MOM TRIES TO CONFESS (1972)

In 1972 Mom sometimes walked Bill, a 2nd grader, to school.  One day she came home quite distraught.  She had gone into a beautiful church on the way home just to look around and a priest came along and kept trying to shove her into the confessional booth. She was finally able to escape without confessing. 

After our visit to Bill's former school we passed a church just up the steps from the school.  We think we found the church where this terrible incident occurred!  It's the only church between the school and our apartment.

The beautiful church Maria am Gestade

We had quizzed Mom about what exactly had happened and what she had said.  She told us the priest asked her if he could help her and she had told him she was just looking.  But instead of saying it in German she had used Dutch, "eve kijken" (I'm just looking).  We decided he must have thought she was speaking Viennese dialect and had said "i will beichten" which could sound a lot like "eve kijken" and means "I want to confess".  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.  The priest probably went home with a funny story just like Mom did.

The infamous confessional booth