. Somebody whispered "That's Irmalita" as she stood calmly at the door of her classroom,  watching her 8th-graders file in one-by-one, no doubt checking for grooming mistakes.

8th grade seemed intimidating to me when I was a 5th grader, and even more scary was the prospect of getting Sister Irmalita as the teacher.  She was widely hated and feared, and her nickname Irmy the Wormy went back a long way.

She apparently had a magic way of disciplining a coed roomful of 13-year olds, of getting respect and control in a classroom where the 40 girls were inclined to giggle, and the 20 boys were inclined to show off for the 40 girls.

I can't remember why the boy-girl ratio was so imbalanced in my 8th grade class,  but Sister Irmalita  was well aware of the boy-girl distraction factor and placed all 20 boys in the front of the class, under her very direct scrutiny,  with the loveliest of those lovely girls seemingly placed as FAR BACK as possible.

Prior to 8th grade I didn't know what the word "character" meant,  but Sister Irmalita used the word all year long.  Religious doctrine fell short of what she was trying to do.  She was in the business of molding young men and women,  with an ethic that seemed to transcend the Ten Commandments.

The JFK assassination happened early in that school year, in November, and she referred to it frequently.  JFK was the fallen Catholic saint, and Lee Oswald was the godless fiend, and our big decision in life was to be one or the other.

In February the Beatles made their legendary first appearance on Ed Sullivan's Sunday night show, igniting Beatlemania in the USA.  The next morning, Sister Irmalita calmly told everybody to write a short essay on "What I Think of the Beatles"

It was a trap,  especially for the unsuspecting girls, most of whom wrote glowingly about Paul, Ringo, cute long hair and great music.   With the 60 essays sitting on her desk,  Sister Irmalita held forth on why she hated the Beatles.  They were unkempt, godless purveyors of noise with evil lyrics, and surely they had no character.  I doubt if she succeeded in really turning anybody against the Beatles, but she toned things down in a classroom where transistor radios were in everybody's schoolbag,  ready to blast out "Twist and Shout" during a lapse in supervision.

She didn't laugh.  At most, she smiled, in a curiously relaxed way.  I say "curiously" because she was all business, no nonsense.  She was probably in her 50s when I knew her, short in stature, but with the posture and demeanor of someone completely confident in her noble life's work and her proven method.

She had a few favorites, a handful of kids who seemed to be a little less giggly than the rest, with good grades and good work ethics,  in a word -- "good character".  They were frequently called upon to demonstrate their superior way of doing things,  these future leaders.

Of course this elite group didn't include me.  There was enough discipline and fear going on, in class and at home, to control my scatterbrain tendencies and produce decent marks,  but I was generally not on Irmy's radar, fairly inconspicuous, and probably happy for it.

It was nonetheless fashionable to dislike and scowl at ol' Irmy the Wormy behind her back,  especially amongst the boys.  Nobody I knew visited her after we got out of 8th grade.  There was high school, followed by the rest of our lives, and she became a distant memory. 

And she only came to mind recently, along with these present reflections on someone who now seems to exemplify a life well-lived.  I heard a story about a guy named Eddie, who I knew back in childhood.  He was a few years younger than me, and perhaps wound up with Sister Irmalita in 8th grade.  Now in his mid-50s, he found out that the Sisters of Mercy cemetery was located not far from his home in New Jersey.  He went there, and found the grave of Sister Irmalita inexplicably neglected, with overgrown weeds and a generally unkempt appearance.  Eddie made it his business to go back there,  cut the weeds, and make the site handsome.  Well groomed, and befitting a great teacher.  Somewhere along the way Eddie  picked up a ton of character.