Lost Journal

Humor Column
by Tim Mollen
October 13, 2005

A Child’s View from the Pew

Journal Entry:  September 21, 1972 (age 3)

It’s Sunday again, and I know what that means.  Mom is going to put me in a red plaid suit coat and a red velvet bowtie for church.  I’m going to look like the world’s youngest used car salesman.

We go to St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Binghamton.  The church is nice, and the priests and nuns are nice, but on Sunday mornings I’d rather be home getting my cathecism straight from the source - the animated TV show Davey and Goliath.

I find other ways to amuse myself in church.  Mom and Dad keep telling me not to look around at the other churchgoers, but it’s hard not to.  Everybody from my neighborhood is there, and they’re all wearing goofy clothes.  Some of the women wear big, floppy hats.  I don’t understand why they get to wear hats, but I can’t wear my Scooby-Doo Halloween mask.

For some reason, it’s OK to look at other people when they are on their way to or from Communion, so that’s when I get my people-watching in.  Everyone looks so serious, like they are coming forward to receive a medal or something.  Communion must be really good.

Speaking of Communion, last week I got to be in the line with everybody else.  I was crying because my brother Dan wouldn’t stop looking at me.  Plus, he kept putting his finger about an inch from my face and whispering, “I’m not touching you.”  To separate us, Mom carried me with her to get Communion.  I got really excited when I saw that we were in the line that was receiving the sacrament from Father Queen.  I had wanted to ask him an important question for a really long time, and when we got to the front of the line, I had my chance.

“Are you the Godfather?,” I asked.

My mother gasped, and Father Queen looked blankly at me for a moment.  Then he chuckled and said, “No, I’m not.”  Back in our pew, I asked Mom why he had laughed at my question.  Her face was still red, and she just shushed me.  It seemed like a perfectly reasonable question to me.  I had heard people talking about someone called “the Godfather,” and I figured he was probably one of the “Fathers” who lived at God’s house.

Today, I promised Mom and Dad I wouldn’t talk at all during Mass.  I think I can do that.  But I might not be able to keep from laughing at the end of Mass.  Every week, the priest says, “This Mass has ended,” and the entire congregation says, “Thanks be to God.”  It can’t be wrong to laugh at that.  It’s meant to be funny, right?

© 2005 Tim Mollen

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