Back in the day when summer was a legitimate three months, the first week of September used to be the first week of grade school each year. I guess I’m dating myself. So when I see the youngsters going and coming from school this time of year it always brings to mind the talented, underappreciated, singer-songwriter and storyteller extraordinaire Michael Peter Smith and his song “Sister Clarissa.”

Michael Smith wrote two of my all-time favorite songs: “Sister Clarissa” and “The Dutchman”. When I listen, the first song almost always brings a smile. The second song almost always brings a lump in my throat. “Sister Clarissa” is especially appreciated, if not beloved, by those over 60 years old who went to Catholic grade schools in the United States in the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s decked out in salt and pepper cords, white button down shirt, blue v-neck pullover sweater for the boys, blue button up sweaters and plaid jumpers and white blouses for the girls. These were the days when we memorized The Baltimore Catechism and collected loose change for “pagan babies.” Smith nails the Catholic grade school scene and the mystique of the habited nuns.

Despite all the demonizing tales and caricatures of cruel nuns out there, most of us who went to Catholic grade schools had a Sister Clarissa or two. Someone who made us feel special. Someone who encouraged or inspired us, or made us laugh. Someone who seemed larger than life and could hike up her habit and play a mean game of kickball. My Sister Clarissa was Sister Donald who, from all my years of elementary school, high school, college, and graduate school, was my favorite teacher. Looking back, she was probably all of 23 years old. Like Sister Clarissa, Sister Donald taught 5th grade, in her case at St. Margaret’s Catholic School on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. Like me, Sister Donald was freckle-faced. Unlike me, she was a big personality. She was wild, funny, and fun. She was like Haley Mills in the movie Trouble with the Angels. She told us stories of her novitiate years when she was always in trouble. Like the time she was sun-bathing on the roof of the Motherhouse (as much as a fair-skinned Irish woman covered in black from head-to-toe can sun-bathe) when the bell sounded for afternoon prayer. The problem was, she had taken her shoes off to bring some relief to her tired toes and when she went to put them on they were stuck in the tar on the roof. Jammed between a rock and a hard spot called a conundrum, she had a matter of seconds to decide which would go over better with Mother Superior: being late for prayer because of the time it took her to pry her shoes from the tar or being unfashionably on-time but without her shoes. I still see in my mind’s eye the final result of her decision—running and sliding around the corner to the chapel in her stocking feet as her habit flared like Zorro’s cape. To this day I remember that when someone needed to be disciplined she would tell us to “go stand in the corner and watch the spider races.” And, with our noses inches from where the two walls met, we stood with our backs to the class. She even made punishment for misbehaving creative fun—though I never did see a spider.

Other than our parents who are, as Anna-Maria Rizzuto explained in her classic Birth of the Living God, our first private God representations, I think Sister Donald might have been my first representation of the feminine face of God. She made me believe that maybe God wasn’t an Ebenezer Scrooge-like ornery prig. Many years later, at a retreat I was leading, a Catholic sister in her 80’s came up to talk to me at the break. She was from Seattle and in the order of sisters who taught my brothers and sisters and me in elementary school. I found out that Sister Donald was born as Shelley Flynn, a red-headed Irish woman who had an infectious zest for life, was full of the blarney, and made a lasting impression on me the way Sister Clarissa made an impression on Michael Smith. Habited or not, kudos to all you dedicated teachers who are underappreciated and underpaid, but make a lasting impact on students’ lives. Here is Michael Smith’s delightful “Sister Clarissa.”

If you are interested, Michael Smith’s understated but moving song of enduring love called “The Dutchman,” made famous by Steve Goodman, is one of the most beautiful songs I know about enduring love. It ain’t sexy, but it is poignant. I’m prone to Goodman’s version, as well as Smith’s, because that is where I first heard it, but it has been covered by a plethora of artists over the years from Liam Clancy to Jerry Jeff Walker to John Gorka to Tom Russell to Suzy Boggus to Anne Hills and many many more. Just go to Youtube to listen to more.

Here’s a live version by Michael Smith himself.
Here’s a nice version from Keith Harkin when he was with Celtic Thunder.

Michael Smith’s website can be found here.
UPDATE: I just found out yesterday, April 24, 2021, that Michael Peter Smith died from colon cancer on August 3, 2020. ROLLING STONE magazine once called Michael Smith “the greatest songwriter in the English language.” May his name and memory be a blessing.

ARTWORK: La Religieuse by Magalie Bucher