In September 1953, Saint Joseph Boys High School, Le College Saint-Joseph, located on upper Merrimack St. in Lowell, Massachusetts became my academic, spiritual, and emotional home for the next four years. But, since the death of my father, Alexander Bolduc, in early January 1953, my temperament and general outlook on life had suffered daily bouts of sadness, emptiness, and quiet despair.
To hide such feelings, I was able to develop an acerbic sense of humor regarding humans being constantly entangled in worries about war, hurricanes, lack of nourishment, displaced persons in Europe, personal abandonment, etc.
The world seemed like a bleak and thankless exercise gurgling with uncertainty and fear. Coupled to my personal sense of loss, there loomed over the planet impending anticipation that a thermonuclear war between East and West would bring down this whole House of Cards.
Today, decades later, I can let myself review, with some calm, those frightening feelings of yore. For me, those high school years forced me to accept our world as a crapshoot, at times, which, occasionally, produces pleasant surprises. The Merrimack Valley skies were often gray, but, fortunately, my Mom’s great cooking plus rock and roll music on the radio helped my siblings and me to see rays of sunshine on the horizon.
a) Scared, confused and poor – those were my social qualities,
b) Inadequate and not quite adequate compared to others
c) Socially, I was not fitting in with girls; I was very shy.
d) I felt feeble and a little desperate, much of the time
e) Attracted to girls, yes, but I was very shy and awkward
f) Clumsy at dancing; “Sesoeur” taught me how to dance the waltz in her
kitchen
g) ashamed of the hand-me-down clothes that were nice but did not fit me well
h) many conflicts on television – here and abroad
i) concerned about Mom, Michelle, and Denise, but knew that Bob would do
OK
j) Where was I going in life?
k) Career? but where and how?
l) The priesthood, a monk, maybe, a wage earner?
m) Missed the support that my father might have given me – advice and
guidance
n) alone and empty but with a biting sense of humor
o) good scholastically in high school
p) the instructors all seemed to encourage my efforts
q) some conflict between French-Canadian beliefs and real-world facts in city
r) why was there so much pain and despair in our world?
s) where was the all-knowing and all-loving God when we were feeling beaten
& lost?
t) how could the Church help us in being in the day-to-day world?
u) How might college change my attitude and make me hopeful?
v) how could my mother and my three siblings survive in a time of great stress
and war?
w) is there life after Catholic school?
x) will be getting good grades at St-Joseph High School keep me out of the
textile mills depression?
y) do the girls (they were children, too) find me interesting, attractive, xxx
z) I had no HS chums at St-Joseph but I did have George, Roger, and Richard
as friends
