What’s in the box?

Since last night and all of this morning I’ve been trying to come up with a fun topic for today’s piece. Nothing has come to mind. Really, it’s just empty up there in Ye Olde Thought Attic. Well, not empty. I mean there are old rocking chairs and dust covered chests, old lamps and boxes and boxes of unidentifiable memories.  Oh, let’s dust one off and see what we get.

Ah! My first big stage laugh. Now this is a classic. When I was young, perhaps seven years old, my family and I were at church for mass. The box doesn’t seem to indicate if this was a Sunday service of the Saturday night quick mass. I’m guessing it was some important Sunday mass on a high holy day. There was a young priest who was very charming and had a great way with the mass. He was the first priest I ever saw get down off the pulpit during the homily and really walk and talk to the members of the congregation. He was a gregarious fellow and most of the parishioners thought he was the bee’s knees.  Word came down one day that he was to leave our parish and move onto a far needier one, or maybe he was going to the Navy? I really can’t recall. Again this was just the first memory in the box. I’m sure there’s more detail underneath all these faded photos but I don’t really have the energy to dig through it all.

So this priest was giving his final Sunday homily and he invited all the children up onto the “stage”. I’m not sure what that area just beyond the old communion rail was called, I guess that area around the altar. So all the children came up to the front and (by the way this wasn’t so odd way back when) and we all stood around him as he was talking. I stood near the front with my sister and looked out over the rather large congregation. This priest then asked all of us children some question and he wanted us all to think about it very hard.  Well, this is where the comedian in me was born. I thought, not about the question he asked, but how to look like I was thinking very hard. So as I had seen in so many countless cartoons and Marx Brothers movies, a person thinking hard about something always folds their hands behind their back and paces back and forth until that Eureka moment.

So after the priest asked his difficult question, I did what one is supposed to do when thinking hard, I folded my hands behind my back and started pacing back and forth in front of the whole church. There was an eruption of laughter from the people in the pews. The priest laughed too. I looked out at all the laughing faces and I was hooked. That laughter was now the most important thing in my life and I’d do anything to get it. (much to a lot of my teachers chagrin) I’ve been a laughter addict ever since and I hope there’s no cure.

Wow, nice one box. I might have to take this box downstairs with me and see what else is in there.