Loyola School, Jamshedpur - I remember ...

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I remember ...

Wednesday, 18 December 1996

Joseph Currie

My dear (old) friends and (former) colleagues,

What a great joy and privilege to be invited to share some of my memories of Loyola School on this graced occasion of its celebrating its half-century mark — golden years indeed!

Who could forget Loyola Sports Days and March-pasts, the highlight of the Jamshedpur winter? Or the picnics at Rivers’ Meet and Dimna Lake? Or the JYOTI leadership camps each December? Or the old boxrooms of Loyola’s initial make-shift hostel?

Moral Science

So many memories come flooding in as soon as I open the gates to times past, and just about all of them bring smiles to my face. Such was and, I’m sure, remains the blessing of Loyola School. To me, one of the most remarkable things about my experience at Loyola has been how close I have managed to stay with former students, despite the twenty or thirty years and half a world that now separate us. Reunions, either here or there, always manage to evoke a collective memory supportive of Loyola’s rich traditions and abiding spirit.

Hostel Building (inauguration - 1966)

Do you remember (I do!): The Moral Science classes that tried to “prove” to those who never doubted that God really did exist? Or the Maths classes where repeated negligence in homework assignments merited a paddling? (Forgive me, Rajesh!) Or the one-armed rescue of an outsized Sixth-Standarder stranded between heaven and earth on one of those concrete parapets that still face the Loyola quad? (I wasn’t sure whether he was coming up or I was going down!) Or Fr. English’s trick (which he passed on to me) of bolting his first- floor room, right next to Fr. Dineen’s busy corner, from the outside and then climbing through the window to escape the “hostel boys” for an afternoon nap? Or little Emmanuel Figrade’s first words to me after a semester of silence: “I think I have the chicken pox”?

March Past

Or the times (no doubt too few) when I managed to catch, with a little help from friends like Pat Roche, Denzil and Prakash watching the Beldih Club cinema from Loyola’s compound wall or, worse, straying down to Bistupur to the Natraj? Or the December day in 1971, in the midst of the Bangladesh war, when I ran into an anti-Nixon demonstration while trying to arrange for food for hungry JYOTI leadership campers? Or the pioneer work (we were among the first in Islampur) of Loyola students in the refugee camps of north Bihar, accompanied by Fr. Emile Coelho and myself? Or the Friday night dinners (and occasional cinemas) in the old hostel? (How could that little Turnbull guy put away so many chapattis?)

Basketball team with Fr. Tom Peacock (1991)

Or being initiated into another kind of football (soccer, the real football) and baseball (cricket?), and looking forward to the annual all-Jesuit round-robin tournaments? Or beating (rather consistently, as I the “big guys” (Richard, Denzil, Nihar, Jerry, and Anthony) at basketball, while being teamed with the “little guys” (Kevin, Arnold, Louis, and Glenn)? Or moonlighting with Shankaran and the Tisco team at the United Club? Or the time we almost set the old Loyola stage afire (and added some silver strands to Fr. Power’s mane) with the hostellers’ rendition of Mackey’s tumblers?

Martial Drill display

Or teaming up with Phil Allencherry for those Sunday morning hostel inspections : clean nails, tight bunks, swept floors? Or keeping the brothers Hamilton, Sampayo, St. Martin, Lobo, Ward etc. from throttling each other before vacation time? Or working teacher seminars for Loyola’s finest with Frs. Dick McHugh and Jim Keogh: “To dream the impossible dream...”

Somehow or other, and no doubt with God’s abundant blessings, Loyola has succeeded in realizing impossible dreams. Congratulations to all — students, faculty, staff, administration; parents, alumni, benefactors, friends — present and past, living and dead. I count myself most fortunate to be counted in your number.

Sincerely,

Joseph Currie, S.J.
Dean
Loyola New Orleans
Campus Ministry

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