tower of strength on defense.” 41
Flaherty conceded that Bing was “pretty good” at baseball. “We played on the Ideal Laundry team in the commercial or business
league. We’d play at Mission Park, five blocks up the street from Gonzaga. Oh, we were best of friends, used to chum around
all the time, wrestled, played handball, though he didn’t play too much handball. Bing was more into entertainment in the
evening. He was always a happy kid and was always singing a song. Even though he was a littlekid, he was singing. He just was full of music and he was a great whistler. He could really whistle. They used to have these
smokers where they’d have kids that liked to box and they’d get a pretty good student body and some outsiders. Bing used to
sing at those. He didn’t box, I don’t think, but he sang and that brought some people in, too. Hell, he could sing like nobody
else, sing and whistle. He had a hell of a whistle.” 42
In addition to winning reelection as class consultor in his junior year, Bing was voted Junior Yard Association secretary-treasurer
following “a stormy session and a bit of political logrolling.” 43 Bing racked up distinctions in English, history, elocution, theology, Latin, and civics and prevailed in reading competitions,
scoring coups with “The Dukite Snake” and Macauley’s poem of Horatius at the Bridge. “I took those eloquent lines in my teeth
and shook them as a terrier shakes a bone,” he wrote. 44 Bing, Corkery, and Flaherty enlisted together as charter members of Gonzaga’s new glee club. In the club’s annual photograph,
Bing sports a high pompadour and a roomy jacket. For their first grand concert in St. Aloysius Hall, Bing did not participate
in musical numbers but read three selections during intermission.
He fared less well in debate; as part of a two-man team that lost two decisions, he argued against abolishing immigration
and forcing Woodrow Wilson’s resignation due to illness. Bing, who always took the liberal side, was demoted to an alternate
in his senior year. His role in the public debate that year (concerning the League of Nations) was to deliver a recitation
at intermission. 45 He had reason to regard his education as Augustine did his own: “Their one aim was that I should learn how to make a good
speech and become an orator capable of swaying his audience,” the Bishop of Hippo wrote. 46
Bing looked back with mocking amusement at the rival clubs organized by the most avid speakers and debaters. He founded the
Bolsheviks in loyal opposition to the Dirty Six, who commandeered perks such as patrolling varsity sporting events. The “rival
tongs,” as Bing called them, indulged in free-for-all political debate. 47 Inevitably, a priest — Father O’Brien, a Brit — reproached Bing’s clique for embracing a name associated with godlessness.
“Apparently his devoutness and his English sense of humor had him confused, for hesaid we’d be ‘cleansed’ if we stopped using the name,” Bing wrote. 48 Bing also joined the Derby Club, an offshoot of the Bolsheviks, which consisted of six or eight “blades” who sported derbies
in class.
Recitation led to other theatrical projects. Gonzaga looked upon theater not merely as a high-school drama-club option but
as an undertaking essential to a model Jesuit education. Writing in the university yearbook, instructor William DePuis traced
“love of the dramatic” to a pagan worship of Bacchus, which the church adapted to its own ends: “The Mystery and Miracle play
taught the sacred story of Christ and the saints. The religious idea yielded gradually to the popular desire for amusement,
and the holy day became the holiday.” 49 That notion would be employed as a motif in Bing’s Father O’Malley films.
Bing enjoyed two genuine theatrical triumphs in his senior year, yet the production that became fixed in Crosby lore was a
junior English class
Flaherty conceded that Bing was “pretty good” at baseball. “We played on the Ideal Laundry team in the commercial or business
league. We’d play at Mission Park, five blocks up the street from Gonzaga. Oh, we were best of friends, used to chum around
all the time, wrestled, played handball, though he didn’t play too much handball. Bing was more into entertainment in the
evening. He was always a happy kid and was always singing a song. Even though he was a littlekid, he was singing. He just was full of music and he was a great whistler. He could really whistle. They used to have these
smokers where they’d have kids that liked to box and they’d get a pretty good student body and some outsiders. Bing used to
sing at those. He didn’t box, I don’t think, but he sang and that brought some people in, too. Hell, he could sing like nobody
else, sing and whistle. He had a hell of a whistle.” 42
In addition to winning reelection as class consultor in his junior year, Bing was voted Junior Yard Association secretary-treasurer
following “a stormy session and a bit of political logrolling.” 43 Bing racked up distinctions in English, history, elocution, theology, Latin, and civics and prevailed in reading competitions,
scoring coups with “The Dukite Snake” and Macauley’s poem of Horatius at the Bridge. “I took those eloquent lines in my teeth
and shook them as a terrier shakes a bone,” he wrote. 44 Bing, Corkery, and Flaherty enlisted together as charter members of Gonzaga’s new glee club. In the club’s annual photograph,
Bing sports a high pompadour and a roomy jacket. For their first grand concert in St. Aloysius Hall, Bing did not participate
in musical numbers but read three selections during intermission.
He fared less well in debate; as part of a two-man team that lost two decisions, he argued against abolishing immigration
and forcing Woodrow Wilson’s resignation due to illness. Bing, who always took the liberal side, was demoted to an alternate
in his senior year. His role in the public debate that year (concerning the League of Nations) was to deliver a recitation
at intermission. 45 He had reason to regard his education as Augustine did his own: “Their one aim was that I should learn how to make a good
speech and become an orator capable of swaying his audience,” the Bishop of Hippo wrote. 46
Bing looked back with mocking amusement at the rival clubs organized by the most avid speakers and debaters. He founded the
Bolsheviks in loyal opposition to the Dirty Six, who commandeered perks such as patrolling varsity sporting events. The “rival
tongs,” as Bing called them, indulged in free-for-all political debate. 47 Inevitably, a priest — Father O’Brien, a Brit — reproached Bing’s clique for embracing a name associated with godlessness.
“Apparently his devoutness and his English sense of humor had him confused, for hesaid we’d be ‘cleansed’ if we stopped using the name,” Bing wrote. 48 Bing also joined the Derby Club, an offshoot of the Bolsheviks, which consisted of six or eight “blades” who sported derbies
in class.
Recitation led to other theatrical projects. Gonzaga looked upon theater not merely as a high-school drama-club option but
as an undertaking essential to a model Jesuit education. Writing in the university yearbook, instructor William DePuis traced
“love of the dramatic” to a pagan worship of Bacchus, which the church adapted to its own ends: “The Mystery and Miracle play
taught the sacred story of Christ and the saints. The religious idea yielded gradually to the popular desire for amusement,
and the holy day became the holiday.” 49 That notion would be employed as a motif in Bing’s Father O’Malley films.
Bing enjoyed two genuine theatrical triumphs in his senior year, yet the production that became fixed in Crosby lore was a
junior English class
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