The Daily News

The DN

An old nun who was living in a convent next to a construction site noticed the coarse

language of the workers and decided to spend some time with them to correct their ways.

She decided she would take her lunch, sit with the workers and talk with them. She put her

sandwich in a brown bag and walked over to the spot where the men were eating. She walked

up to the group with a big smile and said, "Do you men know Jesus Christ?"

They shook their heads and looked at each other. One of the workers looked up at the

steelworkers and yelled, "Anybody up there know Jesus Christ?"

One of the steelworkers asked why.

The worker yelled, "His wife is here with his lunch!"

1 I was thinkin' 'bout Jesus just the other day.

2 Believe it or not, I'm always thinkin' about Jesus at one time or another.

3 As the only son of an Irish/Italian/Catholic family, you're going to be awash in Jesus, probably throughout your life.

4 I claim that I am an ex-Catholic.

5 <basketball buzzer>

6 Let me make this nice and clear.

7 You can no more be an ex-Catholic than you could be ex-
CIA.

8 I have the distinction of being, or having been both.

9 <basketball buzzer>

10 <throwing my best Italian goomba accent into the mix> What-a...dju don't thinka Iminna CIA???

11 < coming out of it snidely, with a slight accent that is just this side of British> Pehfect disguise!

12 Okay so I'm NOT CIA, let alone ex-CIA.

13 Even if I were I wouldn't have told you.

14 Anybody lookin'?

15 It's funny, because a lot has changed since I got somewhat rushed to emergency last Tuesday
night. As I headed out, the moon was out; clouds had formed, and our neighborhood Jesus guy was out in front, running back and forth in the wind. I reported it in the Wednesday, 8/21/13 edition of the DN. Here is my first ever mention of our neighborhood Jesus guy:

"I went outside, and the clouds were illuminated by the moon. Across the street our neighbor, who is our neighborhood Jesus guy, was moving back and forth in his front yard. I looked at the clouds. I looked at the leaves. And then I looked at my home. I braced myself and got in the car. I looked back one more time at my home..."
---Joe-the-Bear

16 Lots of things went through my mind that night.

17 Keep in mind that my leg had swollen to the size of an eggplant.

18 That was freakish enough, but the entire thought of what just one X-Ray might reveal, or one ultra-sound, or one ANYTHING and I couldn't be sure if I was ever going to see my place again. <solo violin under>

My old pal and fellow wiseguy Joey Violini.

19 Neighborhood Jesus guy. Always around when things happen.

20 Goodly man. Always saying, "God bless you," even when you didn't sneeze.

21 I always like people like that. They don't come over and try to lecture you about going to church, because that's sort of like your dentist's assistant coming over and bothering you about your oral hygiene.

22 You KNOW they're probably right somewhere in there, but you don't want pamphlets, and you certainly don't want to go to their place.

23 Anyway, just before I strapped into the car to go to emergency I looked over, and NJG was moving back and forth through the wind, like Dorothy's Uncle Henry or something.

24 I don't know if he was conjurin' or if he was just trying to make sure everyone was safe from the tornado that surely was descending upon the neighborhood.

25 It wasn't even a week earlier that we had a West Nile scare in our same quaint Kansas-esque neighborhood.

26 Lightning lit up the sky that night.

27 That kind of stuff can scare the beJAYzuss out of a small town ex-Catholic boy with a heart thing going on during a neighborhood storm.

28 I think it was Justin Bieber who once said, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

29

30 Well SOMEBODY said it.

31 And didja like that? "Kansas-esque."

32 AnywayZ...

33 I am SUCH an artiste.

34 When I got to the hospital I thought of a lot of other things, some about Jesus.

35 I wondered if Jesus had lived, and if he hadn't gone the way he had, if he could have walked on water at say, sixty-five.

36 Even in the middle of a medical emergency I still thought of potential items for the DN.

37 At one point in the next few days I jotted down this note, upon which I stumbled last night.

38 Like that? "Upon which..."

39 Who SAYS that? I remember that I wondered how old Jesus was during his preachings. Generally, most scholars agree that it was 30 to 33, and that he died for our sins at 33.

40 I began to think that were he much older, the entire thing might never have worked. Had he lived to a reasonably ripe old age, he may have disappeared from History.

40 So here's the note down which I jotted:

41

“How old was Jesus? Great question. It is generally accepted that Jesus was 30 to 33 during his ministry. Let’s say for the sake of argument that Jesus was 32 when he walked on water. At 32, most men of decent health could do all sorts of remarkable things, usually to impress a female. I've seen guys who look like they’re walking on water when they see a cute skirt walk by. That’s young people stuff. But what if he had lived? If Jesus were a day over 60 and saw a cute little number walking along the shore, he would have gotten disoriented and fallen into the drink.”

---Joe the Bear

42 Anybody comin' towards me?

44 It was just a piece of writing that occurred to me during an extremely weird time.

45 Admit you chuckled.

46 Moving on, Part One: This might be a bit random, but did anyone else get a good crop of tomatoes this year?

47 We sure did. We didn't get as many, but they are all really sweet and wonderful.

48 Grow your own.

49 I'm almost old enough to remember when a crop of tomatoes was a euphemism for a Boop-esque chorus line.