ST.JOE-PHS RIVALRY HELPED GIVE THE CITY ITS IDENTITY; WE CAN ONLY MOURN THE LOSS
BY DAN VALENTI
PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY
(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, TUESDAY OCT. 18, 2016) — The comments yesterday from Chuck Garivaltis and others regarding THE PLANET’s piece on St. Joseph‘s captured another aspect of the soon-to-be-gone high school’s value to Pittsfield. On the sports field, St. Joe could always be counted on to provide tough competition in baseball, football, and basketball. Academically, it provided generations of scholars with top-notch preparation.
Chuck, one of the greatest athletes ever to come out of Berkshire County (and still the best hitter of a baseball, Tommy Grieve included) would know first-hand about the St. Joe challenge, starring as he did on the diamond and gridiron for PHS. Other PLANET contributors, notably Thomas Moore and Victor, focused on the importance of the St. Joe-PHS rivalry.
Moore can be a stinging critics, but he’s also there with plaudits depending on the issue and the THE PLANET‘s vehemence. We welcome the shots and the medals, since TM administers them fairly. Victor is new to this board but not new to the city, and each man shares with Garivaltis irreplaceable experiences growing up in Pittsfield when it truly was one of New England’s best communities. They have “institutional memory” of a city on top, one bursting with civic pride, decency, and communal solidity that gave its residents peace of mind and personal satisfaction. Anyone who has ever enjoyed 10-cent Friday night movies at the Boy’s Club (The Iron Claw) or skating at The Common knows of what we speak.
The St. Joe-PHS rivalry — borne of school pride, fed by competitive spirt, and occasionally spilling into friction just south of antagonism while never crossing that line — became a communal anchor. Such tethered communities find their “Place” in the grand scheme, a sense of civic belonging that results from respectability, virtue, thriving economics, and public servants who are just that. This “belonging” spills down into the neighborhoods, playgrounds, parks, churches, meeting spaces and other common grounds of the sort that, sadly, no longer can be found in Pittsfield. Indeed, to recall the past glory of a city institution such as St. Joseph High School becomes an exercise in navigation. We, the city of Pittsfield, were once “There.” Now, as Gertrude Stein once famously said of her hometown of Oakland, CA, “There’s no ‘there’ there.”
Going Both Ways
THE PLANET, having attended St. Joe for a year then finishing high school with three under The Dome at PHS, experienced both the athletic rivalry and the less-publicized but nonetheless key differences in educational philosophies. For the first, be it the diamond, gridiron, hardwood, each school brought its A-Game. That applied to the athletes as well as the student body, what they used to call “pep,” a word straight out of Archie Comics. That being said, St. Joe brought a better slant on the games’ outcomes. Winning or losing were kept in perspective, for that celebrated no less boisterously or mourned with equal despondency. Maybe it was the school’s emphasis on that higher power, what we so casually think we possess by naming it “God.” After a loss at PHS, there were the invariable hot-heads who couldn’t cope.
In a public school for the first time, we were bewildered by the lack of decorum, although, back then, our indiscretions were as harmless as growing sideburns or giving a kid a wedgie in gym class. ‘Twas a far cry from today’s public school pastimes of shooting heroin, telling a teacher to “f–k off” with a one-finger peace salute thrown in for good measure, and watching porn on a “smart” phone. Our parochial schooling took away and gave. We found ourselves at a social disadvantage at things like dances, but in the classroom, especially in English, we were so far ahead of the others that we stepped beyond the usual high-school assignments and began writing our own poems and stories.
THE PLANET mentioned a few names yesterday, knowing the risk of leaving so many others out — Bill Murray, for example, the great football coach in the early 60s. In the end, the names matter … and they don’t. When you go back 120 years as does SJHS, the names fade into the fog of time. They are forgotten. And yet, all are known to and by, dare we say it, “God.”
The circle always comes full around.
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“Live life as a monument to your soul.” — Ayn Rand
“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”
LOVE TO ALL.
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Oh dear! Waking up at one in the morning for an old man’s nightly ritual and finding your persona destroyed what’s a curmudgeon to do?
What a curmudgeon to do? Lap it up and enjoy!
seek blog addiction therapy?
Let’s not forget that st joes accepted only those kids they chose to accept,all other Catholic kids who did not get drafted out of St marks…st joes…sacred heart…Mt carmel were forced into the public schools.
St Joe’s had the advantage of picking who went there.Also the kids today arge more mature after a game , police were a large part of after game violence in those days.Kids today just don’t have that mindset.
Your so right TSC. Kids back in the 60’s and 70’s were far more violent than today. Kids today “just don’t have that mindset,” so you tell us.
Please remind me TSC, what year did Columbine happen? Or Sandy Hook?
Catholic School were fear based, Public Schools Montessori, love based we all get a trophy.
Fear works! In truth, there was also that Catholic form of love.
Right Dan! I loved being abused by the waco nuns. I don’t know what your elementary school was like but at my school the most of the nuns took corporal punishment to extreme lengths. It was obvious even to a child that your treatment was connected to the amount of money your parents could afford to give the church. For me public school was like a get out of jail card. In addition, admission to St Joe was a scam. Everyone knew who was going to be and who would be the outcasts. This explains why the sports teams were as they were. Lets face it, they played with a marked deck.
Debate questions for Clinton from Rush Limbaugh:
1. Mrs. Clinton, when you were secretary of state, why did you let a Russian company purchase one half of the United States uranium reserves in coordination with your and your husband’s foundation? How much money was donated by Russian companies to your foundation in exchange for your moving half of our uranium supply to Kazakhstan?
2. . . . when you worked for the State Department, how did you conduct secret classified business without using a secure email server? And don’t say it’s a mistake that you won’t do again because you still had to conduct business. How did you conduct secret classified business on your public server?
3. What kind of assault weapons were we funneling through Benghazi, and where were we sending them before Ambassador Stevens was murdered?
4. . . . why were you interested in the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria?
5. . . . when you left the White House after your husband’s last term as president in the year 2000, why did you steal $200,000 worth of furniture and China and artwork that you were forced to return?
6. . . . when you were secretary of state, why did you solicit contributions from foreign governments to your family foundation after you promised President Obama you would not?
7. . . . why do you and your husband claim to contribute millions of dollars to charity for a tax write-off when it goes to your family foundation that gives less than 15% of the money you collect and you use the balance to support yourself tax-free? How do you do that? How could other Americans set up similar arrangements as you have? What would you tell them?
8. . . . why are you unable to account for $6 billion of State Department money that seemed to have disappeared while you were secretary of state?
9. . . . you said you were broke when you left the White House, but you purchased a $2 million home. You built an addition for the Secret Service. You charged taxpayers of the United States rent in an amount equal to the entire mortgage. Why did you say you were broke?
10. . . . how is it your daughter, Chelsea, can afford to buy a 10-and-a-half million-dollar apartment in New York City after you left the White House when you were broke? (I might throw that one out. I might leave out the question about the daughter.)
11. . . . could you tell the average American how their child could get a $600,000-a-year job at NBC with no experience like your daughter did? (That’s a better one, right? That’s a better one. Yeah, because the 10.6, that comes from the Mezvinskys, you know, she married that. But, yeah, the 600 grand a year, not having done it before.)
12. . . . why did you lie to the American people about the terror attack in Benghazi, but you managed to tell the truth to your daughter the same night that it happened?
13. . . . why did you fail the bar exam in the District of Columbia? Why did your husband lose his law license? Take your time, Mrs. Clinton. We’re here for a couple of hours.
14. . . . for the past two weeks we have been treated to accounts of Donald Trump and his supposedly abusive treatment of women, many of whom have now been exposed as not having told the truth. Why did you feel it necessary to tarnish the reputations of women who had alleged that your husband had abused them, and in one case raped them? Tell us about the bimbo eruptions unit that helped your husband survive as president.
And,
15. Mrs. Clinton, you made $21 million in two years giving speeches to, among others, Wall Street banks, often at $250,000 per 30-minute speech and in some cases $350,000. Why are you in such close relationships with Wall Street, and what are they expecting for what they paid you?
Rush Limbaugh is still alive?
Great questions. Absolutely on target. DV should consider posting these for wider exposure.
The Syrians will get food, rent and medical free from the government, and all across America our own citizens are living in cardboard boxes, out of cars and many Americans live from week to week. Something is wrong with this? Veterans don’t get support and are dying everyday from War and despair with our men and woman when they get home,from defending other Countries.
Mi, 22 veterans commit suicide every day. Where is the government money for them?
The VA helps these veterans.
Exactly.
Maybe if they didn’t have unfettered access to their second amendment rights, fewer mentally disabled veterans would perish.
As usall Shakes you did zero research! Why would you think they commit suicide in the manner you suggest? As usual your comment is insulting.
Male suicide is overwhelmingly committed with firearms. Males are significantly more successful at suicide than females. More Caucasians commit and succeed at suicide than brown people. It is not what I think, these are facts and have been for a very long time. Don’t mistake your injudiciousness for any ignorance on my part.
So Syrians that some here to resettle and create a stable life after our government murders their family and destroys their homes are beneath your empathy, but all the Americans looking for handouts- the veterans, the seniors, the children, the drug addicted- merit more consideration?
Shakes, please adjust your tin foil hat.
Paul please adjust your toupee, and wipe the spittle from the corner of your mouth.
Shakes , you play childish games and try to upset people. Your comments are only meant to get people upset. You have absolutely nothing to add to this blog. You are a embarrassment to yourself.
Torchinsky is hot tonight
Syrians aren’t the only humans with a refugee problem, many other Countries. Israel and other Countries doesn’t want them in their own back yard.
The charter schools are needed in Pittsfield. If any of you truly understood how much money it cost pittsfield to have Administration seperate from schools.They have room at The school s for them.Hibbard has a brand new 600 k roof…tear it down
The Great One will have the Lovely Kathy on PCTV tommorow.
Funny how these same politicians are afraid to go on the air with THE PLANET. Must be because we have never fancied sucking up, preferring truth and honesty.
THEY Don’t get the rehearsed version either.
Pittsfield went from a proud blue collar community to a corrupt city ran by the Good Old Boys, many of whom attended Saint Joseph’s Catholic High School in the 1960’s. The Good Old Boys ran Pittsfield into the proverbial ditch over the past 4 decades!
HARD to believe the School couldn’t reach out to the Alumni. My relative went and loved the SCHOOL, is a gazillionaire and never was approached for a donation to help.
It is not as if there the Springfield diocese has any recent scandals that financially impacted operations.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_08_17_Zajac_18Priests.htm
Have you kissed a Priest latley.
Good one little
h.
Yon knows about Curtis Behnke and Rush along with many other inside the schools are of low self esteem and have negative vibes they want to project on the children…eberwien hire unqualified priciples thankfully one retired and many remain who carry on a depressed view of themselves and project it on the employees…….there is no smiling in the Pittsfield public schools…..GO CHARTER OR GO LENOX GO DALTON OR GO HOME
Stop supporting the pittsfield public school until they get their act together….Drive down Dawes Ave and ask yourself if pittsfield is doing well enough to pay teachers 76k a year…get real…Brendan Sheran is negotiating a hundred teachers job away in the near future…..students are leaving in drove….schools not in pittsfield have to hold lotteries to let kids in…….
Even The Planet does not recognize how bad pittsfield is…..the extent of the problem is not solve able by this Mayor or this school committee….Administrator blindly.keep spending……these schools suck…..you have lazy administration who can barely walk up the stairs to their jobs….if it wasn’t for the 100k they get….business department superintendant use to be called purchasing
Whats going on over at PPd, another Disgruntled Officer filing suit, a woman at tha?. This time against fellow Officers.
planet rules.