The author’s first article about his beloved former Fenwick teacher first appeared in the Alumni Wick in 1985. Here are more of his recollections, 32 years later.
By James Loverde ’64, Guest Blogger
Surely the sun was not always shining through Fenwick’s high windows during Father Regan’s Religion Class – the last one of the afternoon. But, in my recollections, that was the way it seemed. On afternoons today, notes and memories begin to stir one another like the reds and golds on medieval prints ….
“Candy Spots”
What was the name of a horse doing atop the first page of my newly found notebook from the spring quarter? Father Regan had written it on the blackboard to illustrate a point, as usual. Candy Spots was the recent winner of that year’s Preakness Stakes. The owner of this fine animal once said that he would rather be sick himself than have a sick horse.
We all knew what Father was getting at. He wanted to illustrate the dedication many people had to what was really important in their lives. He concluded by quoting the words of Christ: “Where your treasure is, there is your heart also.”
There were many other moments that none of us need a notebook to remember. “What’s the toughest job in the world, Cahill?” he once asked a good fellow student in a charcoal pullover, “being a teenager on the West Side in 1963?” Father Regan paused for a second, with his fingers holding the yellow chalk like a plucked jonquil. Then he gave the answer himself. Plato had agreed with it many semesters before: “The most difficult task a man can undertake is to be a parent.”
AA: Upon graduating from MacMurray, I came to Fenwick and taught freshman English and helped Fr. Motl, a great guy and my predecessor, coach the speech, debate, and Congress teams. The following year, Fr. Motl went off to teach future priests how to deliver quality sermons. I then took over teaching the sophomore Speech class and coaching our speech activities which had been the goal behind the work that I had done with Fr. Motl during my first year at Fenwick. (One should also note that Fenwick’s requirement that every student must take one semester of Speech in order to graduate came about because Fr. Motl believed that our students needed to learn how to speak in order to gain success in our society. If anything, this requirement fits into the Dominican mission as the Order of Preachers. Fenwick is one of a limited number of schools to have this requirement.)
Ms. Maria Nowicki is in her 10th year of teaching math at Fenwick.
This year would have marked the 110th birthday of the late Coach Lawless, who for nearly half a century worked for the students of Fenwick and the school since its inception in 1929. 