(This Latin phrase, meaning For the Greater Glory of God, is the motto of the Jesuit Order, and Seattle Preparatory School, my alma mater, is a Jesuit high school.)
Last weekend I attended my 50th high school reunion. What an experience it was! It took me back, literally back, to another time and another age.
It had been a long, long time since I’d seen my former classmates. When I walked into the Friday night gathering at Caffe Appasionato I was greeted by the owner and classmate Tucker McHugh and immediately found myself swimming in a sea of memories. Boys had mysteriously transformed into older men — the men with whom I began my journey into manhood.
I have learned that it’s impossible to predict which memories will get triggered when I have an encounter with old friends and acquaintances. This time, I was surprised at the memory that most powerfully rose to the surface.
I was taken back to my first day at Seattle Prep in the fall of 1963. The day before school started, literally, I was incarcerated in the Juvenile Detention Center of the King County Jail where I’d been arrested for stealing a car. That summer I had been introduced to a raft of new experiences: girls, booze, gambling and late night joy rides. Just before Labor Day I was pulled over in a stolen car, arrested, and thrown into the County Jail. Judge Robert T. Long sentenced me to six months probation with the stipulation that any further infraction would earn me two years at the Juvenile Correctional Facility at Green River. I remember the court counselor drew my mother aside, saying Judge Long was quite strict and would have no hesitation sending me away.
As I began my first day of high school I was scared, really scared, and deeply humiliated. I seriously questioned whether I could handle a school like Seattle Prep.
My dad had passed away the year before and I had four brothers and sisters under 14 for whom I was a terrible role model. Sadly, my mother had not the time nor the ability to rein in her flailing eldest son. My life was a mess!
These were the days before grief counseling, and by the time I entered Prep I was using alcohol to drown my misery and obstinacy to vent my anger.
It was on my first day of school that I met Bill Kidwell. He, too, was a troubled kid from a broken home. His dad was an alcoholic and his brother was on parole. Bill had a hair trigger temper that got him into many fights and run-ins with the law. He had a devil-may-care twinkle in his eye that matched my own. In no time we were the best of friends.
Our freshman year got off to a rocky start. It became clear early that we were temperamentally ill suited for Prep. We did not have what you’d call impulse control and were quickly branded as trouble makers. The principal and vice principal quickly took note of our cantankerous behavior and let us know we were on a very short leash and our adolescent fury would not be tolerated.
You see, a Jesuit education came with a particular point of view. Young men attending Jesuit high schools (and Prep was an all-boys school at that time) were there for the express purpose of being molded in both mind and character. The aim of a Jesuit education was to matriculate a boy into a manhood with a defined Jesuit character. The world of 50 years ago was a place where parents expected schools to form character and accepted that rough discipline would be used to build it. (Sadly, we’ve come to learn so much more about this troubled system and the abuse it meted out on so many innocent victims.)
The Jesuit schools system was described in Ratio Studiorum.
First published in 1599, it was the Jesuits’ standard plan for running their schools. A Jesuit school was organized into a curriculum structured around four guiding principles:
- maintenance of discipline,
- teaching of moral theology,
- teaching of mathematics, philosophy and physics,
- teaching of Latin, Greek and grammar.
This educational system itself was teleological, utilitarian and pragmatic, intended to support religious training which was the foremost purpose of a Jesuit education. Those graduating from Jesuit schools between 1780 and 1967 would have shared a very similar course of study.
Bill and I had a disastrous first semester at Prep. Our grades were horrible, our conduct worse, and if something didn’t change we were on a course to end up “one and done.” It was Bill who first developed a plan to pull us out of the mess we were in. The most important thing was to get our tempers in check. Bill surmised that If we could find a way to stop just one second before blast-off, we would have half a chance for an attitude adjustment. The question became how.
So Bill came up with the ingenious notion that if either one of us told the other to reel it in, then the other would immediately stop whatever he was doing. To make it work, we had to be willing to listen to each other. We had to become our own “authority figures” for each other.
So just as one of us was poised to take another run at Mr. Harney, Mr. Eason or Mr. Foster, we’d hear the other say, “Reel it in.” Alphabetically, our names were next to each other and Bill always sat in front of me in class. When I got a less than satisfactory grade on an assignment, Bill would turn around, look at me, and say, “Reel it in,” stopping me in my tracks from throwing the paper back at the teacher, or worse.
The plan worked perfectly. We had no more trouble at school, and with no more trouble our grades shot up and all was looking well.
Then one Friday night we really got tested. Bill and I were at a dance at Roosevelt High School. We liked going to dances at the public high schools because there were lots of girls. At this dance, Bill found favor with a pretty girl. I then noticed a group of guys menacingly closing ranks around Bill and I high-tailed it over to his side. It became clear that he was hitting on someone else’s girlfriend, and something very bad was about to happen.
There was no question in my mind that if Bill were confronted there would be no backing down, a bloody fight would ensue, and invariably the police would be called. And if we were arrested I had no question that Judge Long would make good on his promise to me.
So just as one of the guys moved in to confront Bill, I got between the two of them and hollered, “Reel it in! Reel it in! Reel it in!”
Bingo! Our plan worked! Bill politely excused himself, we both bolted for the door, and in a matter of minutes we were congratulating ourselves on our splendid getaway, demonstrating our own version of Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
We did for each other what up to then no adult had been able to do. We learned to respect authority, an authority that came first from within.
Bill and I became for each other a means of grace.
We both ended our high school careers on a high note. When we got our senior yearbooks Bill wrote in mine an entire page of moving reflections.
Bill went on to the University of Washington where he graduated from the dental school. Sadly, cancer cut his life short before he reached the age of 40.
As for me, I pay homage to my friend each time I pass the County Jail and am reminded, “there, but for the grace of God, go I.” And, I have come to understand that “reel it in” can be an eloquent and very useful prayer.
Finally, as a toast to our departed friend Bill and to all those living and dead from the Prep class of ’67, we never know
- WHO will be sent to help teach us the meaning of life, or
- HOW we will come to discover the role we are called to play.
Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.
Just a Thought…
Pat
Copyright © 2017 Patrick J. Moriarty. All Rights Reserved.
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Thank you Pat for the opening into what Reeling it in can really do.
We all missed Bill as well as the rest of our fallen comrades.
All the best Pat,
Mike Wilds
mike_wilds@hotmail.com
This was quite touching for me, Pat. Bill and I became friends after high school and, in fact, Bill was my dentist as soon as he opened his practice in Bellevue. And he was a good one because of his keen attention to detail. Anyone remember his hair? His car? They were always perfect, right? So too was his dentistry. Unbelievable to depart at such a young age.
Beautiful story, very personal. There is a difference between evil, bad, troubled and misguided.
Fundamentally, a principal defect of character would be a disrespect for authority. This combined with an emerging self-will and a damaged spiritual compass can be a recipe for serious consequences. Wounded as a youth myself, coming from an alcoholic home all sorts of contradictions came up. We’re it not for my Prep friends as a peer group, a very different story would have been recorded for me. The Power of the Fellowship of the Spirit is real, it is working even as we speak. ADMG, actually, the A would be Autem: But for the Greater Glory of God, go I.
I swear, if it were not for the hard way in this life, I would have learned nothing. Bill Kidwell, DDS,
I am happy to see what happens to a life when Motivation is correct. Sorry that cancer took him so young, happy he had such a profound effect on your life. True Language from the Heart.
Thank You Pat, just plain beautiful.