The Christian Brothers

I've been subscribing to the American Catholic "Saint of the Day" e-newsletters. Yesterday's email profiled St. John Baptist de la Salle, the man who founded the Brothers of the Christian School (a.k.a. the Christian Brothers).

When I was a junior in high school, I went on a class trip to Mexico with one of my BFFs, Mary, along with a bunch of nerds from our Spanish class and one gutter-mouthed girl, Laurie, from the other high school in our little town. (Note: She was a blast but we all came home 10 days later dropping the f-bomb like an everyday sentence enhancer -- not so acceptable in polite society such as under my mother's roof.)

Our parents made the mistake of signing permission slips that would allow us to drink. The premise was that we could have a glass of wine with dinner. The reality was that we now had unlimited access to booze. Hey, our parents signed a form! Who could argue with that logic? When we arrived in Mexico City, the first thing we did was buy as much beer, tequila, Kahlua, etc. as we could possibly carry back to our hotel. We had the elevator to ourselves and yet it made one stop en route to our room. The doors opened and there stood our teacher. Wide eyed. Aghast.

She asked us to remain in the hotel if we were planning to drink that much alcohol so we complied. Thankfully, there was an entire school of southern, preppy boys from the Christian Brothers Academy there to keep us company. They were all grounded for getting drunk and throwing beer bottles out their hotel windows. Perfect company!

Interestingly enough, yesterday's description of St. John Baptist de la Salle stated that he established "schools for young delinquents of wealthy families." Apparently, at least in the early 80s, his work continues. He should be proud.

The rest of the trip was just as much fun. Sure we ate at great restaurants, were serenaded by mariachi bands, saw all of the sites, went to the ruins, visited museums and haggled for embroidered shirts at the flea markets but when we arrived home, the only thing we could talk about was how Mary peed all over the floor of the hotel elevator because we were laughing so hard.

We went on a side trip to Taxco where we roamed the cobblestone streets, shopped for great jewelry, danced around the campfire with pinata remnants on our heads and encouraged our teacher to drink worm-soaked tequila with us on the bus. (She did. Straight from the bottle.)

We ended up in Acapulco where we watched the cliff divers (great!), ate dinner at an upscale restaurant on the beach where rats (I kid you not) scurried in the dark around our ankles, and we almost drowned in the rough seas (seriously awful -- one member of our group was hospitalized after almost losing her life and we flew home without her). It was here that our teacher gave up on us entirely and took off with our handsome tour guide, Poncho, for the remainder of the trip.

Lo que paso en Mexico, queda en Mexico.