For my eighth-grade graduation at what was then a brand new Immaculate Conception church, the venerable Msgr. Edwin Bradley delivered the address.
    Thirty of us, standing, sitting and kneeling stiffly, listened as the archbishop’s No. 2 representative regaled us with the notion of leaving the past behind and reminded us that “commencement” is not the end, but the beginning.
    Bradley told about the mythical class clown who would dip Peggy’s pigtails into the inkwell in the desk behind her. Even then, in 1953, the idea was anachronistic, as none of us had even seen an inkwell, even though the desks contained a hole for the bottle.
    Cutting up in school was common, but carrying that into the church was just not done. Here we’re sitting in the most serious rite of our young lives and a monseigneur is actually trying to get us to laugh.
    At least eight years of conditioning on the sacristy of the church trained us not to seek humor there. One can imagine the conflicting thoughts that must have struck all of us: “Hey, monseigneur Bradley is saying something funny. Are we sure it’s okay to laugh?”
    Church-goers today may have difficulty appreciating the strict regimentation parochial school students underwent decades ago. Daily mass was a sine qua non, and taking the sacrament of communion was highly recommended.
    In those days, church members needed to fast beginning at midnight. In our parish, that meant not even water after 12. Since then the rules have changed, and the policy on consumption of food and drink is flexible.
    Preparation for receiving the sacraments was a structured, carefully orchestrated procedure. My mother used to lecture me on proper protocol.
    Monday mornings were agonizing in that each pupil needed to announce to the class which mass they attended on Sunday, and whether they took communion. It soon became evident that several students mastered the art of telling lies to spare themselves any humiliation. Before mass on Sundays, I would generally go to what was then the Lobby Newsstand to get the Sunday Los Angeles Times. Next door was Murphey’s soda fountain.
    Twice I saw several classmates enjoying sodas and, accordingly, breaking their fast. Joe, the boy doing the treating, stopped me before I left the drug store with the words, “You’re not going to tell on us, are you?”
    In a fit of self-righteousness, I asked Joe whether he and his friends were about to take communion even though they’d broken their fast, or not take communion but claim they did. Which lie was more palpable?
    I never squealed, and the soda fountain crew was saved by the bell—literally—the next day. Here’s what happened:
    Sister Mary Edith got to my row to inquire about our Sunday activities. They’d been batting 1000 percent: all the pupils so far had said they’d been both to mass and to communion.
    When it was my turn, I told the truth: I had been to mass, but I had broken my fast and had therefore not taken the sacraments. Pray tell why not, Arthur. I stumbled through an explanation that Mom and I had been visiting early Sunday and she’d offered me some coffee, which I accepted. I had been drinking coffee for years.
    Coffee! Had I announced I’d swallowed a gallon of tequila, she wouldn’t have been more surprised. So I was properly lectured on the evils of coffee in the system of an 8-year-old: not only does it turn you too dark, it stunts your growth.
    The full-blown let-this-be-a-lesson-to-you homily consumed the rest of the period, meaning a thankful Joe and his cohorts got off the hook.
    The Murphey’s crowd, by the way, didn’t take communion the day before. I kept an eye on them throughout the mass. But maybe I should have been paying more attention to the mass.
    Just recently, I attended a service in Santa Fe, in which a couple behind me carried on an audible conversation, something that would never had been tolerated in the past. One parishioner left the services to have a smoke, and returned a few minutes later, relaxed.
    It’s difficult to imagine that happening when we attended Immaculate Conception school. Jokes, anecdotes, coincidences and silly things have a way of becoming magnified in church—any church. The punchline I didn’t catch on Saturday is bound to crystallize in church the following day.
    Once, when I was 7, my friend Alfred and I noticed two boys giggling in the pew ahead of us. An older man, pretending to be leaving the pew, instead plunked himself down between the two boys. Naturally that kind of separation only fueled any latent thoughts we had about decorum, and soon several people in my pew—grownups as well—began to show their amusement.
    But only one boy, a 7-year-old who still enjoys coffee, got the brunt of the punishment, even though he was merely a spectator. A man in my pew, who’d been having a good chuckle over the impromptu version of ecclesiastical musical chairs, decided to do the same thing. He sat between Alfred and me. At the same time I got pinched around the armpit, courtesy of a lady behind me.
    “Darn!” I said on the way home, “that lady behind us really pinched me hard.” It was then I realized that the woman made her point by driving a three-inch hatpin into the underside of my arm. I never saw her again to return it.
    Tellingly, the hatpin incident didn’t faze Mom at all. But had she gotten a report that her youngest son had caused a disruption in church. Well, that’ll be a topic for another column.