I've been here for 4 months, Sister.  You put me here.

You're as bold as brass.  You all are.  (she turns to the board with a smile.)  Sister played her persona quite often for laughs and thought we didn't know.

Now when Louisa returns, you be creative and cover that little creature up a bit.  

Groans all around.  She was our mascot for intramural basketball and volleyball.

Why you can't have the Little Flower as your mascot is beyond me.  (A quick shot of Saint Theresa running across the basketball court in her Carmelite habit, tripping over her rosary beads flashed across our minds - we glanced at each other with smiles.)

Say it Sister - we plead.

Yes - you may scoff.  I am proudly a l926 Dusenberg in l955 Chicago.  (My own version - which I use quite often - is I am a 1956 Pontiac in 200_ Miami.  Though since these cars are now classics - how much irony does the comment portray?)
Modesty, girls, it will serve you well!  Even in your wedding beds.

Suppressed giggles floated through the room. Mention of our wedding beds would send us into falling down laughter but the nuns were quite serious about these beds.  Once at our 25th anniversary luncheon, Mary O'Connel said to me:  You know how we used to laugh at the wedding bed stories.  Who knew it often does turn out to be funny.  (Guffaws, all around - the throats since heavier and the bodies sans uniform more earthbound - but still the laughter was genuine and with good intentions.  
And so Tinkerbell was modestied up a bit.  My own version had a sort of diaphanous skirt of a bright scarlet.  

She was the sweetest, most loving nun I ever met and a serious Latin scholar - a wonderful teacher.  I often think of her. I though of her yesterday when

on the train to LaGrange for shopping, a gaggle of preteens got on with scanty outfits.  I almost stood up and said - Modesty, girls - it will serve you well. The woman behind me said:  How do their mothers let them out of the house.  Since they have backpacks and various baggage, I'm thinkin many of them change once they are out of the house.

I walk a straightline here:  Since I remember so well my own schooldays - my younger self with its energy, sassiness, its promise of womanhood to come - the clear eyes and skin and legs long, fast, untiring - I don't want to be a pursed lipped harpy.  Still - I wouldn't let a daughter out of the house dressed like these young women.  (I have a son so blessedly was spared these arguments.)

Yet, I note it everywhere I go - downtown Chicago - Cubs and Sox parks - These young women are on the very brink of entering the nation of women.  I wish they'd understand it is a time to be cherished, these days just before they become women and enjoy being little girls.  Though I imagine how they would have laughed had I voiced such blasphemy.  They are fidgeting at the starting line.  Too soon - little ones.  Oh - way too soon.