The St. Joseph Home for Boys
The 6th Short Story
Choo Choo Pennies
"Choo Choo Pennies"
ANDY JUNIOR'S CHILDHOOD STORIES
The St. Joseph Home for Boys
My 6th Short Story
The St. Joseph Home for Boys stood on the northwest corner of Blackstone St. and Van Buren St. in Jackson, Michigan for more than 50 years. The Felician Sisters out of Livonia, Michigan, purchased the mansion from a local banker in the early 1900s and cared for up to 50 boys in the orphanage, between the early 1910s and late 1960s, before the building was unfortunately torn down.
In this short story, you will experience more of the emotional roller coaster many young boys endured during our stay in the orphanage. While most of the stories up to this point have been quite sad, you will begin to gain insights into some of Andy Junior's more humorous shenanigans as his frustrations led to more troublemaking. His latest rebellion resulted from a blow up with his dad the night before, when he was sternly chastised for admitting that he still missed his mother a lot after the divorce.
"Choo Choo Pennies"
I hated everything and everybody after my dad yelled at me before returning Little Brother and I to the orphanage the previous night. To top it all off, my horrific nightmares returned. It made no sense trying to be a goody-two-shoes, when my fate ended the same no matter what I did.
After eating breakfast and dressing for the cooler weather, I grabbed my leather bookcase and lunch, as I headed toward the exit with two other boys. Going to school now was way different than before all the orphanage nonsense. There was no Mama to smile and send me off with a pat on my bottom when the bus arrived or to greet me with a loving hug after I returned home. Instead, I walked to and from St. John’s without any form of love to comfort me.
The terrible sadness from the night before still lingered in my heart, but I decided not to worry about anything anymore. Thinking of Mama only made me feel like I was dying, and I never wanted to go through that again. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make me happy, no matter what.
As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, So-And-So caught a cold, which left me stuck showing a couple of newbies the ropes. Not particularly thrilled with the ordeal but determined to make the best of it, I led the pair to school.
Though I tried to be a nuisance during the entire day at St. John's, somehow, I escaped without getting into serious trouble. It was touch-and-go when one of my steelies chipped another boy’s treasured blue and green boulder, but our scuffle quickly ended after a couple of harmless shoves. When the school bell rang, I gathered my walking mates and headed down the usual route, west along North St.
As we approached the railroad tracks that stretched between Grand River and the wall of the Armory, I reached in my pocket and jingled the coins I placed there that morning. Smiling, I looked at my companions. “You guys wanna have some fun?”
Their eyes lit up as they nodded. I couldn’t contain my grin. “We’re taking a shortcut today!”
They glanced at each other, then stared at me with that, “but the nuns will kill us” look. Even though I knew we’d get in a heap of trouble if we got caught, I chuckled. “Whatcha worried about? They’ll never find out. Come on!”
I stepped up on one of the rails and tight roped down the tracks with my arms straight out for balance. After slipping a time or two, I started getting the hang of it, and we continued along our merry way.
The taller kid with curly blond hair looked at the younger lad. “I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to walk along the tracks.”
I smirked, “You worry too much. You don’t wanna be a sissy, do you?”
He lowered his head and grumbled. “No.”
Seeing him like that made me realize I sounded just as mean as my dad, the night before, but I didn’t care to worry about such things. I waved my hand forward. “Let’s get a move on it. We don’t wanna be late getting back.”
Hopping off the rail, I started jogging across the railroad ties. Part way along the tracks, I heard the choo choo’s blare in the distance and stopped. I reached in my pocket and sorted through the change. Being the kind guy that I was, I gave each of my partners-in-crime a penny and kept one for myself. “Here, put these on the railroad tracks.”
They looked at each other like I was a lunatic or something. I put my penny on the rail. “Hurry! The train will be here any second.”
Both of them followed my lead, and as they stepped back, I grabbed their hands. “Let’s hide behind this bush.”
The roar of the engines grew louder as the train crossed Ganson St. and headed in our direction. The two chickens wanted to bolt, but I firmly clutched their wrists. “Sit tight; it’ll be over in no time at all.”
They covered their eyes with their free hands. The deafening noise finally faded as the red caboose rolled past the Armory and across North St. While the train continued along its way, I tugged their arms. “Let’s go see what we got!”
When we reached the rail, two of the pennies remained in place but were melded into elongated oval sheets of copper. The other penny seemed to have disappeared entirely.
The little guy whimpered. “Where did mine go?”
I hopped on the other side of the rail. “Look, it fell off.” I picked it up off the white rocks and handed it to him.
His green eyes grew to the size of shamrocks. “Wow, how did it do that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s pretty cool, huh?” Grabbing my masterpiece, I stuck it in my trousers with the rest of my change and headed toward the orphanage once again.
Later that evening, as I was sitting quietly at the table studying, a searing pain shot through my ear and lifted me out of my chair. The nice nun from the week before had become mean.
Sister Suddenly-Angry practically dragged me across the room as she yelled. “Thought you’d get away with this, didn’t you?”
She pulled me into a closet, where she grabbed a thick, wooden paddle and whacked my bottom good, like an old lady beating a filthy rug. I screamed bloody murder with each successive swing.
I’d been spanked before, but never like this. My rear end was flaming, and there wasn’t any firetruck to put it out.
She grabbed hold of my same ear and tugged me to a small table in the corner. “Sit down.” When she finally let go, my ear hurt so bad I feared it might fall off. I cupped my hands over it to make sure it was still attached to my noggin.
I still wasn’t sure why she was so upset until she reached in her deep pocket and opened her palm. There laid the flattened penny that I must have missed when I retrieved the rest of the coins from my pants.
You idiot! Yelling at myself was the only thing I could do except to pretend not to have the faintest idea what my mistress of the dungeon was talking about.
Acting shocked, I shrugged. “What is that?”
She gave me a witch’s stare, the kind of look that made you want to cover your eyes. She lowered her face to mine. “As if you didn’t know. You must think I was born yesterday.”
I was sure that wasn’t the case. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was born when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right now, she looked mean and old, and I could tell exactly what she ate for supper as she huffed and puffed in my face.
My captor slapped a few sheets of paper and a pencil on the table. “You’re going to write one hundred times, ‘I will never walk along the railroad tracks.’” She wrote the first sentence across the top of the page as a friendly gesture to start me down the right path.
While leaning to one side of my seat so as not to apply too much pressure on the sorest part of my rear, I painstakingly formed every letter of the sentence as provided in the example.
I tried to finish off my penance as diligently as possible only to end up completing 35 sentences before being led off to brush my teeth. On the way to the dorms, I sighed. It’ll take me forever to finish those stupid sentences.
After enduring another Rosary session following school the next day, I picked up my penance where I left off. For something that was supposed to be so much fun on the way home from school the other day, I was enjoying very little of the results, especially while the rest of the boys were playing outside.
By the time I wrote the extremely boring sentence for the ninetieth time, a painful blister had puffed its way onto the tender knuckle of my middle finger. Each letter of every word became more difficult as it was nearly impossible to hold the pencil in place without pain while writing the last few sentences.
Even though Sister Not-As-Angry stopped by to release me to recess, I didn’t feel like playing. My finger and wrist hurt like the dickens, and my bottom still felt like I had been sitting on hot coals for most of the day. Gently rubbing my rear, I mumbled to myself. “I guess I got what I asked for.”
**********
That's it for now!
So you don't get the wrong impression, when I had the opportunity to reflect back on my childhood, years after I had "grown up," I was very thankful for the Felician Sisters' care and the time I spent in the orphanage.
Decades after getting out of the St. Joseph Home for Boys, I learned that one of the lads from the orphanage had been playing on the tracks and was killed by a train, many years before me and my brother were under the care of the sisters. Obviously, that sorrow never left the nuns as they would get very upset whenever one of us boys took the tracks home after being told over and over again not to do so.
I'll share more pictures and short stories to go with the history lessons ahead. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my life back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In my next post, I'll continue to give you a peek into my childhood at the orphanage in Jackson, Michigan that many people walked past as they wondered what went on behind those large doors. While the first few posts were quite sad in nature, I'm beginning to share some of the more humorous adventures in the life of Andy Junior, so watch for my next stories.
Thank you so much for your support!
Andy Skrzynski
Note: The Felician Sisters provided the orphanage photographs and gave me permission to share them within "Andy and the St. Joseph Home for Boys" and social media outlets, including my website.
ANDY JUNIOR'S CHILDHOOD STORIES
The St. Joseph Home for Boys
My 6th Short Story
The St. Joseph Home for Boys stood on the northwest corner of Blackstone St. and Van Buren St. in Jackson, Michigan for more than 50 years. The Felician Sisters out of Livonia, Michigan, purchased the mansion from a local banker in the early 1900s and cared for up to 50 boys in the orphanage, between the early 1910s and late 1960s, before the building was unfortunately torn down.
In this short story, you will experience more of the emotional roller coaster many young boys endured during our stay in the orphanage. While most of the stories up to this point have been quite sad, you will begin to gain insights into some of Andy Junior's more humorous shenanigans as his frustrations led to more troublemaking. His latest rebellion resulted from a blow up with his dad the night before, when he was sternly chastised for admitting that he still missed his mother a lot after the divorce.
"Choo Choo Pennies"
I hated everything and everybody after my dad yelled at me before returning Little Brother and I to the orphanage the previous night. To top it all off, my horrific nightmares returned. It made no sense trying to be a goody-two-shoes, when my fate ended the same no matter what I did.
After eating breakfast and dressing for the cooler weather, I grabbed my leather bookcase and lunch, as I headed toward the exit with two other boys. Going to school now was way different than before all the orphanage nonsense. There was no Mama to smile and send me off with a pat on my bottom when the bus arrived or to greet me with a loving hug after I returned home. Instead, I walked to and from St. John’s without any form of love to comfort me.
The terrible sadness from the night before still lingered in my heart, but I decided not to worry about anything anymore. Thinking of Mama only made me feel like I was dying, and I never wanted to go through that again. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make me happy, no matter what.
As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, So-And-So caught a cold, which left me stuck showing a couple of newbies the ropes. Not particularly thrilled with the ordeal but determined to make the best of it, I led the pair to school.
Though I tried to be a nuisance during the entire day at St. John's, somehow, I escaped without getting into serious trouble. It was touch-and-go when one of my steelies chipped another boy’s treasured blue and green boulder, but our scuffle quickly ended after a couple of harmless shoves. When the school bell rang, I gathered my walking mates and headed down the usual route, west along North St.
As we approached the railroad tracks that stretched between Grand River and the wall of the Armory, I reached in my pocket and jingled the coins I placed there that morning. Smiling, I looked at my companions. “You guys wanna have some fun?”
Their eyes lit up as they nodded. I couldn’t contain my grin. “We’re taking a shortcut today!”
They glanced at each other, then stared at me with that, “but the nuns will kill us” look. Even though I knew we’d get in a heap of trouble if we got caught, I chuckled. “Whatcha worried about? They’ll never find out. Come on!”
I stepped up on one of the rails and tight roped down the tracks with my arms straight out for balance. After slipping a time or two, I started getting the hang of it, and we continued along our merry way.
The taller kid with curly blond hair looked at the younger lad. “I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to walk along the tracks.”
I smirked, “You worry too much. You don’t wanna be a sissy, do you?”
He lowered his head and grumbled. “No.”
Seeing him like that made me realize I sounded just as mean as my dad, the night before, but I didn’t care to worry about such things. I waved my hand forward. “Let’s get a move on it. We don’t wanna be late getting back.”
Hopping off the rail, I started jogging across the railroad ties. Part way along the tracks, I heard the choo choo’s blare in the distance and stopped. I reached in my pocket and sorted through the change. Being the kind guy that I was, I gave each of my partners-in-crime a penny and kept one for myself. “Here, put these on the railroad tracks.”
They looked at each other like I was a lunatic or something. I put my penny on the rail. “Hurry! The train will be here any second.”
Both of them followed my lead, and as they stepped back, I grabbed their hands. “Let’s hide behind this bush.”
The roar of the engines grew louder as the train crossed Ganson St. and headed in our direction. The two chickens wanted to bolt, but I firmly clutched their wrists. “Sit tight; it’ll be over in no time at all.”
They covered their eyes with their free hands. The deafening noise finally faded as the red caboose rolled past the Armory and across North St. While the train continued along its way, I tugged their arms. “Let’s go see what we got!”
When we reached the rail, two of the pennies remained in place but were melded into elongated oval sheets of copper. The other penny seemed to have disappeared entirely.
The little guy whimpered. “Where did mine go?”
I hopped on the other side of the rail. “Look, it fell off.” I picked it up off the white rocks and handed it to him.
His green eyes grew to the size of shamrocks. “Wow, how did it do that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s pretty cool, huh?” Grabbing my masterpiece, I stuck it in my trousers with the rest of my change and headed toward the orphanage once again.
Later that evening, as I was sitting quietly at the table studying, a searing pain shot through my ear and lifted me out of my chair. The nice nun from the week before had become mean.
Sister Suddenly-Angry practically dragged me across the room as she yelled. “Thought you’d get away with this, didn’t you?”
She pulled me into a closet, where she grabbed a thick, wooden paddle and whacked my bottom good, like an old lady beating a filthy rug. I screamed bloody murder with each successive swing.
I’d been spanked before, but never like this. My rear end was flaming, and there wasn’t any firetruck to put it out.
She grabbed hold of my same ear and tugged me to a small table in the corner. “Sit down.” When she finally let go, my ear hurt so bad I feared it might fall off. I cupped my hands over it to make sure it was still attached to my noggin.
I still wasn’t sure why she was so upset until she reached in her deep pocket and opened her palm. There laid the flattened penny that I must have missed when I retrieved the rest of the coins from my pants.
You idiot! Yelling at myself was the only thing I could do except to pretend not to have the faintest idea what my mistress of the dungeon was talking about.
Acting shocked, I shrugged. “What is that?”
She gave me a witch’s stare, the kind of look that made you want to cover your eyes. She lowered her face to mine. “As if you didn’t know. You must think I was born yesterday.”
I was sure that wasn’t the case. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was born when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Right now, she looked mean and old, and I could tell exactly what she ate for supper as she huffed and puffed in my face.
My captor slapped a few sheets of paper and a pencil on the table. “You’re going to write one hundred times, ‘I will never walk along the railroad tracks.’” She wrote the first sentence across the top of the page as a friendly gesture to start me down the right path.
While leaning to one side of my seat so as not to apply too much pressure on the sorest part of my rear, I painstakingly formed every letter of the sentence as provided in the example.
I tried to finish off my penance as diligently as possible only to end up completing 35 sentences before being led off to brush my teeth. On the way to the dorms, I sighed. It’ll take me forever to finish those stupid sentences.
After enduring another Rosary session following school the next day, I picked up my penance where I left off. For something that was supposed to be so much fun on the way home from school the other day, I was enjoying very little of the results, especially while the rest of the boys were playing outside.
By the time I wrote the extremely boring sentence for the ninetieth time, a painful blister had puffed its way onto the tender knuckle of my middle finger. Each letter of every word became more difficult as it was nearly impossible to hold the pencil in place without pain while writing the last few sentences.
Even though Sister Not-As-Angry stopped by to release me to recess, I didn’t feel like playing. My finger and wrist hurt like the dickens, and my bottom still felt like I had been sitting on hot coals for most of the day. Gently rubbing my rear, I mumbled to myself. “I guess I got what I asked for.”
**********
That's it for now!
So you don't get the wrong impression, when I had the opportunity to reflect back on my childhood, years after I had "grown up," I was very thankful for the Felician Sisters' care and the time I spent in the orphanage.
Decades after getting out of the St. Joseph Home for Boys, I learned that one of the lads from the orphanage had been playing on the tracks and was killed by a train, many years before me and my brother were under the care of the sisters. Obviously, that sorrow never left the nuns as they would get very upset whenever one of us boys took the tracks home after being told over and over again not to do so.
I'll share more pictures and short stories to go with the history lessons ahead. I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my life back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In my next post, I'll continue to give you a peek into my childhood at the orphanage in Jackson, Michigan that many people walked past as they wondered what went on behind those large doors. While the first few posts were quite sad in nature, I'm beginning to share some of the more humorous adventures in the life of Andy Junior, so watch for my next stories.
Thank you so much for your support!
Andy Skrzynski
Note: The Felician Sisters provided the orphanage photographs and gave me permission to share them within "Andy and the St. Joseph Home for Boys" and social media outlets, including my website.
The St. Joseph Home for Boys orphanage stood on 11 acres at the northwest corner, where Blackstone St. and Van Buren St. intersected in Jackson, Michigan. Our residence room, while going to St. John's, was behind the windows of the 2nd floor to the far right above the bay windows in this picture. The dormitories, where I had my terrible nightmares during much of my first year there, were located on the 3rd Floor, where you can see the cross in the front of the building.
Andy Junior, when he was attending St. John's while living in the orphanage in the early 1960s.
St. John's stood on the southeast corner at the intersection of Cooper St. and North St. in Jackson, Michigan. I took this picture a few years ago.
The old Armory and its wall extended across a good portion of the northern section of the block, east of the railroad tracks and west of Cooper St., between North St. and Ganson St. in Jackson, Michigan. This photo was obtained from and given permission to use by Marvin Boht.