We all want to be loved, and at least half of us on this planet want girls to like us. As high school age and college, some of us wanted to look so good that girls would swoon over us. I don't think that was ever an option for some of us, so we wanted to make a pretty girl laugh. So that is how I spent an entire summer back in the day. Tony Sciuto, Jack Abels, and I would start out almost every weekend night in the porch addition to the Agne household trying to get Tracy to laugh. I know I am funny, Tony is funny, and Jack as you learned after his breakfast is Michael Cera so we got Tracy to laugh quite a bit. Of course, Tracy is also quite susceptible to laughter so it was a pretty easy task. Occasionally Paul Martin would be with us, but he is NOT funny so I am not even sure why I included him in this story. Michael Agne was also there some nights and if you cannot get him to laugh you have never been funny.
One night, I walked into the kitchen and there were messages left by the phone for different members of the family. So I wrote on the pad, Gary call Bill Board, Tracy call Ann Chovy, Russell (Mr. Agne) call Jim Nasium. We were all sitting there when Russell came in exasperated and looked at his wife and said, "Mona, who is this Jim Nusum guy and what does he want?" We all started laughing so hard we were crying, I know Tracy had tears running down her cheek. After the laughter died down, Mona said, " Russ, it says Jim Nasium." He responded, "So what the hell does he want?" All of us laughed for another few minutes uncontrollably. Russell sometimes did not understand our "little kid" sense of humor. Gary then when the laughter paused, thought for a moment and said, "You can think up any name like that, like Pork Roast." By now, we had all lost it, I remember Tracy looking at me and with her eyes saying make it stop I might literally die tonight from laughing. It took 3 weeks when we were retelling the story that Gary understood for the first time he had said Pork Roast when he meant to say Chuck Roast.
You all should really find a way to take old friends out to breakfast. Tracy and I easily swapped stories for 2 hours and it could have been three easily. I think we sat at the table for close to an hour after the check was paid, and then we both told 2 more stories while we were standing next to our cars in the parking lot. Tracy has made a great life of being sweet and cute and kind to everyone in her path. We figured out during breakfast that we both worked for Special School District and could have been emailing each other, if we had just known. Tracy has been a speech pathologist for 30 years and I cannot even imagine how many students she helped. Sometimes, I cannot even imagine being a young person with a lisp or a stutter. They must feel so isolated or lost definitely on the margins. And who was there to greet them. Tracy Agne with a smile so big, and I know they share a laugh in the first 15 minutes because Tracy has to laugh about every 15 minutes. I don't know how she ever watched Schindler's List? I developing a real fondness for the Special Ed teacher, maybe a little bit by knowing Hayley Kuehner, but also by being in schools where Special Ed teachers shine. I just smiled a bit thinking that somewhere in St. Louis there is a boy trying to tell a joke to win Hayley's heart or at least her laugh. Some of my favorite parts of teaching are when I get to spend one on one time with one student and make a plan, learn the material, and when it works they realized it is the two of you against the world, and then just as beautiful it is this one student against the world as they have won the day and they fly boldly from the nest. I wonder looking back on her career how many students Tracy has helped. I wonder how many Hayley will help?
This morning, I started my day by going to Mass with my mother at Seven Holy Founders. Seeing my mom at Seven Holy Founders was kind of like seeing Willie Mays in a Mets uniform. But my mom is something special and she reacted to her husband falling yesterday and a couple of hours in Urgent Care last night by focusing on her prayer life. She got up said a rosary and we went to Mass. At 7:57 a small, extremely fit old man sat a pew in front of us. I had not seen Russell Agne in about 5 years as summers in Uganda has taken me away from graduation parties where I have might have seen some of these people. But there he was an hour before my breakfast with his daughter.
Grace keeps popping into my life in mysterious ways I hope I am smart enough to pause and realize Gods presence in my life.
Today during Mass I prayed for my Dad with his 6 staples in his head, and my mom his constant companion, I prayed for my sister Mary and Tom and Katie and the uncertainty of the future for my parents. I listened intently to the Gospel and a new Priest's words. I forgot to thank him, because many years ago, the cutest girl in the whole WIDE world laughed at a young man's jokes and smiled at me and made me feel special.
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