CORRUGATED
CONFESSIONS
by Jeanne Gomoll
The nuns and Mr. Waldschmidt organized an annual Spring Fair as a fund-
raiser for the library when I attended seventh grade at St. Luke' s Catholic
Elementary School. That year, I teamed up with another kid to build the
"Maze of Terror and Thrills" as our contribution to the extravaganza.
Other seventh and eighth graders organized games of skill involving
Goldfish bowls and ping pong balls, or they taped colored construction paper
squares onto the floor, appointed a DJ to operate the phonograph player
and signed up moms to bake desserts for a cake walk. A group of eighth-
graders operated the highly-profitable "jail." But these were all fairly
traditional highlights of your typical Catholic School Spring Fair, and I was
aiming for something a little more unconventional that year. My dad's
occupation would provide the key ingredient, but I also needed an
accomplice, someone who could handle masking tape, someone who owned
a phonograph player. It may even have been required that we team up with
a classmate for our Fair project, I don't recall. But in any case there were
two of us, me and Frank.
Mr. Waldschmidt taught my seventh grade class, and for the most part,
I liked him because he was not a nun. In fact, he was the only male
teacher at St. Luke' s, if you didn't count Father Mehan, who taught one
religion class a week to us seventh and eighth graders. Anyway, I liked Mr.
Waldschmidt, except for those times when he caught me reading library
books during class and assigned me another portion of the Bill of Rights to
memorize. At the time, I thought he was pretty tough. Knowing what I
now understand about the chaotic potential of a roomful of seventh graders,
I can sympathize with the principal, Sister Mary Rupert, who decided that
St. Luke' s needed a strong disciplinarian in that class. She herself taught
the eight graders and together, she and Mr. Waldschmidt, kept us prepubes-
cent delinquents in line.
I doubt that St. Luke' s teachers considered me a major discipline
problem at that point. The demerits I received mainly concerned my
inattentiveness. " Jeanne does not pay attention in class. She is a day-
dreamer and needs to learn to apply herself. " I spent a lot of time reading
books that interested me rather than the stuff we were assigned. That, in
the long run, turned out to be the wise choice, but at the time, teachers
probably considered me a less than dependable child especially for any large
undertaking, requiring organization and diligence.
"I want to build the "Maze of Terror and Thrills," I said, when it came
time to declare a project to the two nuns who taught fourth graders and
were in charge of organizing the Fair.
" 'Maze of Terror and Thrills'?" Sister Mary Aloychious repeated with a
worried tone to her voice. ( All nuns of the Notre Dame order must take
"Mary" as their middle name. ) "Why not work on the cake walk with Edith
and her team? I think they need one more person. Or maybe some sort of
game. You know, we still have all those goldfish bowls from last year."
She started to write "Goldfish Toss" down on the list next to my name and
I had to interrupt her.
"No -- my dad said he would help me do the maze." That stopped her.
This wasn't just some silly, misguided kid idea that needed to be redirected.
We were dealing with parents here, and a DAD at that. In the mid-60s,
dads didn't get involved in non-sports activities at St. Luke' s very often.
Dads volunteered to coach the baseball and basketball teams. Moms volun-
teered baked goods for cake walks and sewed costumes for the Nativity Play
in December.
" Your FATHER wants to help you with a booth at the fair?" She was
incredulous. Maybe that's because I was also known to the St. Luke's
faculty as someone who occasionally "stretched the truth" as they politely
described it to my mom and dad at Parents Night. My folks had not been
surprised at the news.
"No, not a booth -- a MAZE -- and he said he'd help." I stood my
ground. They could investigate if they wanted to; I wasn't making it up. It
was a mere technicality that Dad hadn't specifically said he would help me
with a maze. He had agreed to make the boxes for me." Frank will be
helping me. "I waved behind me in Frank's direction, and Sister Mary
Aloychious shrugged and carefully wrote "Maze of Terror and Thrills," next
to Frank's and my names.
Before he retired in 1990, my dad designed and sold corrugated boxes
for Mead Containers. My dad is the guy who invented the box design you
see at toy stores all the time now, that looks kind of like an open stage.
It's got a cut-out opening in front, through which a kid can touch a toy
truck or a car, maybe honk the horn, or spin a wheel, but can't actually
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Dry Rot: Better on the house than on the brain.
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remove the toy. Dad's package was a revolutionary container at the time,
because the manufacturer could produce one package that functioned as
both a shipping container and a display container. Toy stores like it too,
because they don't have to waste a toy as a "display model," and customers
aren't always opening packages to get a better look.
Except for a few summer vacation trips when dad made us all
corrugated box suitcases in which to pack our belongings, and I experienced
the terrible angst of a teenager embarrassed by a parent who cannot
understand the importance of looking and acting like other people, I mostly
thought that dad's career was pretty cool. I did hate that cardboard
luggage though. "Why can't we have real suitcases like normal people," I
cried, no doubt disappointing and frustrating my dad who had spent a lot of
time constructing the cute handles and choosing colored corrugated styles,
a different one for each of us.
When my brothers and I were little kids, Dad used to design elaborate
Halloween costumes for us out of corrugated cardboard. One year I asked
him if he would make me a robot costume, and he went all out, installing
little, battery-powered lights that blinked through little holes cut into a
white cardboard box. Antennas, knobs, dials, and meters were cleverly
attached to the outside of my "body," and a smaller box was attached
inside, with a hole cut just above it, chest high, so that when we called out
"Trick or Treat," I could point at the opening and someone could drop a
candy bar through the hole into my corrugated pouch.
Years later, Dad's profession came in handy frequently, whenever I
moved. "Dad, I' m going to move and I need some boxes," I would say.
"How many?" he would say. "What color? "A few days later, he would
drive into town with twice as many folded, pristine boxes as I had asked
for, and several rolls of 3"-wide, reinforced tape to seal the box ends. The
beneficiary of this unique advantage, I've learned the art of the Perfect
Move. When I move, everything I own is sealed into closed boxes, and
neatly stacked in one room by the time friends arrive to help me load the
trucks. Every box is labeled according to the room in which it will belong.
There are no paper bags. There are no loose odds and ends.
But when I was twelve and in the seventh grade, I considered the main
advantage of my dad's corrugated box expertise to be the opportunity it
afforded me to build a "Maze of Terror and Thrills" at St. Luke's Spring
Festival. Dad delivered the boxes, as promised, dozens and dozens of huge,
white, refrigerator-sized boxes, all pristine, unused, flat, and waiting to be
folded into 3 dimensions. Dad also delivered many rolls of wide, reinforced
tape that needed to be moistened with wet sponges and smoothed onto
cardboard surfaces, where -- because of the reinforcing wires -- would pro-
vide virtually impregnable seals.
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Anyone have any pointless and annoying questions?
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Rather than folding the ends of the boxes down onto themselves and
taping them shut, Frank and I cut and taped boxes into one another. We
became proficient in the use of matt knives, learning how to slice cleanly or
score and fold the cardboard. The path of our maze would wind an intricate
trail through the cloakroom, just off the cafeteria ( where the main body of
the Festival would take place), and would then meander down the hallway,
rise half-way up the stairway that led up to the classrooms and then come
back down again, returning to the other side of the cloakroom. I spent
several days drafting the path of the maze on blue-lined graph paper and,
along the way picking up another Amendment to memorize for taking class
time to work on my drawing . Frank and I constructed the maze basically
the way I drew it except for the change that Sister Mary Paul demanded
when she noticed that we were building the hall section right in front of the
girls' bathroom.
"You can't block that door, Jeanne."
"Why not?"
"JEANNE!"
The nuns seemed nervous about the whole enterprise, but once began,
they couldn' t stop it. Building that maze provided my moment of fame at
St. Luke's Elementary School. Kids from all grades, even the big kids in
eighth grade, were excited about the "Maze of Terror and Thrills." We'd
never had anything close to a "ride" at the Spring Fair and we were all a
little tired of throwing ping pong balls into goldfish bowls. But the nuns
were nervous because they wouldn't be able to supervise activities within
those boxes. In fact they couldn't even inspect the maze before we opened
for business, not with those long black skirts and veils, they couldn' t.
Frank and I were counting on that.
Our "Maze of Terror and Thrills" was more than just a string of boxes
taped together. Crawling through a dark tunnel with no idea of when it will
turn a corner or when it would end might provide a few thrills, but -- as we
saw it -- very little terror. So, the day before the Festival, we added a few
accessories to the entertainment.
Without a doubt, the "Maze of Terror and Thrills" turned out to be
the most popular attraction at that Spring's Fair, and we almost sold more
tickets than the Jail, which traditionally raised the most money at the
Fair since it charged people to send their friends to jail AND to get out
themselves when their friends took revenge. We would have sold the most
tickets too, if only fifth-grader Marie Louise hadn' t freaked out in the cloak-
room when she got licked in the face by a wet terry cloth strip and heard
the wolf howl on Frank's friend's record.
"Get me out of here!" she screamed. "The wolf is going to kill me!"
was followed by incoherent screams and sobs and wild hiccups. Frank and I
tried to talk her down, but Marie Louise just got more hysterical. We could
hear her trying to claw the walls open, but the reinforced tape resisted all
attempts. Marie Louise was trapped. We tried to convince her to crawl
forward.
"The wet stuff is just a piece of a towel, Marie Louise, just crawl
ahead and it won't touch you any more," Frank said. I scowled at him.
We'd sworn not to tell anyone what materials we'd used inside the maze.
However, I didn't press the point; Frank's strategy seemed to be working.
Marie Louise's sobs lessened, though her hiccups were increasing in
frequency and volume. It seemed to me that she was crawling slowly
forward, but then then an owl hooted and Marie Louise screamed again and
we thought that maybe a murderer actually did lurk inside the corrugated
tunnel. It was too bad that we couldn't manage to turn off the sound
effects, but the phonograph was sitting in a corner on the other side of all
the boxes.
"Something touched me! Something touched me! Get me oooooout!" And
she was off again, screaming and crying. I looked over my shoulder. So
far so good, no nuns had heard the commotion yet. There seemed to be an
argument taking place outside the jail involving a bunch of kids and several
nuns. So far they hadn't noticed Marie Louise's panicky screams. I said,
"let' s cut her out, Frank. We can tape up the hole later."
"Right," said Frank, and reached into his back pocket for a matt knife.
I took the knife from Frank, but neither of us considered the potential ef-
fect on Marie Louise if the knife blade happened to slice her arm, and
luckily
we didn' t have to find out. Just as I grabbed the knife from Frank, stead-
ied the corrugated wall closest to Marie Louise's screams, and prepared to
make the incision into cardboard, Mr. Waldschmidt's baritone voice thun-
dered across the cloakroom.
" Stop that right now! " he yelled. He was aiming a flashlight in our
direction, the beam focusing on my hand and the poised matt knife. Marie
Louise snuffed suddenly with the sound of Mr. Waldschmidt' s authoritative
voice, and now she began crying out, " Help, help! Please get me out!
Help! "
" What' s going on here? " Mr. Waldschmidt growled, as he snapped the
wall switch on and off without effect.
" The bulbs must be burnt out, " I offered and knew immediately that I
would memorize the twelfth amendment --the long one about the Electoral
College --that night. I sighed, and Frank took over. " Nothing, " he said.
" Nothing' s wrong. Marie Louise' s just stuck. We' ll get her out. "
" Put that knife down right now. " Mr. Waldschmidt ordered. " I' ll get
her. " And without warning, the tall seventh-grade teacher suddenly bent
down and disappeared into the tunnel. Frank and I glanced at each other
and could just make out each other' s worried expressions in the dark. He
had entered the exit, not the entrance and would crawl the whole length of
the tunnel, which zig-zagged through the hallway, climbed up and down the
stairs, and wound its way back into the cloakroom before he found Marie
Louise.
" What the HELL is this stuff? ! " Mr. Waldschmidt bellowed just as Sister
Mary Rupert materialized behind me. One moment no one was there and
the next moment, there she was, her hand gripping my shoulder like an
iron claw. Nuns are like that; you never know when they' re going to show
up.
" Mr. Waldschmidt, I will not tolerate language! " she thundered and
suddenly the world was quiet. Marie Louise no longer sobbed and her
hiccupping had been stifled. I imagined that she had drawn her legs up
under her arms and had ducked her head onto her knees at the stern voice
of St. Luke' s principal. Mr. Waldschmidt crawled purposefully forward and
entered the hallway segment of the maze. The combatants at the jail had
negotiated a settlement, and several curious faces in the cafeteria now
peeked through the open, lower, half-door of the cloakroom entrance. I
slowly craned my head around and up to look at Sister Mary Rupert, whose
Entropy isn't what it used to be.
" Give the knife to me, Jeanne. " I clicked the blade down into its
sheath and handed it up to her without argument. Her hand released its
grip on my shoulder and the matt knife disappeared into the blackness of
her
billowing sleeve. We waited. I attempted to stop breathing altogether but
my breath exploded outward in the next moment, before I' d become light-
headed.
A thump, a baritone grunt, and a kid' s shrill scream tore through the
silence from the hallway. Crawling the wrong way through the maze, Mr.
Waldschmidt had frightened a kid on his way out. I ducked and spun
around and through Sister Mary Rupert' s skirts before she could grab me
again. She didn' t realize that Mr. Waldschmidt no longer occupied the
cloakroom and was momentarily confused. Marie Louise began sobbing
pitifully. " Please, get me out of here. . . "
The light streaming through the glass doors in the hallway momentarily
blinded me, but a few seconds later I noticed a section of corrugated tunnel
swaying from side to side. Mr. Waldschmidt was pouring forth a stream of
" language" and suddenly his head and shoulder burst through the top of the
box. He stood up and extricated himself from the paper wreckage, a wad of
cotton in his had which he was examining curiously. Billy Bodus followed,
slowly rising from inside the torn opening, looked around a little nervously
before he ducked back inside the maze again and settled in until Marie
Louise had been rescued and Sister Mary Rupert and Mr. Waldschmidt had
finished their investigation of the situation.
Eventually, Sister Mary Rupert got Marie Louise calmed down,
instructed her to sit still, and cut a small doorway into the cardboard wall
a few feet away from the terrified little girl. Sister Mary Aloychious was
given temporary custody of the damp child and the two of them detoured
around the other side of the cafeteria to the girls' rest room. Mr.
Waldschmidt closed and locked the door into the cloakroom, and Sister Mary
Rupert, whose left hand was rattling the rosary beads clutched there,
simply pointed at Frank and I, and then pointed upward, whether to heaven
or her office it was all the same. She sailed off into the cafeteria, her
skirts and veil billowing behind her, and Frank and I followed her slowly
through a sea of sadistic on-lookers, my classmates.
The next year, my eighth grade year, Leslie Baseheart and I would
operate the fish bowl coin toss booth. The nuns would be most happy to
see our bored expressions. But I would always recall the " Maze of Terror
and Thrills" as my shining hour at St. Luke' s..
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Hard copy provided by Geri Sullivan
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated November 20, 2002. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.