JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I hope many of you read The Star’s story this morning about the Rockhurst High School alumnus, Kelly Gerling, who says that back in the 1967-68 school year, a vice principal — a man apparently affiliated with a religious order — forced him and another student to fight each other in the school’s basement.

This was a gladiator-style battle that the vice principal — a person who should have been promoting nonviolence — ordered up to satisfy his own perverted predilections.

The Star quoted Gerling as saying…

“I can still vividly recall the pain when my fellow student stuck his fingers into the indentations under my ears; the extreme fatigue; the anger at the situation; the humiliating helplessness; the fear of severe injury — neither of us having any choice under the circumstances but to do as Brother Windmueller ordered.”

The story doesn’t say what order of “brothers” Ron Windmueller was affiliated with, but Rockhurst, of course, is a Catholic school founded by the Jesuit order of priests. As Gerling said in the story, the ’60s were an era when corporal punishment, at least in Catholic schools, was openly accepted.

Gerling’s story reminded me of my own experience at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, Ky., which, like Rockhurst, was highly regarded for its rigorous academics and its leaders’ push for students to excel in all areas. But when it came to discipline, schools like Rockhurst and St. X took rigor to a demented extreme.

St. X was founded and operated by Xaverian Brothers, a religious order with headquarters in Baltimore. Like the Jesuits, the Xaverian brothers had taken a vow of chastity, which, as we all know, is still accounting for a lot of underlying frustration and tension in the ranks of priests and other Catholic religious orders.

Actually, I was pretty lucky as far as being a recipient of corporal punishment. I only recall being on the receiving end two times. But another incident, which I’ll get to in a bit, left an immutable, searing memory.

**

First, my own experiences…

One day in French class I was shooting or throwing spitballs across the room at a fellow student, and the teacher, Brother Wilfrid, rightly suspected me, although he didn’t actually catch me in the act. As the brothers went, Brother Wilfred was mild mannered and even tempered. But that day, he’d had enough. Suspecting that I was the disruptive culprit, he told me to come out in the hall with him. As we stood in the otherwise empty hallway, I had a smile on my face, not thinking I was in any serious jeopardy. He said, “Were you shooting spitballs?”

“Yes,” I answered, still smiling.

Next thing I knew his right arm came around like a windmill and he delivered a solid, resounding smack to my left cheek.

Brother Wilfrid (George Willenbrink)

I stood there stunned, the smile having been replaced by an open mouth. Brother Wilfrid just slapped me?  Head down, I went back classroom, and I never messed with Brother Wilfred again. All was well between us thereafter. He came to my father’s wake in 2007, and we had a nice chat. He died in Louisville three years ago.

The other time I was on the receiving end of corporal punishment was when an English teacher, Brother Cassian, caught me doing one thing or another and had me backed up against a concrete block wall. With my head just an inch or so from the wall, he put his hand on my head and gave it a quick shove into the wall. It wasn’t a hard hit, but it snapped me to attention.

Brother Cassian was another teacher I liked, despite the disciplinary action. One time, when I was a sophomore, I believe, he put a note of praise on a single-page essay I had written. It was the first time any teacher had made me think I had better-than-average writing skills. (I lost track of Brother Cassian and don’t know if he’s still alive.)

There was one particular teacher we all feared. His name was Brother Alexius Joseph. He taught religion and, I believe, Latin, and he suffered from arthritis. We knew when the arthritis was bothering him by the contorted look on his face and the meanness in his eyes. One day, when the arthritis was active, he walked up and down the aisles of the classroom, randomly smacking students with the textbook he was holding. I remember everyone sitting straight up, not saying a word, looking straight ahead and hoping they didn’t incur his arbitrary wrath. By the grace of God, I wasn’t hit.

Brother Alexius Joseph was not on anyone’s “favorite teacher” list. He died in 1974 at age 66 and was buried in a small cemetery on the St. X grounds.

**

Now to the most appalling incident of corporal punishment I ever witnessed.

The football coach was a short, muscular guy named Johnny Meihaus, who had been a running back at the University of Kentucky. He was a good coach but also a first-class asshole.

He had a son, Bobby, who was a classmate of mine and who, naturally, played on the football team. (Another of Johnny Meihaus’ players at the time was Maurice “Mo” Moorman, who later played for the Chiefs and threw a block that cleared the way for a pivotal touchdown in Super Bowl IV, when the Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings.)

Unfortunately, the football players weren’t the only students who had to put up with Johnny Meihaus. He was also the phys ed teacher, and every student came through his classes. In the role of teacher, he carried a wooden paddle — a paddle that looked more like a small oar than a ping-pong paddle.

Classes were held in an ancient gym that had an elevated, banked track. The track consisted of distinctive linear, parquet flooring and was situated above the basketball court.

One day, Johnny Meihaus singled out for punishment a boy I had gone to grade school with — a boy whose mother would sometimes take a group of us to school in a VW bus that had short curtains you could pull across the windows. The boy’s name was — is — David Williams. David was a brilliant kid, but different. He was very quiet and kept to himself. He was very thin and not the least bit athletic.

This particular day, Johnny Meihaus assumed the role of David Williams’ personal bully. He called David to the center of the gym for some trivial reason, probably not doing something fast enough or up to expectations, and whacked him numerous times on the buttocks with that paddle. I don’t remember if David was standing up or kneeling when he took the blows. What I remember is the loud “thwack” that resonated through the gym with each strike.

The most disturbing part came at the conclusion of class, when we were in the locker room changing from our gym shorts to our regular clothes. When David’s shorts came off, there for all of us to see were a series of horizontal black, blue and purple lines that looked like they could have been left by a whip.

It was ghastly and horrifying. I don’t recall anyone saying a word; we looked quickly and averted our gazes…And there wasn’t a thing we could do about it. It wasn’t the kind of thing you reported back then. If you did, you might have gotten into more trouble…I wonder to this day if David even told his parents.

I lost track of David, but my best friend in Louisville, Bill Russell — whom I see every time I go back — keeps track of everyone. He told me about 15 years ago that David, who became an artist, had declared himself “dead” as far as St. X was concerned. He even called the school and announced that David Williams, class of ’64, had died.

When we returned for a school reunion — maybe the 45th, in 2009 — one of the functions was a memorial ceremony for 1964 classmates who had died. The ceremony was near the entrance of Calvary Cemetery, Louisville’s “Catholic cemetery.” The classmate who presided at the service somberly announced the names of the departed. When he uttered the name David Williams, Bill and I glanced at each other, knowing full well that at that very moment David Williams was alive and well somewhere in Louisville.

**

I’ve never reconnected with David, but as a birthday present when I turned 65, I believe, my friend Bill commissioned him to do a painting of my boyhood home on Ruth Avenue, a few miles from St. X. I keep the painting on top of a credenza in my office, along with a photo of Barack Obama and a small painting of the Meyer Circle Sea Horse Fountain.

And Johnny Meihaus?

I recall him being in a nursing home in the late 2000s, at the same time my father was in a nursing home in Louisville. I also knew Johnny Meihaus had died a few years ago, and today, for this post, I looked up his obituary. It appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal on April 22, 2009.

Johnny Meihaus was 87 when he died. The obit said he had been inducted into the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the St. Xavier Hall of Fame. The final line of the obit read, “Memorial contributions may be made to Coach Meihaus Endowment fund at St. Xavier.”

At St. Xavier, the Johnny Meihaus name lives on, when it clearly shouldn’t.