Running Bear's February 2026 Coffee Shop

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


Status
Not open for further replies.
I absolutely hated the penguins at the school I went to. The worst part is when I hit 6th grade. Dad was my homeroom teacher, and anytime I had a score of less than 95%, the nuns pointed it out and said he isn't applying himself. At the end of the first quarter I went to public school, but the parents and 4 siblings continued at Catholic grade school. Caused way too much stress between dad and I to the point I broke out in hives.

I do have an aunt that's a nun. After I was out of high school, I'd always tease her by calling her a penguin.
 


I’m not Catholic and didn’t attend a Catholic school, though my 6th grade teacher was Catholic and had gone through a Catholic schooling and I think she wanted to channel that in her own classroom.

But my story for the day is a different story about Catholic schools. I’m the oldest kid and my brother is next, and almost exactly 3 years younger. We went to public school in Arizona and at the time our school was quoted advanced and progressive. They didn’t assign homework as a rule as part of that.

My brother was in 1st grade and had a female playmate that lived across the street named Kathleen. (Names have not been changed to protect anyone since this was so long ago).

Kathleen’s family was Catholic and she attended a private Catholic school. My brother would go to her house after school to see if she could come out and play. More often than not the answer was “no, she has to finish her homework.”

Fast forward to after that school year where we moved to Massachusetts. He was now in the second grade and the teacher was telling the kids about getting daily homework assignments and stuff. My brother stood up and declared to the teacher: “Homework! Only Catholics do homework!” The teacher had to bite her tongue to stop herself from bursting out laughing. She told our mom at parent teacher conferences about it and how she thought it was hilarious. She (teacher) did empathize as she had grown up going to Catholic schools. This was 76-77.

(I mentioned above that the Arizona schools were more advanced and progressive. Our school in Arizona had large “pods” which were large open plan rooms with the four corners housing four different classes with no-man’s land in between used for various activities and breakout sessions and stuff. And some of the learning was more at your own pace [not all but the ones that lent themselves to it]). And they’d break up the class so that the faster kids would work and learn together and the slower kids would be together so that each group was best served for their needs. They used a reading curriculum based on a huge series of lesson and work books. And it was kind of self paced. When we moved to Massachusetts the classrooms were typical of what you’d see in the 50s movies (buildings were from that age in many cases) with each class in its own room and all kids working at the same place and except for reading you had all subjects with the same class peers and teacher. We moved and I took some placement tests for reading. It turned out they used the same curriculum but I was like a 1/2 year ahead of their most advanced class.)
 
Last edited:
Spent 2 hours helping assess a firearm collection and purchase. The collection decided he only wanted to sell leverguns this time. We passed on a lot of them, but left with 9 Winchesters. Several special order 1894's and all, but 2 of the 9 were in 32-40, 25-35, or 38-55. The big score was all the boxes of obsolete vintage ammo he sold us....32-40, 25-35, 38-55, 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, .218 bee, 250-3000, etc @ $5 box.

The shop owner only wants me to list 3 per week, so I may get started tomorrow.
 
For those of the Catholic persuasion......

Sister Mary Stigmata..........AKA "The Penguin"

1770843126241.png
 
chadbag said:
Kathleen’s family was Catholic and she attended a private Catholic school. My brother would go to her house after school to see if she could come out and play. More often than not the answer was “no, she has to finish her homework.”
Click to expand...
While I don't remember a lot more homework compared to my friends who attended public school. I do remember some most every night.

My daughter went to Catholic school K-8 and they always had at least 2 hours of homework every night once they hit about 5th grade on.
Plus some of the stuff they were doing I don't remember doing. The math was insane and that was always my wife's department since I forgot
most of it., and not very good at it.
 
migalyto said:
While I don't remember a lot more homework compared to my friends who attended public school. I do remember some most every night.
Click to expand...
In the big picture the Catholic school kids probably were on par with the public school kids with homework. But our progressive Arizona public school didn’t give homework. And that was his experience.

Our experience in Mass with more conservative and traditional public schools involved a good amount of homework.
 
chadbag said:
I’m not Catholic and didn’t attend a Catholic school, though my 6th grade teacher was Catholic and had gone through a Catholic schooling and In think she wanted to channel that in her own classroom.
Click to expand...
While I hated it at the time, after getting into college and beyond, I appreciated that Catholic schooling for a lot of different reasons. Self-discipline, analytical thinking and comradeship were just a few. There were just 123 people in our high school graduating class so we got a lot of individual attention. It was also split between a boys division and a girls division, so less distractions in class. Priests and coaches taught the boys and nuns taught the girls. By comparison, the public high school about 2 miles down the road had over 1100 in their graduating class. One interesting highlight was seeing the local beer distributor delivering a fresh keg of beer to the convent every Tuesday. Couldn't see the rectory from the classrooms, but I imagine that they got one too.
Homework: Lots of it every day. And once in grade 9, those priests didn't care how much another one gave you. I had nuns in every grade until 8th grade, and they would consider the overall work load.
 


Marlin39 said:
Spent 2 hours helping assess a firearm collection and purchase. The collection decided he only wanted to sell leverguns this time. We passed on a lot of them, but left with 9 Winchesters. Several special order 1894's and all, but 2 of the 9 were in 32-40, 25-35, or 38-55. The big score was all the boxes of obsolete vintage ammo he sold us....32-40, 25-35, 38-55, 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, .218 bee, 250-3000, etc @ $5 box.

The shop owner only wants me to list 3 per week, so I may get started tomorrow.
Click to expand...

You called that correctly.
 
chadbag said:
In the big picture the Catholic school kids probably were on par with the public school kids with homework. But our progressive Arizona public school didn’t give homework. And that was his experience.

Our experience in Mass with more conservative and traditional public schools involved a good amount of homework.
Click to expand...

Some of that might have been Catholic homework too such as reading the Catechism or certain books of the Bible. Some schools taught that separately though too called CCD classes, but may have still had homework.
 
chadbag said:
So you didn't use PayPal to pay them? They used PayPal to process your credit card? On that case, just dispute it through your credit card. Who cares if PayPal was the processor.
Click to expand...
They used paypal. I forget the details on how that worked. I guess I can go the credit card route.

I also wanted to let them know that they are supporting a scam site.
 
Kusojiji said:
They used paypal. I forget the details on how that worked. I guess I can go the credit card route.

I also wanted to let them know that they are supporting a scam site.
Click to expand...
So you don't have a PayPal account, but they presented a PayPal screen for you to enter your card data in, right? Like I said just dispute it with your card. You're not a PayPal user and they don't care about you. They'll figure it out soon enough that they have a scammer they're serving when they get hit with the chargebacks.
 
MilwRoader_Steve said:
Greetings this clear morning in Minne-Snow-ta. A brisk 17F to start the day and heavy frost on the windshield, but headed above freezing. Still got a good snowpack, but looking relatively mild few days - maybe even 50s Saturday! Almost golf weather!

Does anyone use the Caboose ground throws with the built in SPDT switch? I put one in a long time ago in the yard, but am looking at these as an inexpensive way to power frogs so my short industrial pullers can go slow through the turnouts. I've got two 0-6-0 locos, 1 dsl 1 stm, neither are sound, and a couple of other small switchers, 1 of which is sound. I have seen the NIX small keep-alives, but not sure if I can fit even them in.

Anyway, I got a few of the SPDT Caboose and am thinking of giving a try, but would appreciate any collective wisdom.
Click to expand...
I use them on my layout on some of the yard tracks. Very convenient since I use them to control dwarf signals, indicating
whether the straight through or diverging route is selected. They should work well for your intended application.
 
chadbag said:
So you don't have a PayPal account, but they presented a PayPal screen for you to enter your card data in, right? Like I said just dispute it with your card. You're not a PayPal user and they don't care about you. They'll figure it out soon enough that they have a scammer they're serving when they get hit with the chargebacks.
Click to expand...
Submitted the complaint to the credit union. I went via the messaging system rather than push the button on the charge on the website. Last time I did that, it automatically canceled my card which caused a big flailex to get my automatic stuff going again.
 
Marlin39 said:
Spent 2 hours helping assess a firearm collection and purchase. The collection decided he only wanted to sell leverguns this time. We passed on a lot of them, but left with 9 Winchesters. Several special order 1894's and all, but 2 of the 9 were in 32-40, 25-35, or 38-55. The big score was all the boxes of obsolete vintage ammo he sold us....32-40, 25-35, 38-55, 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, .218 bee, 250-3000, etc @ $5 box.

The shop owner only wants me to list 3 per week, so I may get started tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Any .300 Savage ammo in that lot?
 


Status
Not open for further replies.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top