March 19th is the Feast of St. Joseph ~ an East Side wide holiday in 1962 in Manhattan. The St. Joseph parish on 87th Street began as an orphanage on York Avenue (then known as Avenue A) and 89th Street in the 1800s. The cornerstone of the present church was blessed in 1894. My mother and her sisters went to St. Joe’s school in the 1940s. My affection for the saint was built into me.
In second grade, I was chosen to play St. Joseph in a play in front of the St. Stephen of Hungary’s school body. Everything about this excited me right up to the beard but the nun lied. She told us St. Joe was the patron saint for the U.S. Post Office and therefore in heaven he was in charge of the mail between heaven and earth.
I later found out St. Joseph had never been near a post office but had a lot of other patronage responsibilities including patron saint: against doubt, for cabinetmakers, Canada, carpenters, China, confectioners, craftsmen, dying people, engineers, families, fathers, happy death, holy death, house hunters, Korea, laborers, Mexico, New France, Peru, pioneers, social justice, travelers, Universal Church, Vatican II, Viet Nam, working people.
Alas, I was St. Joseph in charge of Heaven’s post office and as the Nun built my costume I got happier and happier. First, I got to wear Father Emeric’s cool brown priest sandals. The sandals signaled poverty but to me they signaled taking my toes out for a walk in the cool March air. Then, I got to wear his brown robe with rope belt. The priest uniform, I had the whole priest uniform! And I could swing that Franciscan poverty rope around like a beat cop. I nailed a couple of kids in their seats as I walked up to the stage. They’d get even later.
Sister Lorraine, our teacher, had this thing for the post office and authentic historical scenes and since St. Joe had a beard I was getting a beard. I had no problem until they put the itchy wool choker on my face held on by a thick rubber band over my ears and around my neck that cut off the blood to my brain.
I couldn’t stand it, and though I knew my lines I had a problem getting them out of my mouth through the beard to the audience. I fixed it. Every time I spoke I lifted the contraption off my face and spoke my lines out of the side of my mouth.
It was my last feature role. Happy Saint Joseph’s Day!
St. Joseph 8th grade June 1944
Thomas Pryor’s blog: Yorkville: Stoops to Nuts
