By the time I was finishing junior high, I had a firmly established belief about God, life and the universe. The first one definitely existed and the other two were his creations. My family being quite religious had a very big impact on how I viewed things back then but they weren't some kind of religious maniacs, I liked what I believed.

And then Mr. Culloghs came to our lives. He was our new principal and he made his impact from the very start. He was a normal looking middle aged man, with the kind of gentle face and regal short beard which hides a huge cruelty behind. Mr. Culloghs believed in God with a big fervor and his mission probably was to make every single one of the school's students believe in Him as well. For the time he managed to stay in our school he certainly did some quite interesting stuff.

For starters his daily visits to our classes began, he would come in, greet everyone and then pick a student and have him recite some basic prayer or the other, if the student was not able to recite the prayer by heart, he was promptly expelled for one day. I remember I used to feel some sort of pity for these kids, I felt that they "had to" know the prayers and in the beginning, I did not question the reasoning behind our principals actions.

Until the day came when I got expelled.

Personal experience is the best teacher they say. The "prayer visits" did not last for long, there were many loud objections, but during that short time I had the fortune (yes, fortune) of being picked to recite "Our Father". I knew the prayer, I had said it many times over, but the words just wouldn't come to my head, I became sweaty, I started shaking and then I was sent home to face the hand of justice from my father.

My father of course, being a reasonable man, found the whole business to be ridiculous and he confronted our principal about it the next day, but the seed had been planted. The daily visits stopped happening after a few days and Mr. Culloghs was relieved of his position among a hailstorm of complaints some months later. To this day I remember him as the worst teacher I ever had.

However there is this feeling that a fraction of who I am right now, in some direct or indirect way, I owe to his short and tumultuous presence. For that, I thank him.