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Cretin Boy
Cretin High School, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota was a Catholic, all-male, military academy that brought unique twists to the already difficult high school experience. Cretin Boys, as they were called, were subject to the oppression of both church and state as they navigated the diverse teaching styles of Christian Brothers, military instructors, and lay teachers. Cretin Boy looks at those menial first jobs, takes you dancing with a girl at that first high school formal, and peels down the street in a Corvette-on-loan with a teen at the wheel. It is a coming-of-age story with a military dress code, a coming-to-faith story while smoking in the boy’s room. What people are saying about Cretin Boy : “Jim Landwehr never disappoints, and Cretin Boy is no exception. This oftentimes hilarious, just as often poignant, journey captures the nostalgia of the late 1970s and mingles it with timeless examples of how every young person strives to reach adulthood. Landwehr captures what makes us human at our weakest and at our best, in a way that touches on the divine beauty of truth. A must-read for your emotional journey, Cretin Boy will leave you deeply moved, and smiling.”
--Summer Hanford, national and international Amazon best-selling author “A B-minus GPA from an all-male Catholic Military High School named Cretin doesn’t tell the whole story. With humor and insight, Jim Landwehr shares his ups and downs of dealing with high school. Not only that, he shares how those experiences shaped him in ways even better grades couldn’t have.”
--Bill Mathis, author of Revenge is Necessary, The Rooming House Gallery, The Rooming House Diaries, and Face Your Fears. “Military discipline and religious doctrine drilled into the cadets of Cretin High each day leads the author down the traditional path to self. At the same time, testosterone, teen angst and the hedonistic pop culture of the 1970s bombard him with endless distraction. Ironic twists of the adolescent free-fall towards adulthood abound. Looking for a slice-of-life story that nails the All-American Experience with humor, drama, pathos, tension and struggle? I recommend Cretin Boy !”
--Robert Goswitz, author of The Dragon Soldier’s Good Fortune .
--Summer Hanford, national and international Amazon best-selling author “A B-minus GPA from an all-male Catholic Military High School named Cretin doesn’t tell the whole story. With humor and insight, Jim Landwehr shares his ups and downs of dealing with high school. Not only that, he shares how those experiences shaped him in ways even better grades couldn’t have.”
--Bill Mathis, author of Revenge is Necessary, The Rooming House Gallery, The Rooming House Diaries, and Face Your Fears. “Military discipline and religious doctrine drilled into the cadets of Cretin High each day leads the author down the traditional path to self. At the same time, testosterone, teen angst and the hedonistic pop culture of the 1970s bombard him with endless distraction. Ironic twists of the adolescent free-fall towards adulthood abound. Looking for a slice-of-life story that nails the All-American Experience with humor, drama, pathos, tension and struggle? I recommend Cretin Boy !”
--Robert Goswitz, author of The Dragon Soldier’s Good Fortune .
191 pages, Paperback
Published November 9, 2020
2 people are currently reading
4 people want to read
About the author
Jim Landwehr
25 books22 followersBiography:
Jim has four published memoirs, At the Lake, Cretin Boy, Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir and The Portland House: A '70s Memoir. Jim also has six poetry collections, Tea in the Pacific Northwest, Thoughts from a Line at the DMV, Genetically Speaking, Reciting from Memory, Written Life, and On a Road.
His non-fiction stories have been published in Main Street Rag, The Sun Magazine, Story News, and others. His poetry has been featured in Rosebud Magazine, Portage Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and many others.
Jim was the 2018-2019 poet laureate for the Village of Wales, Wisconsin and served as the nonfiction judge for the Jade Ring contest for the Wisconsin Writers Association in 2019. For more on his writing, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/jimland...
Jim has four published memoirs, At the Lake, Cretin Boy, Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir and The Portland House: A '70s Memoir. Jim also has six poetry collections, Tea in the Pacific Northwest, Thoughts from a Line at the DMV, Genetically Speaking, Reciting from Memory, Written Life, and On a Road.
His non-fiction stories have been published in Main Street Rag, The Sun Magazine, Story News, and others. His poetry has been featured in Rosebud Magazine, Portage Magazine, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and many others.
Jim was the 2018-2019 poet laureate for the Village of Wales, Wisconsin and served as the nonfiction judge for the Jade Ring contest for the Wisconsin Writers Association in 2019. For more on his writing, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/jimland...
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 3, 2021
From Luker, to Raider to Expert Story Teller!
Well done Jim!
This is a funny and heart warming trip down memory lane but also a great "coming of age" story about growing up attending a Catholic military academy. This book is a must read for any high school kid - full of laughs and allowed me to relive memories I had nearly forgotten. Thanks Jim!
Well done Jim!
This is a funny and heart warming trip down memory lane but also a great "coming of age" story about growing up attending a Catholic military academy. This book is a must read for any high school kid - full of laughs and allowed me to relive memories I had nearly forgotten. Thanks Jim!
December 15, 2020
Jim Landwehr has written two previous memoirs and five poetry collections, but he hits his storytelling stride with a coming-of-age memoir, “Cretin Boy.”
Cretin High School, a Catholic military academy Landwehr attended in the late 1970s, is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota and was named after the first Bishop there. Webster’s also defines cretin as “a very stupid or foolish person.”
Landwehr and his buddies sometimes live up to that definition.
Narrow escapes from cops while drinking? Check.
Death-defying traffic stunts? Check.
Dimwittedly doling out cash for first-car clunkers? Check.
Still, having grown up among six kids with a single mother after his father died young, Landwehr portrays himself as awkward and introverted, the “good son” and lacking self-esteem.
Using self-deprecating humor, Landwehr details incompetence at shooting guns, driving cars and approaching the opposite sex.
It doesn’t help the latter issue that Cretin is only for boys. Or that Cretin instructors include military officers and many Catholic Brothers, men committed to Christianity who live on campus. Landwehr explains the oddities in describing Brother Gerard.
“He was a frail, senior Brother who was tasked with teaching us Biblical truth while at the same time discussing human sexual anatomy and addressing embarrassing subjects like masturbation, intercourse and birth control. It seemed strange to mix the message of ‘don’t do this’ with ‘but if you do this other thing, then do this.’ It was even weirder because it was coming from someone apparently older than my grandparents, from a man who had pledged himself to a life of celibacy…”
When Gerard gives him a poor mid-term grade, Landwehr hopes during Christmas break that the old man is unable to return to teach because of his failing health. When Gerard dies, Landwehr is wracked with Catholic guilt.
Landwehr uses decades of life experience to put perspective on adolescent escapades. “We were pushing the envelope in our struggle for independence and on our road to adulthood,” he writes.
If there’s one concern, it’s that this book, like many produced by small companies or self-published, needed better proofreading.
Rather than write a chronology, Landwehr organizes stories into chapters such as Marching, Jobs, and Girls. The longest are Vices and Cars.
Maybe the strict combination of church and state discipline drove these boys to mischief beyond their school halls, but readers, regardless of which decade they grew up, will identify with many of these stories and find themselves reminiscing about their own high school days.
Cretin High School, a Catholic military academy Landwehr attended in the late 1970s, is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota and was named after the first Bishop there. Webster’s also defines cretin as “a very stupid or foolish person.”
Landwehr and his buddies sometimes live up to that definition.
Narrow escapes from cops while drinking? Check.
Death-defying traffic stunts? Check.
Dimwittedly doling out cash for first-car clunkers? Check.
Still, having grown up among six kids with a single mother after his father died young, Landwehr portrays himself as awkward and introverted, the “good son” and lacking self-esteem.
Using self-deprecating humor, Landwehr details incompetence at shooting guns, driving cars and approaching the opposite sex.
It doesn’t help the latter issue that Cretin is only for boys. Or that Cretin instructors include military officers and many Catholic Brothers, men committed to Christianity who live on campus. Landwehr explains the oddities in describing Brother Gerard.
“He was a frail, senior Brother who was tasked with teaching us Biblical truth while at the same time discussing human sexual anatomy and addressing embarrassing subjects like masturbation, intercourse and birth control. It seemed strange to mix the message of ‘don’t do this’ with ‘but if you do this other thing, then do this.’ It was even weirder because it was coming from someone apparently older than my grandparents, from a man who had pledged himself to a life of celibacy…”
When Gerard gives him a poor mid-term grade, Landwehr hopes during Christmas break that the old man is unable to return to teach because of his failing health. When Gerard dies, Landwehr is wracked with Catholic guilt.
Landwehr uses decades of life experience to put perspective on adolescent escapades. “We were pushing the envelope in our struggle for independence and on our road to adulthood,” he writes.
If there’s one concern, it’s that this book, like many produced by small companies or self-published, needed better proofreading.
Rather than write a chronology, Landwehr organizes stories into chapters such as Marching, Jobs, and Girls. The longest are Vices and Cars.
Maybe the strict combination of church and state discipline drove these boys to mischief beyond their school halls, but readers, regardless of which decade they grew up, will identify with many of these stories and find themselves reminiscing about their own high school days.
December 1, 2021
Incredibly boring memoir that has nothing to it beyond the typical high school years. Very dull, like something your grandpa would write about his childhood 40 years earlier but there are no real stories in it.
I'm extremely familiar with the school and the area, but the author fails to give any introduction to the unique institution and assumes everyone who reads it knows what he's talking about. Chapters are divided by themes ("cars," "girls," "jobs") and I can honestly say there's nothing worth reading in this book unless you are a family member or friend.
His writing style isn't very good. Very plain and folksy. There are a few errors and some chapters are only a few paragraphs long. They note in the front that some of "stories," and I use that term loosely, were originally published in periodicals. It reads like they were done for little small town publications where it's news that the 16-year-olds were almost picked up by the cops for drinking. But there's no real tension here, no drama. The only interesting "story" was that the high school boys hitchhiked down Hamline Avenue to get to school. No explanation why.
By the way, why did St. Paul cops pick up high school sophomores with beers in their hands and let them go with just a warning? Multiple times? And why did these mostly rich-kid's parents not pay any attention to 14-year-olds being out until the early morning hours drinking?
There's nothing moral about this book. Nothing admirable. I wouldn't say Cretin cranked out boys that had any real values. There are way too many drinking stories and parents that ignore their kids. If the Cretin Boy expected this book to somehow prove the value of the Catholic military school, he failed miserably.
I'm extremely familiar with the school and the area, but the author fails to give any introduction to the unique institution and assumes everyone who reads it knows what he's talking about. Chapters are divided by themes ("cars," "girls," "jobs") and I can honestly say there's nothing worth reading in this book unless you are a family member or friend.
His writing style isn't very good. Very plain and folksy. There are a few errors and some chapters are only a few paragraphs long. They note in the front that some of "stories," and I use that term loosely, were originally published in periodicals. It reads like they were done for little small town publications where it's news that the 16-year-olds were almost picked up by the cops for drinking. But there's no real tension here, no drama. The only interesting "story" was that the high school boys hitchhiked down Hamline Avenue to get to school. No explanation why.
By the way, why did St. Paul cops pick up high school sophomores with beers in their hands and let them go with just a warning? Multiple times? And why did these mostly rich-kid's parents not pay any attention to 14-year-olds being out until the early morning hours drinking?
There's nothing moral about this book. Nothing admirable. I wouldn't say Cretin cranked out boys that had any real values. There are way too many drinking stories and parents that ignore their kids. If the Cretin Boy expected this book to somehow prove the value of the Catholic military school, he failed miserably.
February 2, 2022
Cretin Boy is a recounting of Jim Landwehr’s high school years at Cretin High School, located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. As this school was a Catholic, all-male, military academy, I expected to learn about an entirely different high school experience from my own. And I did. However, I also found a lot of common ground that caused me to reflect on my own high school experience.
This books showed me what it was like to have to march, and wear a military uniform to classes. It sounds like a unique experience. Yet we’ve all had bad and weird teachers. Mr. Landwehr’s just happened to have been Christian Brothers.
Perhaps this should be read as a history lesson for the kids today. However, for a guy that grew up in the 70s, it was a parallel to my own youth. Struggling to fit in and struggling with being a straight and narrow guy that wants to toy with breaking the rules.
I really connected with the car stories. Back in the 70s they were so important to boys and our cars were characters in our stories. Whether they were so worn out they were barely cars or our parents’ non-cool family conveyances, we had a strong relationship with them.
High school years are so formative and so transformative that it is important we share them.
I bought this book because I heard him speak quite a few years ago and had read Dirty Shirt: A Boundary Waters Memoir. I recommend this book as a way to remember how formative our high school years are. And if you are a younger reader, read this book to find out about a time when phones were one to a household, social media did not exist, and police officers might let you go if you pour out your alcohol.
August 9, 2021
I think this book is a good fit for people who went to Cretin at the same time as the author or are friends with him. It was not a good fit for me. I read it because my dad went to Cretin so I wanted to see what his experiences were like.
Parts I liked: the chapters about the teachers and the dances. They were more descriptive and allowed you to imagine how things really were.
Parts that didn’t work for me: over-explaining instead of allowing the reader to think, ending chapters with lyrics from songs that had been talked about in that chapter, lack of story to share. It felt more like explaining to your kids how life used to be.
Parts I liked: the chapters about the teachers and the dances. They were more descriptive and allowed you to imagine how things really were.
Parts that didn’t work for me: over-explaining instead of allowing the reader to think, ending chapters with lyrics from songs that had been talked about in that chapter, lack of story to share. It felt more like explaining to your kids how life used to be.
January 11, 2024
Fourteen Years Earlier
As a Class of ‘65 graduate, Jim’s descriptions and recollections ring true. What Jim’s class hadn’t yet experienced is the post retirement age camaraderie that MAY happen to his class. The Clas of ‘65 has an active group of roughly 40 classmates that regularly participate in summer golf or year round monthly lunches. Yes, we learned responsibility and discipline from both the Christian Brothers and the regular Army personnel. And the education Cretin provided to us gave us a tremendous platform for the rest of our lives.
As a Class of ‘65 graduate, Jim’s descriptions and recollections ring true. What Jim’s class hadn’t yet experienced is the post retirement age camaraderie that MAY happen to his class. The Clas of ‘65 has an active group of roughly 40 classmates that regularly participate in summer golf or year round monthly lunches. Yes, we learned responsibility and discipline from both the Christian Brothers and the regular Army personnel. And the education Cretin provided to us gave us a tremendous platform for the rest of our lives.
March 4, 2022
Full disclosure: I have never been a high school boy, and I have never attended a Catholic military school. But when I finished reading Cretin Boy, I felt like I had. Landwehr paints a rich portrait of coming of age in the 1970’s—complete with chapters on hair, girls, cars, and a certain New Year’s Eve date with PBR. Playing in the background through the amusing—often poignant—stories is a reminder of the power of friendship, positive role models, and a family who cares. An upbeat trip down memory lane for those of a certain age.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews