CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
By Nita Lelyveld and Jean Guccione, Times Staff Writers
Steve Sanchez used to get so jealous of his brother Billy.
Billy was only two years older, but he got to do everything first.
At Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Billy was an altar boy, and Father Clinton Hagenbach treated him like a prince. He bought Billy ice cream after church. He drove him to the desert to ride motorcycles.
Nearly every Friday night, Hagenbach would drive to the Sanchez house in Atwater Village to take Billy to the go-cart track. Steve would look longingly at the car full of older boys as it pulled away from the curb. He told his father, a teacher at a Catholic school, that he wanted to "be a part of Hagenbach's club."
"And my dad said, 'Just be a good altar boy and someday you'll be a part of that club,' " he said.
Steve was so excited, he felt sick on the day he first stood at Mass, alongside the priest, his brother and his father, who was a church lector.