I was at Nazareth Academy...

...in La Grange Park on Saturday for the game against Marist. The Roadrunners, who were up (improbably) at halftime, 14-0, ended up losing to the visitors from Mount Greenwood, 24-21, on a last-second field goal.

It was a beautiful September day and Valenta Stadium, above, turned out to be a very pleasant place to watch a game.

Had Nazareth prevailed I may have felt compelled to see them take on Joliet Catholic this Friday on the road. (I still haven't seen Ty Isaac play.) But now I may have to wait for the playoffs to see the Roadrunners compete again; the Hilltoppers look to be their last good opponent. As for Marist, they host Joliet Catholic on the 21st, but I have a conflict.

So I'm glad I had a chance to see these two East Suburban Catholic powerhouses during the regular season.

After the game, I traveled west on Roosevelt Road to Marianjoy Rehab Hospital (nice place!) to see my Aunt Sue. I had a pleasant visit with her and my Uncle Ed, and just as I was leaving their son Bob and his wife Mary Kay showed up.

The conversation centered around our extended family, and my uncle mentioned that there were two things his father (my grandfather) hated: Roosevelt, and a certain ethnic group which will remain unnamed. (Hint: Irish Catholics are notoriously anti-Semitic.)

That triggered a question I had been meaning to ask for a long time. "What did Grampa think of Father Coughlin?"

"Loved 'im!"

I was afraid of that.

Quickly, my cousin and his wife asked, "Who was Father Coughlin?" (You can read about him here.)

I told them he was an anti-Semitic priest who railed against FDR and other imaginary villains on the radio in the 1930s. "Kind of the Glenn Beck of his day," I explained.

Wrong thing to say.

It was at that point that the doctor showed up and I took that as my cue to hit the road. After exchanging goodbyes, I left but was followed out the door by my cousin's wife.

"You know, a lot of people misunderstand Glenn Beck," she said.

"Huh?"

"People that don't watch him regularly don't realize that he backs up everything he says with the facts."

Uh-oh.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I merely smiled as she went on in this vein, nodding my head and finally saying, "You know, I really have to be going..."

But as I was walking away, I could hear her muttering "...we're all going into another Great Depression anyway."

And I wanted to say, "The only Great Depression was the one that the black Muslim guy in the White House averted in 2009."

But what I really wanted to say was, "Do you think Glenn Beck is serious? Really? Or is it all just a put-on, like professional wrestling? Don't you think he's laughing all the way to the bank?"

But I let it pass. (For the first time in my life.)

And if she had said that Glenn Beck was serious, I would have replied that he must be crazy then. Because -- if you've ever watched him -- that's the only other explanation. And that makes her a nut case for taking him seriously.

But, again, I walked away. And I had a nice drive home with the top down.