After my long months of inactivity, my muscles were weak, and it was a long while before I was able to walk any distance, so a high school girl was hired to take me for rides in a sort of large perambulator. As she pushed me up one street and down another, I grew familiar with our neighborhood and beyond. She was a nice girl, so she would point out things she thought I would be interested in.

One day in late fall she decided to show me the Christmas creche in her Catholic church. As she pushed open the heavy doors and rolled me into that high-ceilinged, dimly lit cavern, I was enchanted. It was mysteriously silent, and the incence of past ceremonies lingered in the air. Down the long, hushed aisle I rode to the alter, where red and blue candles flickered before a magicai scene: The Holy Family, almost life- size, were surrounded by wise men and cattle. There was the Babe in his straw-filled crib, chubby arms outstretched. I had never seen anything like it, and I could hardly wait to get home and tell my family what I had seen, just three blocks from Sunnycrest! I wanted to take them all to that beautiful church and show them how different it was from the sterile whiteness of the Presbyterians.

But their reaction was far from enthusiastic. It seems that they feared the Catholics, afraid that they would try to convert me to their way of worshiping God. I couldn't understand what was so terrible about that richly colorful and fragrant place. But that was the end of it. I was never allowed to go back , and the friendly high school girl never pushed me around the neighborhood again.