The Sunday Memory Drawer - Leaving My Childhood Church

Here is a great black and white photo of my childhood church, St. Peter's Lutheran Church in the Bronx. The Lenten litany continues.

So, after I got confirmed, it was really more than just my hormones (and my feelings for my fellow Sunday School classmate) that propelled me to start going to Sunday church services. Once you had received and swallowed begrudgingly the wine and wafer, you were techinically allowed to worship like an adult. You could even skip Sunday School and show up at 10AM for the regular service. This gave me one more hour to sleep. And, in those days, there was nothing wrong with a fourteen-year-old making the bus trip from Mount Vernon to East 219th Street all by himself. This all got my dad off the hook. He no longer had to sit in the car outside of church for an hour. He could actually now stay home and read "Dondi" and "Dick Tracy" over coffee and a jelly donut.

So, around 9AM every Sunday, I walked myself down four blocks to get the BX41 bus. Back in those days, it was imperative that you "dress up" for church. I had my own personal wardrobe mistress, AKA my mother, who required nothing less. I was groomed to the nines. Standing at the 241st Street bus stop in a navy blue double breasted sport jacket and matching tie, I looked like that week's co-host on "The Mike Douglas Show." Or maybe I was opening for Joey Bishop at the Sands Hotel. I certainly didn't look 14.

Of course, once at church, I spent my first moments trying to maneuver myself into proximity to the love of my life. But, as I related last week, her presence in an adjacent pew was destined to be shortlived as her family moved to New Jersey. I looked around the chapel and asked a question for the ages.

"Now what?"

To think that I might have to go to church service and actually pay attention?

Luckily, I had, for lack of a better term, a savior. A guardian angel. My father's cousin, who we all called Aunt Ollie.

While my parents and all my aunts and uncles had long since eschewed Sunday church services and chose instead to sleep in, Aunt Ollie was the only one in their generation who kept at her worship. She was there at St. Peter's every single week. Something still drew her in. And, when Cupid cast me adrift, Aunt Ollie pulled me in.

"Come sit with me."

Wow, I was an adult.

Even better, I began to listen to the service. The readings. The sermon in broken English by our German Pastor Hoeniger. And it started to all make sense.

To enhance the experience even more, Aunt Ollie treated me like an adult. A young one, but an adult nevertheless. She always drove me home afterwards and, frequently, our in-car chat had something to do with what we had heard in church minutes before. Aunt Ollie truly enjoyed her religion and her beliefs. And, thanks to her, I began to finally form my own faith. For all of the above reasons, those two hours every Sunday became the highlight of my week. An odd thing for a teenager to admit. Oh, sure, I was doing all the nonsense stuff. But, at least for a little while every weekend, I was grounded. In a very good way.

Sadly, it didn't last forever. I began college. And Pastor Hoeniger, the only minister I had ever known, decided to retire.

There was the usual congregational call for a pastor. There needed to be some pre-requisites. The new guy had to speak German, as there was still, albeit dwindling, a German-based congregation and a weekly service in that language. After several months, we finally got the word. Our new pastor would be Pas

tor Bill Paulsen. Good Lutherans that we were, Aunt Ollie and I eagerly awaited his installation ceremony which was held on a Sunday night. We thought nothing of making an extra church appearance that week.

Except I got a bad vibe as soon as I met the dude. He was barely 30 years old and his hairline had already retreated to the rear. Although it was years before I would make this connection, Pastor Paulsen was a carbon copy of Kelsey Grammer. There was just something that always seemed to be a little off with him. One of his initial Sundays there, he set off his very first stink bomb.

He introduced the concept of "sharing the peace."

It's certainly commonplace in church services now. But, back then, it was scandalous.

"You want me to shake hands with the people next to me?"

The question reverberated over and over throughout the congregation. Obviously, thick-skinned Germans liked their personal space. And felt even more strongly about violating somebody else's. It took weeks for the folks around me to get the hang of this.

Clearly, Pastor Paulsen was looking to change the dynamic of our little church. And he next set his spiritual crosshairs on somebody else.

Me.

Obviously, the right reverend had looked around our church and realized that this was a congregation that was dying. Literally. The average age of our parishioner was probably around eighty. And Paulsen knew that he had to expand the youth ministry of our place.

Enter me.

The Pastor was relentless in trying to involve me in church activities. Brainstorming on events. Stuffing and licking envelopes at his house. For me, it was all starting to feel forced. And, unfortunately but conveniently, I was now a freshman at Fordham University. Doing all the things that college freshmen do. Many of them involved late hours on a Saturday night.

Pastor Paulsen didn't stand a chance.

And, after Aunt Ollie and her family moved upstate, there was no reason for me to show up at St. Peter's. Ever again.

My church going, save for a wedding or a funeral, would be nil for years.

Until I moved to Los Angeles...

The story concludes fittingly on Easter Sunday.

Dinner last night: Turkey reuben at Blue Plate in Santa Monica.