Growing up Catholic in East Texas was kind of like being a Jew in Salt Lake City. Even though you looked a lot like everyone else, you were always aware of this feeling people had about you-that you were different. Strange. Unusual. And very worst of all: not like them.

What is referred to as East Texas is bigger than most states. It begins in the south just above Houston and stretches all the way north to the Texas-Arkansas-Louisiana junction. Its eastern border is the Sabine River, which separates Texas from Louisiana. The Big Thicket National Forest occupies a considerable portion of East Texas. For the most part, it's moderately hilly and filled with trees. And Baptists. For every one tree in this upper right quadrant of the Lone Star State there are about 2.6 Baptists.

The Baptists control everything. They own the banks. They own the hospitals. They own a lot of the colleges. In many small East Texas towns you'll see only one solitary gas station as you drive through at highway speed, but you'll see four Baptist Churches. First Baptist Church. Second Baptist Church. Ebenezer Baptist Church. East Texas Baptist Church. Baptists are everywhere. The Baptist influence can be seen and felt all over. With the exception of counties which contain universities (like Walker County (Sam Houston State) and Nacogdoches (Stephen F. Austin State), the counties are dry. Not a single beer to be found anywhere-for sale, that is.

There are no really big cities in East Texas. Tyler has 75,000. Lufkin about 30,000 and Nacogdoches-if you count the students at the university-25,000. But, for the most part, East Texas is comprised of hundreds of little towns with less than 5,000 citizens. The world capitals are well represented. There's Paris, Rome, Moscow, Athens. Many towns are so small they're only three letters long. Van. Arp. Ata. Football's a religion. During the fall on Friday nights if you're driving on Highway 59-which runs north and south and bisects East Texas-you'll never get out of view of the glow of lights from a high school football stadium. If you're one of the strange people who still listen to AM radio, you'll find that most of the high school football games are carried live on Friday night.

The language in East Texas is different. Even though school children are taught the full alphabet, they only use 25 letters of it when they talk. There's no "g". Everyone talks about huntin', fightin', runnin', lovin', hatin' and so on. "I"s are pronounced like a short "a". As a result, "Mike" comes out as "Mack". "Bite" comes out as "bat". Hey Mack-can Ah have a bat? It can get pretty confusing.

But back to being a Catholic. In East Texas, Methodists are considered to be radicals. Episcopalians are downright revolutionary. However, if you're a member of the Church of Rome, you're pretty much off the chart. Jews aren't an issue, simply because there are no Jews who live in East Texas. Church of Christ members are reluctantly accepted by the Baptists-not out of an abundance of religious tolerance, but because they also are highly suspicious of all things Catholic.

People are surprised when you tell them you're a Catholic Texan. It's hopelessly oxymoronic. If you're Catholic, you're supposed to be from St. Louis, New York City, Chicago, Buffalo. When 84,000 fans stand in silence at Kyle Field before the kickoff of the Texas Aggie-U. of Texas game, you won't hear the P.A. announcer introduce Msgr. Sean O'Flannery for the invocation. It's more likely to be Reverend Billy something. Reverend Billy Earl Simmons. Reverend Billy Wayne Wilson. Reverend Billy Joe Logan. Baptists use the name Billy for boys the same way Catholics use Mary for girls. I actually knew of a Baptist preacher-our neighbor's pastor-whose name was Reverend Billy Bill Harpole.

Catholics are told to name their offspring after one of the saints. I was named after St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers. He's the little statue with the magnetic base you'd see riding up on the dashboard. For some reason I never understood, he was desanctified-had his sainthood revoked or something. That did little for my self-esteem-walking around with a name that used to be a saint. It was obvious that some pretty bad stuff must have surfaced about my namesake for the Church to bust him down like that. Just the naming of children set Catholic kids apart from the rest of their friends. We didn't have any Bubbas, Crystals or Dewaynes. We had a bunch of Josephs, Stephens, Matthews and Lukes. Approximately two-thirds of the girls' names were some derivative of Mary. Mary Alice, Mary Margaret, Mary Ann, Mary Beth.

I didn't appreciate it while growing up, but I do now: Catholics have a big thing about Christ's mother-a real big thing. We name our churches after her. We have more statues of her than we do of her Son. My friends were mystified about this. "Y'all think His mama was God, don't y'all?" is what my friends wold ask me frequently. I'd explain that no, she's not God, but she was certainly someone who was very, very special. They never bought it.

My friends also were more than a little perplexed by the pope. They knew he was a pretty important guy. Had to be. He was on the news all the time. But they couldn't figure out just where he fit in the hierarchy of humans. Their questions about him were endless. "Why's that pope dude live with the Eyetalians?" "Why don't he have no wife?" "Is he as good as Christ?" No explanation I ever gave was quite enough---they were still going to speculate on what all His Holiness did on his days off. "Does that Pope guy hunt?" they'd ask. While I didn't know for sure, I just couldn't imagine him sitting up in a deer stand, sipping on Jack Daniels, listening to George Strait on his headset and sighting in on a fat doe nibbling on some oats he'd planted with his buddies in the Spring and then blasting her through the heart with one shot. His Eminence was a mystery to me and for sure he'd always be one to my Baptist friends.

Of all of our holy days and rituals, I think that Ash Wednesday confused the kids I grew up with the most. "Why they smudge y'all like that?" is what I'd be asked when I showed up at school that morning with my ashes ground into my forehead. I'd explain that we were being reminded of our own mortality, but they'd still gawk at the "smudge" above my eyebrows. One of my best friends, Lenis Albright, even went to the boys' room with a black felt tip pen and "smudged" himself one year. His daddy whipped his butt real good when he got home. Tolerating Catholics was one thing, but copying their weird rituals and traditions was totally unacceptable.

Football was another opportunity for conflict between myself and my East Texas Baptist buddies. I was raised to think that the most sacred things in my life would be Mass, the sacraments and Notre Dame football. When Notre Dame played, the angels were watching. When a Norte Dame quarterback threw a pass fifty yards down field against Southern Cal, it was the archangels who guided it squarely into the hands of the wide receiver. My dad had three brothers, and they'd all come over to the house for the Notre Dame game every Saturday afternoon. I'd heard one of them ask the rest one Saturday: What's an atheist? Somebody who goes to the Notre Dame-Baylor game and doesn't care who wins. They'd all laughed like it was just the funniest thing they'd ever heard, but I really hadn't understood what it had meant at the time. Texas had just a bunch of religious schools who played football: Baylor, S.M.U., T.C.U., Abilene Christian, Trinity, etc. And every once in a while-not very often-one of them would play Notre Dame. In 1959 the Irish came down to Dallas to play against S.M.U. The Mustangs had a brash, talented quarterback named Don Meredith. Though S.M.U. was the heavy favorite, the Irish won the game in the fourth quarter, 14-13. At school on Monday, three Methodist kids got together on the playground at recess and beat the hell out of me.

Fridays were always worrisome for me. When I was growing up, Catholics didn't eat meat on Friday. We ate fish, usually. Less serious Catholics ate cheese pizzas or a meatless casseroles. We ate fish because of all of the New Testament stuff about fish. Christ and the Apostles were real big fish eaters. And Christ was always performing some kind of miracle with the fish. Give Him a one or two fish stringer, and in no time he'd have enough fish on that thing to feed the whole town. I dreaded lunch at school on Fridays. All of my friends would be sporting burgers or baloney or a couple of pieces of fried chicken and I'd be nibbling on a cheese sandwich. "Hey, Chris," they'd ask, "You want this here laig?" They'd hold up a drumstick and twirl it in the air like they were teasing a dog with it or something . I'd just grin and tell them that cheese was just fine with me-all the time, however, lusting after that chicken leg.

I was in the eighth grade when John Kennedy was elected president. Texas hadn't voted for a Democratic president since FDR and the state was locked tightly in Nixon's column. But like all across America, the young, vibrant and charismatic candidate-with the even younger attractive wife-had captured the imagination of most Texans, including those who had no intention of voting for him. My parents were rock-solid Democrats and were avowed Nixon-haters long before Watergate. A large "JFK/LBJ" bumper sticker was stuck squarely in the middle of the back bumper of our '57 Chevy station wagon. Of course all of my friends assumed that my family supported the Kennedy-Johnson ticket because of the former's religion. There was an East Texas-wide rumor that a Papal Edict had been sent out from the Vatican ordering all American Catholics to vote for the Massachusetts senator. Worse yet, there were accusations that if Kennedy were to be elected, no decisions would ever be made in the Oval Office until they had been cleared with and approved by Rome. When Kennedy narrowly won the election, the Baptists were scared to death that the Pope was just going to fly to Washington and move into the West Wing. But they were assured by Lyndon and by Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn that the country was safe and the election of a Catholic would mean nothing more threatening than a Robert Frost poem being read during the inauguration.

November 22, 1963 was a dark, dark day for Texans. It was an especially dark day for Catholic Texans. Before everything else, Texans considered themselves to be hospitable. Treating guests with polite dignity and respect was woven into our culture. Regardless of political affiliation, the immediate reaction to the news from Dallas centered around the fact that the President had been a guest in our state. The horror of having a president assassinated was overshadowed by the fact that it had happened in Texas. We all knew that for a long, long time, the events in Dealey Plaza that day would tarnish the reputation of the Lone Star State. My friends-even the Vaticanphobes-were especially comforting. They knew that Kennedy had been a very special person to us and that his violent death was a horrible blow. "Does he go straight to heaven, or does he have to spend some time in Gumbo?" one friend asked. "Limbo," I corrected him, "But that's for unbaptized babies. I think you're talking about Purgatory."

More than any other Catholic custom, practice or sacrament, confession seemed to befuddle my pals. The thought of going alone into a darkened confessional and whispering one's sins to a man of the cloth was frightening to them. "That guy ever slug you or somethin'?" one friend had asked. I had assured them that there was no violence in the confessional. They really struggled with the concept of penance. "Say ten Our Fathers and twenty Hail Marys . . . now make a good Act of Contrition" would be a typical sentence handed out at the conclusion of my recital of sins-unless, of course, Notre Dame had lost earlier in the day-an unfortunate piece of timing which would double or triple the penance. "But can you say all of them prayers and then go do your sinnin'?" I'd been asked once. I'd assured them that it didn't quite work that way, but I could always tell that they were uncomfortable with the whole notion of confession.

Some of my friends had actually attended a Mass. Usually the occasion was a wedding or a funeral. They were mesmerized by the colorful vestments, the chalice, the bells, the strange but harmonic Latin incantations of the celebrant. What they found especially memorable, however, were the ecumenical calisthenics. Standing. Sitting. Kneeling. Genuflecting. Standing. Sitting. Kneeling. Genuflecting. My Aunt Lucy had gotten married when I was in high school (her first husband had been killed by a drunk driver), and my then current best friend Harlon Perry was spending the weekend with me so his parents could go off together for a romantic weekend of blasting deer on Opening Weekend. His parents weren't overjoyed by Harlon having to attend a Catholic wedding, but there were twelve point bucks out there just begging to be dispatched, and so they had consented. Harlon was wide-eyed during the Mass-taking in the mysteries of the two thousand year-old ceremony. He was about a half step behind all of the positions, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye for a hint as to the next movement. The devil momentarily got the better of me, and during the most sacred part of the Mass-the consecration of the Host-I had feigned standing up and Harlon shot up like a Marine would if the Commandant had entered the church. He finally realized that the was the only person in the entire church who was standing (the rest of us were devoutly striking our breasts thrice as the priest elevated the chalice) and he quickly collapsed to his knees and gave me a vicious elbow to the ribs. I then began reciting the English translation of the Latin-but with a slight variation. Dominus vobiscum. (Don't you eat my biscuits!). Et cum spiritu tuo (And I'll spit it on your toe!). Sed libera nos a malo (Said your nose was hollow!). Harlon and I had both fought off the "church laugh"-when you kind of snort through your nose in an attempt to subdue the laughter which wasn't allowed during Mass. My dad had cuffed us both in the back of our heads, it being 1962 and all, and no one having been told that you couldn't hit a kid who wasn't a member of your immediate family.

Communion was especially intriguing for the Baptists. The ultimate act of love was consumption. Wild animals-like wolves and lions-would get so overwhelmed with the love of their young that they'd actually eat them. I found this to be a true mystery. My mother had nine kids. She loved every one of us-though I had my doubts some times when she was beating the shit out of me. I just couldn't imagine her hugging one of us when we were young, and then being overcome with emotion she'd gnaw off a leg or something. But we were taught that consuming the body and blood of Christ was the highest form of expression of our love for Him. Catholics consumed unleavened bread for communion. The host was a quarter-sized wafer of flour, water, and a little bit of egg white or something that held it all together. As soon as it came into contact with spit, it transformed into a doughy kind of wad that stuck to everything. It stuck to your teeth, the roof of your mouth and your tongue. The nuns taught us not to chew communion-as it would just mash it into your teeth with your Tootsie Rolls and cheeseburgers-hardly a fitting venue for the body and blood of Christ. When Harlon Perry went to my Aunt Lucy's nuptial mass with me, he'd just followed me up to communion like he was a regular Papist. Catholics generally don't want other people who aren't Catholic going to communion, but Harlon didn't know anything about this and so he just sauntered up there like he was a member of the Kennedy Family or something. When I got back to my seat I knelt and began saying my after-communion prayers and noticed Harlon kneeling next to me, just chewing away like he had a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit in his mouth. I was horrified. A frigging non-Catholic had not only illegally nabbed a Host, but he was now chowing down on it like it was a nacho or something. I didn't know what to do, so I just buried my face in my hands in ultra-reverence so no one could accuse me of not policing communion.