Perhaps now that the Supreme Court of the United States is looking into the strip search of an elementary student in Arizona, the news will play a tad longer on the front page.
But unless you've ever been an elementary student strip-searched by persons of authority, you'll never comprehend the shame and terror. It stays with you forever.
"...Irked at the boys’ failure to come forward with what they had done in their Fruit of the Loom briefs in their charcoal gray slacks, the Sisters herded the four boys down the hallway without allowing the boys a quick prayer to any of the sacred statues in the hall.
They were led as sheep by a shepherd towards the boys’ lavatory. Sister JoAnn stayed behind, just outside the two classrooms to ensure their peaceful, if curious study, while Sister Lenore (or was it Eleanor?) directed the trembling boys into the boys’ lavatory.
She ordered them to stand facing the urinals, one for each of the four boys who had been standing in the hallway next to MaryAnn who had soiled her delicate unmentionables.
The boys trembled, first at a woman in the boys’ lavatory, then at a nun in the boys’ lavatory, and then when Sister Lenore (or was it Eleanor?) ordered, “Drop your trousers.”
“God, help the boy who fouled up the hallway,” she inveighed.
Shyly, each boy, not understanding the trouble each boy was in because of what one of the other three must have done, looked aside at the other boys.
“No talking. Eyes straight ahead,” Sister Lenore barked, her scream echoing against the tile like a doo-wop group’s tune.
With her nose, Sister Lenore’s tried to head off the incident by discovering which of the boys had soiled his trousers before the boys would have to do what she had ordered.
Bashfully, the boys in front of other boys for the first time in their lives began to unbuckle their belts, one boy after the other, then all at the same time. One pair of trousers fell, then another, and another and another.
“No! Enough!” Sister Lenore called curtly called when one boy began to drop his lily white Fruit Of The Loom briefs.
Using her strong Roman nose to sniff out evil-doings in little third grade boys, Sister Lenore inspected the back of the boys’ white underwear from several feet away. In their white cotton briefs, the boys stood facing cold white urinals.
Perhaps it was the smell of this place, or the white disks near the urinal drains, or the smell of cold, hard fear like the cold hard urinal enamel that set the little boys trembling, trying so hard not to cry in front of each other.
Terror flushed inside their racing hearts. They waited to hear the clicking wisp of black rosaries when Sister whisked a solid oak paddle from beneath her long black habit. Sacred fear as the martyrs themselves must have known roiled within the boys as they awaited the “Thwack!” and someone else’s sobbing scream and tears...
...Sister JoAnn, in her most authoritative voice ordered the full class of more than sixty third graders to never again mention what had happened in the hallway or “God, help you,” there would certainly be Hell to pay.
And to this day, no one ever said a word ..."
From: SISTER DRESSED ME FUNNY
The naked truth about strip searches in school
LI educators monitor Arizona student strip-search case
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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
Sister Dressed Me Funny excerpt copyright © 1996 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
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