When I was in high school I had a part-time job working for Kenny Hall's Rose Floral shop, I drove the delivery van and dropped off flowers all over town. If we had a hospital delivery or a funeral, Kenny would send a buddy of mine and me out as a team. We drove a Ford Econoline van, we'd load the Econoline up with the arrangements and off we'd go.
We had a van load for this funeral, four commemorative wreaths, a huge casket spray and 24 pots of flowers to line the altar around the casket, plus a half dozen other floral arrangements.
We hustled everything inside and under the direction of some chud from the funeral home, we started the final setup. The guy from the funeral home was a bit of an ass, for a half-hour we moved wreaths and pots an inch this way or that. He went on forever, finally, we were done, or at least we thought we were done. The funeral guy stepped back to take a final survey of his design work, as he did, he knocked a pot of flowers over, it fell against another pot and then another, flowers, water and florist foam all over the floor.
JF looked at me and said, "Jesus fucking Christ!"
At the exact moment, the words left his lips, one of the Priests, stepped from behind the altar and shouted, "Young Mr. F, leave this church and never return."
JF left immediately, I cleaned up the mess. I got in the van and we drove to the Kegs for an early lunch, went back to work and delivered flowers all afternoon.
BTW, JF did slip back into to St. Marys from time to time but, only under family duress.
JF is still one of my closest friends, this story always puts a smile on our faces.
