New title for “Joke of the Month” since I’m going to keep doing true stories until I run out of them. Fitting our “playfulness” theme, Father Norm Smith was the catholic priest who took me to Cleveland’s inner city in the mid-1990s to learn the joy of giving. One lesson of his was that it is not enough to be loving, we should laugh too while serving to lighten the load.
Father and I would ride together to many of our meetings in the St. Clair Superior district. I was picking him up for a meeting that promised to be particularly heated one night when Father came out dressed in a full clown get-up, suit, floppy shoes, hair, even a red nose. I said, “Father, go get your collar on, we’re going to be late”. He said, “I am dressed, Timmy, things could get rough down there tonight”.