When I was a student at Nathan Hale High School, I had a weekend job as a pizza cook at Irish Mike Clancy’s Pizza Parlor on Mingo Road just north of 11th Street.

Back in the late 1960s, there wasn’t a pizza parlor on every corner. Irish Mike was a former pro wrestler who was a part-time county deputy on the side. His boys played baseball for Bishop Kelley (they were really good).

Anyway, he opened an Italian pizza restaurant and I was the pizza cook on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday nights during high school football season, that place would overflow with Kelley fans (especially if the Comets were victorious). We would crank up the jukebox and it looked like a scene from the lower deck party in the movie Titianic.

It was not unusual to see a carload of nuns or priests drive up to eat pizza and visit Mike.

Mike and his family were great to me. He was gruff but he had a wonderful sense of Irish humor. If you told an Irish joke, Mike would make a face like he was going to punch you (you didn’t want that because he was built like a brick), and later he would retell the joke and everyone would have a big laugh.

That was before our present age of political correctness. I always thought I had some Irish blood in me but now I am not so sure. (My ancestors probably were English).

I was not supposed to make pizza dough after 10 p.m. at night but one time I ran low. I only knew how to make a big batch, which we stored in a 30-gallon plastic container. Because of the yeast rising, the Clancys came in Monday morning and there was pizza dough all over the floor. I got a bit of a scolding but kept my job.

Maybe I do have some Irish blood.

Here are some Irish jokes you might enjoy:

An American lawyer asked, “Paddy, why is it that whenever you ask an Irishman a question, he answers with another question?” “Who told you that?” asked Paddy

Irish lass customer: “Could I be trying on that dress in the window?”

Shopkeeper: “I’d prefer that you use the dressing room.”

Mrs. Feeney shouted from the kitchen, “Is that you I hear spittin’ in the vase on the mantle piece?”

“No,” said himself, “but I’m gettin’ closer all the time.”

Finnegan: My wife has a terrible habit of staying up ’til two o’clock in the morning. I can’t break her of it. Keenan: What on earth is she doin’ at that time? Finnegan: Waitin’ for me to come home.

Slaney phoned the maternity ward at the hospital. “Quick!” He said. “Send an ambulance, my wife is goin’ to have a baby!”

“Tell me, is this her first baby?” the intern asked.

“No, this is her husband, Kevin, speakin’.”

“O’Ryan,” asked the druggist, “did that mudpack I gave you improve your wife’s appearance?”

“It did surely,” replied O’Ryan, “but it keeps fallin’ off!”

An Irishman was suffering from pains in his knees, so he visited the doctor.

“You’re suffering from a disease that we medical experts call “kneeitis”, said the doctor. “Take it easy for a month or so and above all don’t climb any stairs. That puts a terrible strain on the knees.”

A month later the Irishman returned and after a brief examination was found to have recovered completely.

“Can I climb the stairs now, doctor?”

“Certainly,” replied the doctor.

“Thank Heavens,” said the Irishman, “I was getting a bit tired of climbing up the drainpipe every time I wanted to go to the toilet.”

An Irishman called Aer Lingus and asked how long it took to fly from Dublin to London.

“Just a minute sir,” said the girl on the desk.

“Thank you,” said the Irishman and hung up.

A man hired an Irishman as an assistant to take phone calls. One day the phone rang and when the Irishman answered he hung up immediately.

“Who was that?” asked his boss.

“Some fool saying it was a long distance from New York. I told him everybody knew that.”

An Irishman attended a concert where a ventriloquist who fancied himself as a comedian told about twenty Irish jokes in a row.

“Look,” shouted the Irishman, standing up in the audience, “I’m fed up being insulted by all these jokes. We’re not as stupid as you make out.”

“Please sit down sir and be calm,” said the ventriloquist, “after all it’s only a joke, and don’t tell me that Irishmen haven’t got a sense of humor.”

“I’m not talking to you,” said the Irishman, “I’m talking to the little fellow on your knee…”

A Texan walks into a pub in Ireland and clears his voice to the crowd of drinkers. He says, “I hear you Irish are a bunch of hard drinkers. I’ll give $500 American dollars to anybody in here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back-to-back.”

The room is quiet, and no one takes up the Texan’s offer. One man even leaves.

Thirty minutes later the same gentleman who left shows back up and taps the Texan on the shoulder. “Is your bet still good?” asks the Irishman.

The Texan says yes and asks the bartender to line up 10 pints of Guinness. Immediately the Irishman tears into all 10 of the pint glasses, drinking them all back-to-back.

The other pub patrons cheer as the Texan sits in amazement. The Texan gives the Irishman the $500 and says, “If ya don’t mind me askin’, where did you go for that 30 minutes you were gone?”

The Irishman replies, “Oh… I had to go to the pub down the street to see if I could do it first.”

Two young Irishmen in a Canadian regiment were going into the trenches for the first time, and their captain promised them fifty pence for every German they killed.

Pat lay down to rest, and Mick performed the duty of watching. Pat had not lain long when he was awakened by Mick shouting,

“They’re comin.'”

“Who’s comin’?” shouts Pat.

“The Germans,” replies Mick.

“How many are there?”

“About fifty thousand.”

“Begorrah,” shouts Pat, jumping up and grabbing his rifle, “our fortune’s made.”

Paddy stopped cutting the hedge as the big car drew up beside him and an English visitor enquired, “Could you tell me the way to Balbriggan, Please?”

Paddy wiped his brow.

“Certainly, sor. If you take the first road to the left? No, still that wouldn’t do? Drive on for about four miles then turn left at the crossroads? No, that wouldn’t do either.”

Paddy scratched his head thoughtfully.

“You know, sor, if I was going to Balbriggan I wouldn’t start from here at all.”