Father Mascari

Fr. Mascari, O.P.
Theology Teacher at Fenwick High School

It took a long time but by my senior year I began to feel like I belonged at Fenwick.

Mascari's Theology 4 class was as engaging as Peddicord's class but he was a bit more apt to joke with us. Still, the course material was no joking matter. We pored over details the Council of Trent and Vatican One and Two and were obliged to learn all the names and stories of the major players from the last five hundred or so years of Catholic church history. From the first day of class onward Mascari called out details we would need to know for our final exam. He made explicit on a daily basis that if we were unable to pass that test we would not pass his class.

Somewhere along the way Wojtowicz and I compiled our extensive class notes into a thick study guide. The whispered anxieties of fellow Theology 4 students led us to discover that many would be willing to buy copies from us. We settled on a sale price of $10 per guide. We alphabetized the notes by subject and typed them on a typewriter at the Oak Park library. I drew up a cover with a haloed Mascari giving our study guide his stamp of approval and we invested in making the copies. We sold around thirty guides first semester.

Mascari found out about our guide but didn't know who had made it. He warned the class that it did not cover all the topics we'd find on the exam but I still think it helped a lot of us to study. We both aced that test.

Second semester we caught Sepe selling copies of our guide for $7. We called him out for leeching off us but he wouldn't stop. I was annoyed with him back then but at this point I prefer to remember him sitting through Spitznagel's class with his sock in his mouth.

With twenty years to reflect on it I'm pretty sure our time at Fenwick made us all better men.

Mr. Heldmann

Mr. Heldmann

Athletic Director, Economics & Drafting Teacher at Fenwick High School

Heldmann reminded me a lot of my grandfathers. Whenever I sat down with them to make paper airplanes, discuss Harold Washington and universal health care or listen to classical music my grandfathers were all vocal about the way they saw things. I never had to guess where they stood. I have always found that sort of honesty to be comforting whether or not I agree with it. It takes a lot of love to share your worldview with someone.

Fenwick didn't offer any art classes but I was able to take a drafting class with Heldmann. In it we practiced drawing relatively basic shapes from different views using a drawing board and T-square. The class was held in what seemed like a bomb shelter that was tucked away deep in the labyrinthine recesses of the east wing stairwell. I really enjoyed it.

I also had economics with Heldmann. He made that class interesting because he explained everything in a practical way. We read Robinson Crusoe in order to define scarcity and its effects. He would often ask us about current events to get our view and then he would share his own. This wasn't always objective but it helped to clarify our lessons. Occasionally he would get off track and offer us advice not relevant to class. He once informed us that we should always accelerate into a turn when driving to enhance and maintain traction. Whether or not this is true I still think about it every time I drive on a cloverleaf interchange.

Father Botthof

Fr. Botthof, O.P.

President-Principal at Fenwick High School

The only times I saw Bothoff were when he was speaking at an assembly or leading all school masses in the school auditorium but I could tell that he was a kindly man. He was a widower and is the only Catholic priest I've ever known to have been married. It seemed like a big deal that he had either given or received all seven sacraments.

I really blew it my junior year. Recently Wojtowicz aptly described my worst high school transgression as using my art for evil purposes. I got in big trouble. I'd prefer to leave it at that.

I wasn't entirely happy to be enrolled at Fenwick. In 1991 it was a really strict all guys school and it was a long way from home. I'd caught a lot of grief from classmates during my first few years and I still didn't feel like I fit in. All the same once I got in trouble the prospect of being expelled terrified me.

When I came clean my folks were really disappointed in me. After a family meeting my two dads(father & step father) paid a visit to Botthof to make an appeal for me to be allowed to continue my education at Fenwick. At his discretion I was given an in-school suspension and was also asked to do penance by working as an illustrator for our high school newspaper The Wick Review. When my dad dropped me off for my first day of suspension he accompanied me up the central staircase to the deans office on the fourth floor. Before he left he told me to keep my chin up.

Time marched on.

My output for The Wick tapered off before the end of that school year but I received compliments for a drawing I made of a crucifix bordering Botthof's letter to the students. It felt good to be recognized but what really counted was that I had been forgiven after doing something terrible. I was incredibly lucky to have been given another chance and I owe that to Botthof.

Mr. Egan

Mr. Egan

Counselor at Fenwick High School

The tables in the cafeteria were like very long picnic tables but none of the benches were attached. The benches all filled up quickly. I was terrified when I first entered that room. I had no idea where I was going to sit. It took me a few years to find a place at a table where I felt like I fit in and it was a major relief when it finally happened. I didn't recognize that a lot of other kids probably felt the same way.

Time marched on.

I really believe that Brad was welcomed to our table as one more member of the fringe but given that we were juniors and he was a freshman some not so gentle ribbing came to pass. Brad was one of the only kids I remember to be called by his first name. His father was the promoter for a local heavy metal band named Diamond Rexx and Brad took the time to get fan club badges made for each of us. Lubeck still has his his and recently reminded me that Brad's mom was hot.

Brad seemed awkward then but in retrospect I was as much of a Napoleon Dynamite as he was but without the dance number or the girlfriend. I had huge glasses, feathered hair and a mullet and wore a jean jacket sporting Iron Maiden and Guns 'N Roses buttons on the front and an iron-on Metallica patch on the back. Day after day on the way to school I stared out the back window of the Pace bus blasting both sides of ...And Justice for All on my walkman. Being cool was pretty lonely.

One day at lunch Wojtowicz and I decided it would be funny to knock over our bench with Brad on it. We'd seen it happen before at other tables. We simply sat on opposite sides of him and on some rudimentary cue we both stood up while tipping the bench. Brad instinctually stood up with us so when the bench fell all we really accomplished aside from inspiring some hooting and hollering from neighboring tables was to make complete fools of ourselves. We righted it and went on with our lunch.

Egan was a cafeteria monitor in addition to his counseling responsibilities and he must have put two and two together. After lunch Wojtowicz and I were sitting near one another in study hall when Egan entered our classroom. Without any announcement he quickly walked up to us, grabbed us both by the ties, pulled us up and out of our seats, dragged us down the aisle, out the classroom door, down the hall and then swung us simultaneously into the lockers. We were terrified! I don't remember exactly what he said to us after that but I do remember what the inside of his mouth looked like. He was bellowing at us from just inches away. In a nutshell, Egan demanded to know why we were picking on Brad. We didn't have much to say. He suggested that we would regret it if it ever happened again. We got the message!