ONCE UPON A TIME (true story)

Many years ago when my Dad was a young man, before he married Mom, on a Sunday morning would go to the corner candy store and buy the New York Sunday Daily News.  Then, while grandma went to church he would read his newspaper. Dad was not a churchgoer but because of my grandmother’s involvement in Our Lady of a Loreto on Sackman Street in Brooklyn, the priest would come to the house and visit Grandma on church business. She organized pilgrimages to upstate grottos and boat trips to Italy to pay for an orphanage, making lots of money for Jesus and the church coffers.

As Dad was standing in the candy store reaching down for the newspaper, who shows up but Father Rossi one of the resident priests.

It went something like this:

“Gooder morning, Tony!”
“Good morning, Father.”
“I no a see a you atta 9:00er Mass this a morning, Tony! Isa everything OK?”
“Oh! I went to 5:00 Mass this morning, Father.”
“So, a how’sa your mamma?”
“Oh, she’s fine, Father.”
“And Raffaello, isa he a gooder too?”
“Yes, Father, Poppa is good too.”
“Wella, when you see a them today, teller them I say a Hello”
“I will Father.”
“And a byer the way, there’sa no 5:00er Mass.”