The Juniorate Continued
Student Life on Campus
The life the boys lived was much the same as, yet far different from that of their peers.
There was the routine of study and participation in sports that constitute so large a portion of any teenager’s day. The distance from home, however, was unique. They were home for the summer vacation, of course and for Thanksgiving, Christmas (leaving on the 6AM milk train from Kings Park, for they attended Midnight Mass at school), Easter and Mother’s Day. Father’s Day was celebrated by a family picnic, including a baseball game on the campus.
Household Chores and Groundskeeping
The household chores which fall to every teenager’s lot extended to the care of the grounds and to repairs, such as those to the front steps. They did not care for the cows, but were well acquainted with them, for while the farm was discontinued after 1934, the cows were kept to supply milk for both Novitiate and Juniorate. In 1934, the Juniorate boys helped to harvest and store the last potato crop. In the fall of the same year, the Novitiate’s pig, named “Stormy Weather,” was slaughtered; since the Juniorate boys shared the meat, pork was usually referred to as Stormy Weather.
The boys also washed and waxed floors. Lacking a machine to buff the wax, one of the boys would sit on a piece of blanket and the others would give him a ride down the hall. There’s much to be said for the system: Fifty years later, some of the original linoleum is still in use.
Recreation and Sporting Activities
Recreation, of course, was not neglected. In addition to baseball and basketball, there was walks “around the block” with Brother Anthony. The short walk was along St.Johnland Road, through the hospital grounds to Route 25A, and back to school. The long one was down Landing Avenue to Jericho Turnpike, west to the Bull, and back up 25A to St. Johnland Road and home.
Certain feast days of the church were celebrated by “instant plays”; written and rehearsed the day before they were presented. There were other plays, too, more elaborate and more carefully prepared.
One winter, a heavy rain followed by deep cold transformed the fields into ice ponds. Sleds, with umbrellas as sails, wafted the boys about the campus. Ordinarily, however, Pigeon Hill and Pigeon Pond were used for sleigh riding and ice skating.
Prayer Schedule
The greatest discrepancy between Juniorate routine and that of other teenagers, even those attending boarding school, lay in the prayer schedule, which included morning and evening prayers with the Brothers, as well as daily Mass. Furthermore, since this involved rising at 6:30, bedtime was also early, with “lights out” at 9:30 – and the light switches were not in the dorm, but in the adjoining room, occupied by one of the Brothers. This schedule continued until the termination of the Juniorate program in 1969.