Faith-based Refrigeration

In which a dark shade from your humble narrator's past emerges on Facebook and causes reflection.

When I was a callow and sallow youth I attended a preparatory high school in southwest Ohio run by the Jesuits. Like about a quarter of my fellow students, I was not a Catholic. There were a fair number of Protestants, and a goodly smattering of Jews, Buddhists and Hindus at this school. We still had to attend the long, lugubrious all-school Masses, but there wasn't any formal Inquisition-like establishment aimed at converting us. Did I mention that this was a boys' school yet? It was. I received a decent education and despite having no nostalgia for my alma mater whatsoever, I don't harbor any particular hard feelings... well, except for the broken nose thing, and the two concussions.

We only had one nun at this school. She was a native Kentuckian of thick, German stock, a member of an order I have never heard of aside from her membership, and a habitual teller of tall tales. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the current students of my high school have a Facebook page devoted to quotations from my former  history teacher, the most erratic, Germanic instructor I have ever had, bar-nun.* Let's call Her "Sister Helga." While I was in school we often referred to her as "Attila."

What was surprising to me was the consistency of her craziness, even after 14 years. One of the quotes was, "Indians have to pay $7 a gallon for gas, just because they're Indians." This teacher was way into the Indians. We spent the first quarter of junior year American History talking about the Indians, wherein we learned that the "Iroquois" were composed of five tribes, hence the name, since "quois" means "five" in French.** When we were in school she used the same line, but she's obviously been adjusting for inflationary injustice since it was only $3 per gallon back then.

Sister Helga told us she was 80 years old.*** She told us that she was one of fourteen children.**** She told us that she went to Pine Ridge in South Dakota every summer to visit her sister (also a nun) and minister to the Indians.*****

There was one particularly memorable story about a time when she was teaching Bible School to the little Indian children on the Pine Ridge reservation. According to Sister Helga, one day, while telling the children about Jesus, a Schwan's Freezer truck pulled up outside the church. The Schwan's man told her that his refrigerator unit had broken down and could the children please eat some ice cream before it melted? According to the story it was 130 degrees in the shade that day, and there was only one air conditioner in the entire state of South Dakota and that was at the Governor's mansion and they never let the Indians near it. So Sister Helga and the children gorged themselves on ice cream. One little girl asked Sister Helga to drive her home after Bible School so that she could take an ice cream bar to her aged grandmother. "But little Indian girl," said Sister Helga, "you live 2 hours away and it's 130 degrees and I don't have air conditioning in my pickup truck."

"Please, Sister Helga! I know it will be fine!" said the little girl, and Sister's heart melted and she and the little girl got in the truck and drove for two hours on a dirt road in the 130 degree heat with the ice cream bar sitting on the dashboard of the truck. When they reached Granny's house the little girl kissed Sister Helga on the cheek, grabbed the ice cream bar and ran into the house.

The next day, Sister Helga asked the little girl about her Grandmother and the (presumptively) melted ice cream. The little girl told Sister Helga that her Grandmother (who hadn't had any ice cream since 1931) loved it. "But wasn't it melted?" asked Sister Helga. "No it was still frozen," replied the little girl.

Sister Helga realized that the little girl's faith had kept it cold.

And that's how refrigerators work, boys and girls.


*Oooh! A delicious pun!
**No it doesn't.
***Nope.
****Who knows? Who cares?
*****Hadn't they suffered enough?