Since my grandparents sent me to a Catholic elementary school for 2nd grade, my parents thought it would work again for 4th grade but I remember the experience at St. Thomas Aquinas Elementary School as being the worst of my childhood.
Bullies and undisciplined evil children and lousy, underpaid, super-strict teachers made the environment at the school terrifying. I once got a lecture and was stabbed in the sternum by an angry dwarf of a male teacher for crumpling paper and disrupting the class.
The hour of Mass that started at 7:30 set the tone for the day. Nobody seemed to want to be there.
The attitude of the school combined with their attitude towards God, I think, justified the opening of one of my Christmas presents early that year. After all, there is no commandment that states, "Thou shalt not peek at your presents on Christmas Eve."
I knew exactly the one I wanted to gently unwrap (of course, so I could leave no trace of my peeking). Finding the wrapped Atari 2600 box was akin to picking out a single wrapped CD or DVD these days.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark was the game I was to receive that Christmas 1982 - I had seen the film in theaters the year before and had no fear of my face being melted off upon opening the box.
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