Going to High School
My sophomore year 10th Grade
Meeting Father Tolan
Editor’s Note: Father Tolan was a Right Reverend Monsignor but he asked me to call him Father
That was the only time Caye and I managed to get together I finally had to quit writing to her because it was starting to affect my school grades. That is when I met Father Tolan, the little league baseball coach that I use to dread because he was always talking loud and hollering at the players and I was not use to that kind of a coach.
Below is the only Photograph that I have of Father Tolan
Father Tolan uses to spend a lot of time watching us play basketball at the high school gym and we actually became good friends. He gave me lots of tips about how to be a better basketball player.
He came out of his parsonage one afternoon as I was walking home from school. His home was very close to where I lived and I would walk past his home on the way home. He saw I was really troubled about something and came up and ask me what was wrong.
I broke down and told him the whole story right there by the fireplug on the corner near his place. We became close friends after that.
As I mentioned above I had actually gotten acquainted with Father Tolan through my basketball playing in high school. There were 4 or five of us including one Jewish boy that use to go over to Father’s place after Friday night basketball games instead of out carousing around like some of the others. We would verbally replay the games at his place and watch his color TV while having Pepsi and popcorn.
Pepsi, Popcorn and Color 1960 Television Set
Father taught me a lot about growing up. He had sayings like “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions” and always made sure we showed respect when somebody did something nice to us like taking us out to eat.
Father was very ecumenical and didn’t ever mention anything about religion except that we should go to our own church and Sunday school every week.
Strawberries & Ice Cream
My brother Jim played baseball for him and we attended most of the ball games. After every game, Father Tolan would always come over to our house for strawberries and ice cream. He would come over in his T-shirt and just really enjoy himself.
My dad was always pretty straight forward about everything and ask him one time why a catholic priest would come over to a protestant’s home like he did all the time. Father answered by telling dad that at our house he didn’t’ feel like he had to be a priest. (Whatever that meant).
Father was the first one to ever take me to a fancy restaurant. I remember he took two other boys and me to “The Gold Coast Restaurant” in Fort Dodge, Iowa one night. I had never been to a restaurant like that before. He would also take us to basketball tournament games in Carroll, Iowa at the Catholic high school
Below is a Photo of the Wall Drug Store in the
Black Hills of South Dakota
.
Other photos from our trip to the Black Hills
One time he took another protestant boy and myself on a trip to the Black Hills where we met my blind uncle that was a chiropractor in Bella Fourche, South Dakota and stopped at Father’s aunt’s farm near Wall, South Dakota. Father never did anything to make me disrespect him, ever.
I must say that I had some challenges with my dad’s mother, Grandma Logan. She was very narrow-minded when it came to Catholics. She wouldn’t even walk on the same side of the street as the Catholic Church she was so narrow-minded.
One weekend afternoon after one of my brother’s little league games Grandma Logan was visiting. Our phone rang and I answered. It was Father Tolan and he asked if he could come over for strawberries and ice cream. I had already told him about her narrow-minded attitude toward Catholics but he insisted. He asked me if I thought he should wear what he always did (T-shirt etc.) or his priest’s habit. I told him that it was up to him.
About 15 minutes, the front doorbell rang. (Usually Father always came in through our side kitchen door). It was father in his black habit and white collar. I opened the door and he made a bee-line right to my Grandma Logan who was sitting on the couch across from the front door.
He started taking to her and before the strawberries and ice cream were done they had discovered that both he and Grandma and some of her widowed lady friends all went down to the same place in McAllen, Texas about the same time in December and that the following December they were all going to be there at the same time.
Well there was a turn of events and attitude, to say the least. Father took Grandma and her friends out to eat and from that day forward you didn’t say anything bad against Catholics in front of her again. I don’t know what they talked about, but he had changed her narrow-minded attitude.
Father and my good high school friend Terry had advised me to forget about the girl in Eagle Grove which I was able to do without too much trouble and my sophomore year ended. I was relieved to have gotten out of the girlfriend situation and my grades started getting better as well as my attitude.
Remember last year as freshman we had won the “Red Jug” at homecoming for the best homecoming skit? Well we won it again our sophomore year.
We were a conceited class “We were good and if you didn’t believe us .....just ask anyone of us and we would tell you that we were the best class ever to graduate from Sac City High School (The next year 1960 the school name was changed on the diploma’s to Sac Community High School)
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