Three Men In Black quiz my father about me outside of our church

It was 1973, and my sister and I had just gotten out of CCD class on a Sunday afternoon. We got into the family car and my father drove us to church, dropping my sister, my mother and I off in front of the church. We got out of the car and my father drove off to park further down the street-- there was no sense in all of us being late for Mass. My mother hurried us inside and we found a place to sit. The minutes passed and still my father hadn't come in. My mother was getting more agitated by the minute-- where the heck was he? Finally my father appeared, but he looked shaken and pale. He whispered to my mother that he'd tell her what happened after Mass.

As we drove home, my father told us that after he'd parked the car and gotten out, three men in long black coats had approached him and asked if he was Darlene's father. He said that he was, and the three men started questioning him about me-- what kind of a kid was I, what were my favorite books of the Bible, and other questions he didn't remember. My father told them that I was a "good kid," and that my favorite Bible books were Psalms and Proverbs... I was amazed that he had even known that I'd been reading the Bible that week! And his remark about my being a "good kid" was even more amazing-- he was forever complaining about my behavior!

"Dad, what did they look like?" I asked from the back seat. There was silence for a minute, and then my father said, "I don't remember!" Now, that really scared me-- my father was a police officer; it was his business to remember what people looked like!

My father continued to relate what he remembered the men saying, and the gist of it was that they wanted to know if I was interested in teaching CCD for the little kids in the church. That made me mad-- why hadn't they asked ME? I was the one who'd have to be getting up even earlier on Sunday morning!

I have to confess that at that point, I stopped listening to my father-- I was steamed! I decided that I'd immediately start failing CCD-- there was no way that I was going to get shanghied into wasting my time teaching a bunch of little kids!

Within two months, I was putting in minimal effort at CCD, and I figured that I was in no danger of being recruited as a teacher. One Sunday morning as I was leaving my CCD class, I asked my teacher if the church had people going around looking for kids to be CCD teachers. My skin began to crawl as my teacher told me that they had no such people doing that. Whoever those Men In Black had been, they hadn't been from our church!

I really wonder about it now-- what were they really after? And what would have happened if my father had given a bad report on me? What if I had continued to be the star CCD pupil? Would I have mysteriously disappeared one day? Were they really three men, or were they something else? I wish I knew.