Martinsville

The Witmers made two trips to Martinsville every weekend. In addition to the Sunday-morning church trip, there was the Saturday-morning Catechism trip. Since moving from Ohio, we Witmer Children had not had the benefit of a decent Catholic education. Saturday-morning catechism was necessary to straighten us out after hanging around with the public school kids all week. Mom and Dad made good use of the time. Dad went to the Library and Mom did the weekly shopping at the Martinsville A&P, which was just off the town square in downtown Martinsville.

A town square was required, seeing that Martinsville was the county seat of Morgan County. Every Indiana County had a County Seat with a town square and the Courthouse was the center of attention. The Morgan County Courthouse, was typical of southern courthouses, red-brick, three-stories, with a church like spire, surrounded on four sides by green space and park benches. The park benches were populated by old men in overalls with mouths full of chewing tobacco and I never grew tired of watching them spit.

In those days, tobacco use was almost a requirement of being a man. Unlike the northern Baptist Churches, whose motto was, “Don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t hang around with folks that do,” the Baptist, in the south, could be seen smoking right in front of their church buildings. The Catholics had no inhibitions about smoking or drinking, we had a zillion rules but smoking and drinking were not a problem. Spitting on the sidewalk, however was very serious.

While being taught the ten commandments, and hearing “Thou shalt not commit adultery” my younger sister, Teresa, was prompted to ask what “Adultery” was. The nun responded that it was "spitting on the sidewalk." We learned later, that adultery was a MORTAL sin. Not the common garden-variety venial sin. Venial sins were things liking cussing, stealing change from your father's dresser and hauling off and slapping your brother a good one upside the head. Mortal sins would send you off to extra innings in purgatory, even if you confessed them. And if you had he misfortune of dying with a mortal sin on your soul, you went straight to H-E-double toothpicks. Sidewalk spitting was very serious. It needed to be promptly repented of in Confession if one wanted to avoid the fires of the afterworld.