The Girls go to Catholic School/ The Ten Commandments

        I can hardly believe now that age eight was determined by the Catholic Church to be the "age of reason;"  meaning that an individual should be able to tell right from wrong.  It was all very confusing to the girls despite Sister Lorenzo's attempts at elucidation.  The Ten  Commandments did offer some important and clear guidelines.  Thou shalt not kill or steal were understandable.  Honor thy father and mother, well, the nuns interpreted this into obey your mother and father.  Taking the Lords name in vain really worried the girls, however.  Not because of any propensity on their part but father seemed to employ the Lords name and usually it was not in a beseeching prayerful voice.  Coveting some one's wife, this one did not concern them except when having to recite all ten for Sister.   Coveting things though was a problem on occasion having the girl's best friend next door.  She had her own room fashionably appointed and bed always neatly made,  Welch's grape juice in little bottles in the ice box and Hostess Twinkies for lunch.  She did not have to share her bike with anyone, either.   There was one girl in her house and three in ours.  She probably coveted having a sister while the girls dreamed of  being an only child.  Telling a lie was bearing false witness.  Keep holy the Sabbath was kept religiously.  For as long as the girls could remember,  Father took the family to the earliest Mass possible, 6:30am every Sunday.  On occasion ,even this was too late and the family traveled to Holy Cross Church in Marine City to go to the 6:00 am Mass.  Each of the girls wanted to be the one next to father to hear his clear tenor voice sing the Latin words they could not understand.  The reward of early mass  were tender and still warm cinnamon pecan rolls from Dewey's bakery on Broad Bridge road.  Dewey's was open on Sunday because they were Seven Day Adventists who kept the Sabbath or Saturday.
                        THOU  SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY  

               When this commandment first fell upon the innocent ears of the girls they could not imagine that it had anything at all to do with them, not being adults.  And what could it possibly mean, surely it was not a sin to merely be an adult.    Sister explained that adultery was entertaining impure thoughts,  viewing impure pictures and participating in impure actions with your own body or someone else's  body.   It became  clear without saying that the impure part of our body was covered by our underwear and referred to by our parents as "private parts."   Private parts were never discussed and kept covered in public.  The girls never imagined that there were sins involving these parts.