Broadcaster Charles Osgood fondly recalls Catholic Baltimore

Published: 2004-07-28

BALTIMORE (CNS) -- Young Charles Osgood was in a terrible quandary. After a whole week of practicing a Bach organ fugue for Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in the West Baltimore neighborhood of Liberty Heights, the 9-year-old would-be virtuoso still couldn't get his fingering right. Knowing that he was sure to disappoint Sister Serena, one of the Sisters of Charity at his parish school, Charlie had to come up with a way out. His solution? Sneak into the empty church on Friday afternoon and unplug the organ so that it looked like it was broken. "In shutting down the organ, I also was shutting down my guaranteed humiliation," said Osgood, a veteran CBS broadcaster and host of "Sunday Morning," in his new book, "Defending Baltimore Against Enemy Attack." "I was certain my sabotage wouldn't be detected: Because the plug was so far from the organ, people would be mystified by its malfunction," he wrote. "A perfect crime, the way a critic might have described my playing of that piece." Unfortunately for Charlie, the nuns were shrewder than he thought. After discovering that the organ had been unplugged, Sister Serena asked the young man who might have done it. His response, "I think it was me," was quickly corrected by the nun -- "I think it was I." "Only Sister Serena could have judged your morals and grammar at the same time," Osgood recalled. Young Charlie wound up spending an hour after school every day for a week for his crime.

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