062 – Fr. Scott Jablonski & Marc Laudonio – Conversion, Vocation & Basketball
July 7, 2022
In this Happy Hour podcast, we’re chatting with Fr. Scott Jablonski and Marc Laudonio about conversion, vocation, and basketball.
Timestamps
- (7:05) Who is Fr. Scott Jablonski?
- (9:28) Who is Marc Laudonio?
- (14:22) Working with your best friend.
- (22:46) How do friends have both a good personnel and professional relationship?
- (38:43) The definitive priest fast food taste test.
- (1:03:53) A real human bean.
- (1:10:38) A vocation of sacrifice.
- (1:18:54) Fr. Scott’s conversion.
- (1:25:49) Two truths and a lie.
Transcript
Ryan Freng 4:07
Hello and welcome back to a another backflip. Happy Hour. I’m Ryan Freng. co creative director here at backflip. Welcome to the Blue Room, aka my office. And joining me as always, we’ve got other co creative director, John Shoemake over here. Hey, say Hey, John. Hey.
John Shoemaker 4:26
Yes, I
Ryan Freng 4:27
turned the correct way.
John Shoemaker 4:29
I was thinking about looking at my background and then I had to think about where and I did it.
Ryan Freng 4:35
You did it. I did not point the right way. You were you were planning a lot better. Got a lot of guitars back there. I feel like we got to talk about that every every time you stream from home.
John Shoemaker 4:47
I haven’t even played in a while. This one’s missing a spring.
Ryan Freng 4:51
Are you going to play them all today? Yeah, altogether. Sweet. So this is a happy hour and Uh, before we bring our guests and we’ll just talk quickly about what we have. Today I’m drinking this our bag. It’s what it is like I lay single malt scotch whisky tenure. Love it. Super kind of smoky and earthy. It’s so good. I can’t wait to drink that. And then I of course have all the other things. I’ve got some Zoa energy, some water, some carb. I’m ridiculous. What do you got?
John Shoemaker 5:30
Well, because of the kind of cold and clammy cloudy weather. I’ve got a pina colada with Bambara rum from Turks and Caicos.
Ryan Freng 5:43
Oh my gosh, that’s amazing.
John Shoemaker 5:47
Some generic cheapo pina colada mix are very nice. The dark room in there
Ryan Freng 5:56
run from the island run off to Vegas. Cool. Well, without further ado, let’s go ahead and bring our guests in and say Hey guys, what’s going up?
Marc Laudonio 6:08
Hello. Thanks for having us.
Ryan Freng 6:11
Yeah, so we got let’s see up in the top left, we’ve got Mark ladonia. And right above me, we’ve got father Scott Jablonski. Thanks. Thanks again for joining us guys. Sure, today. Yeah, so like I mentioned before, this is a happy hour. What do you guys got for me? What are you drinking?
Marc Laudonio 6:31
Well, I have this beer here called the farmer’s daughter from lucette brewery in Menominee, Wisconsin. It is a blonde ale brewed with spices. So you know, we’ve got a little coriander going on there and nice beer for a summer day.
Ryan Freng 6:51
Nice. I like that a lot. And Father, I’m expecting I have high hopes.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 6:57
Well, so I’m the pastor across the plains, and the local brewery here in town is Essers. And so I Essers anniversary ale in my, my Polish sign that I got that this time, like action going on here. There’s a backup. I also have this my other favorite glass streak years out of it’s part of a baseball bat. Because yes, and it’s got my name on it just so the way takes it. Cooking option if I run out of room in my other
Ryan Freng 7:30
sign or whatever. So yeah, hopefully there’s no other fathers Gotcha. Blonsky is roaming around looking for drink receptacles?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 7:36
Yeah, it happens every now and then actually, sometimes I’ll even put on like a chain. You know, sometimes, like when I was a kid, they put their kids on chains and malls. So they didn’t want to get that.
Marc Laudonio 7:45
That’s not true.
John Shoemaker 7:47
More than one person with like, oh, was this my baseball bat glass? Or was this your baseball bat? Zach,
Ryan Freng 7:56
I did get advertised those the other day. And I saw them and I don’t think they’re actually bats that are used. They just use you know, similar bats or they buy them from similar retailers. And then they cut them and make them into really cool drinking glasses.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 8:09
I will say this, whenever I finish a beer, I flip it as if I’ve hit a home run and I
Ryan Freng 8:17
a lot of running going on. That’s awesome. So we are kind of talking today with some friends like we’ve we’ve known each other for a long time. And you know, there’s a lot of story there. But let’s, let’s maybe just get kind of your who you are, what you do. And then we can get into a little bit more about how we all know each other. How’s that sound?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 8:42
All right, I guess someone first um, I grew up in Appleton and went to school and up Madison. It was there that I met Mark, we were RAs in the dorms together. And that was quite an experience. We won’t share those stories publicly. But anyway, right after college, I moved out to Colorado and while I was out there, and it kind of coming back to the Catholic Church was somewhat unexpected for me. And at that point, I thought, well, maybe we need to consider seminary and entered the seminary with ISIS, Madison. I spent a couple years in Rome, four years in the Twin Cities and one year in Detroit. And just to build all my street cred for all the inner city work I’m doing here in Cross Plains. Yeah. I’ve been a pastor here for about 10 months. Prior to that I was in Lodi, Indiana, Wisconsin and part of that water.
Ryan Freng 9:36
Is that a little sense of humor that I’m detecting over there? Are you allowed your priests are you allowed to have a sense of humor?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 9:42
Well, I I’m not sure about that. But I definitely go in from Detroit where there’s like not a single cow in the city. That’s a lie. They’re all slaughtered in burger form. They’re like places where the count of bliss ratios were five to one, but a little bit of a transition, but it’s a happy transition.
Ryan Freng 9:59
I would I would have I’d love to have been one of your guys’s students, when you guys were RAs, I can only imagine how ridiculous that was.
Marc Laudonio 10:11
We did have some good times. That’s for sure.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 10:16
My favorite if I can just say it is when I go to visit mark, and you may, yeah, it’d be when I grew up, there’s a mark on his floor, and I would see applesauce on the wall. And I was like, What’s going on here? And then it dawned on me that there were some guys on his floor that were taking water balloon launchers, and standing at one end of the hallway with apples, and shooting them down into the hallway, probably 100 miles per hour. And Mark was not aware of that, in fact, so anyway, it was on times and you just want to make sure you didn’t duck your head out of the room at the wrong time. So
Ryan Freng 10:52
I thought that sounds about par for the course you share. Mark wasn’t a part of the launching.
Marc Laudonio 10:59
I can neither confirm nor deny.
Ryan Freng 11:04
Nice. All right, Mark. Yeah. Who are you? What do you do?
Marc Laudonio 11:08
So I, I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Ryan’s for blue, although I believe yet well, right. You were like the north side, county ish aspect. I was definitely more in the city. So you know, the Southeast Wisconsin area, but then I too, came to Madison, for school. And as far as Scott said, we met there and became pretty good friends. And I grew up you know, not to get too far into it. But I grew up as a Lutheran and then was like an evangelical here. We’re here to get into it. Okay, well, I mean, I just don’t go, you know, give me Yeah,
Ryan Freng 11:49
give me the, give me the elevator pitch, and then I’ll dig in. Sure. When you do the
John Shoemaker 11:57
elevator pitch, Ryan will pull the alarm and the all stop emergency break and stay in that elevator together. For a while.
Marc Laudonio 12:08
That sounds slightly awkward. But okay. So yeah, I grew up as a as a Lutheran, and in high school became more of a Evangelical, Protestant, Christian. And then, kind of its father, Scott, and I come together, we’re wrestling through a lot of questions about just what does it mean to be Christian? What is the fullest way we can know and love? God, what’s the fullest way we can love other people? And long story short, the more we followed those questions that eventually led us both to embrace Catholicism as this this fullness of this vision of life and friendship with God and seeking to love others as best as possible. And so
Fr. Scott Jablonski 12:55
I did that first. And mark followed me, I just want to clarify that I was for the transmitter. You became Catholic first. Yeah, exactly. So I am more or less at the trend with everything. And Mark, just like, you know, follows me on everything. So for me, there’s a black shirt probably is a decal.
Marc Laudonio 13:16
So as you can see if I just got also excuse me in the virtue of humility. But yeah, in any case, we were both in our early to mid 20s, when we kind of weren’t going down that journey. And I, so yeah, I believe it was 2006 like spring of oh six when I officially became Catholic. And it was also later that year that I married my wife, Julie. And so we have four kids. And I, I worked at the Cathedral parish. I worked at the Cathedral parish, which is like downtown Madison, for about 13 years, doing similar work to what I’m doing right now as the director of faith formation with Father scout and St. Francis Xavier. But I worked downtown a lot with like, worked a lot with young adults, one of the best things we did is something I don’t know, somewhat similar to this where we would we call it Theology on Tap. We went to a bar once a month and had drinks and a speaker and just be able to talk about faith and life and the big questions and kind of cultivate some community, amongst many other things I did there. But in any case, when father Scott became the pastor at St. Francis Xavier a year ago, in summer of 2020. He may have led the way as you said, but then he comes crying to my doorstep saying, I need you, you gotta come with me. We got to code. I need you to help me, you know, make disciples of Jesus and I was like, Well, I gotta consider that but um, In truth, in truth, ever since we kind of walked that road of becoming Catholic together, we thought, hey, one day, it would be super cool to be able to just partner in and working together and trying to share the love of Jesus Christ with others. And so this opportunity kind of arised. And it’s been a wild year, obviously, this past year has been over dynamics and a little difficult to meet people here and there. But I don’t know, I gotta say it thinking back over the course of this last year, for as many challenges as there have been, I feel like the Lord has been good to us. And there’s been a lot of good things we’ve been able to, to start. So yeah, I’m very grateful for our friendship. I’m very grateful that we were able to do this together. And thank you guys for just talking to us about it all.
Ryan Freng 15:54
Yeah, no. And I, I do want to get to kind of the craziness of your conversion story. But I want to, I want to ask this live on air. How good of a boss is your best friend, Father, Scott, and how good of an employee is your friend? Now I know, I’ve worked with Mark in various capacities. He’s one of the most capable people I know, and I’ve loved working with him. But it can always be interesting, you know, especially when there’s kind of like a boss employee dynamic. So yeah, let’s, let’s awkwardly get into that. And, and just live in that for a little while, like, what’s that like?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 16:30
But along those lines, I should probably do Mark’s evaluation right here. Why
Ryan Freng 16:37
is that a post it note that you just pulled out?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 16:40
We’re gonna take some notes. Well, it’s, you know, I think, I don’t know Mark and tell you what’s like working for me as a boss. But I think the way I was approached, being a boss is really wanting to be the type of boss that I would want to work for. And I’m not perfect, they pray for me, I’m in need of constant growth as well. But I think the biggest thing is just trying to treat everybody with respect and communicate as best as you can. And obviously, there was a friendship there between him and before we started working here. But at the same time, I think just trying to, you know, in a sense, kind of build a friendship with everybody that works with me, you know, obviously, I have to still be in a position of authority and illusion. At the same time, I think that work environments is where everybody is collaborating together as a team, very much kind of like a, like an athletic team, you know, maybe there’s a captain on the team. And they have to kind of, you know, Director plays, or whatever. But, you know, obviously, everybody has a valuable role to play. And I can’t make it flourish, run by itself and really needed. I didn’t come crying to mark, but I definitely encourage applying here and between him and the rest of my staff, I’m just really, really grateful for everyone’s contributions.
John Shoemaker 17:55
Good. The captain doesn’t necessarily need to be the best player. Yes. So in this often.
Ryan Freng 18:07
This is super excited about this chat.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 18:12
up so rudely.
Ryan Freng 18:16
Yeah, Mark. What’s it like with this captain?
Marc Laudonio 18:22
Yeah, no, it’s true. Right. So I think I think this is certainly true in the church. And I would argue this, this probably carries over to, to other organizations as well, I would I would propose along the same lines that father Scott mentioned. You know, he used the analogy of like a captain. But I would say that there’s a reason we call priests father in the Catholic Church, because they’re supposed to be this father to this family. And, you know, the family of this parish community that he’s kind of overseeing. And I think, really, the first way someone can live that out is with their staff is to really be a father to that staff. And any good Father knows, there’s going to be like, what you want them to know that you care about them, and you respect them and you want to cultivate what’s best for them and be on this mission together, although you’re kind of heading it up. But as you said, at the same time, you know, the buck stops with you. And sometimes you might have to discipline or, or what have you. But, uh, I think having that perspective is really helpful when you’re a leader of trying to be the father of a family, or the mother of a family, if you’re a woman. And so I think, um, I think that this guy does it really well. He tries to be really intentional about that. And I’m grateful. As he said, you know, stepping into this, there’s neither he nor I knew, you know, the rest of the staff that we were kind of I’m entering into a relationship with and some other new people came on. And it’s because there’s just so much stuff that we were trying to figure out and so many things we’re starting to try to build foundations with. And people to get to know. The fact the matter is, I feel like I spent a lot more time this year with them, with other people with them. Like these two great women, I work with Molly and Laurie, I spent a lot of time trying to get to know them and trying to collaborate with them in what we’re doing in terms of faith formation, and I tried to get to know some of the other staff that were already there. And so it Yeah, I think it was a great gift that we we both had a lot of new relationships to build and work to do, so that we can kind of cultivate that. And, you know, it’s, uh, yeah, that’s just been a really good dynamic. And I appreciate his leadership. I appreciate his straightforwardness. And I think, you know, we’re just having a clear vision of what we’re trying to do. And the mission we’re trying to, to achieve in spreading the Good News of, of Christ’s love for people.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 21:18
I recently saw a quote on the internet. So clearly, it’s a great quote, all about leadership. And you know, some leaders want people to love them. Some people want some leaders want them to hear that. And really, my whole thought is, I want all my employees to be afraid of how much they love me. So really compromising. I’m just kidding. But no, I, once again, it’s been a joy, having Mark working alongside of me and everything. And I think that that’s really how, obviously, you know, in our, in our Catholic faith, Christian religious Christian tradition, we really see servant leadership being at the forefront of all leadership. And I think really seeing Jesus himself like laying down his life for the good of others. And I think that that really is a lot of how I tried to approach things. Really, I think any of us who kind of are part of the Catholic tradition is the number one positions of leadership, how do we kind of give our life away for the good of those who are collaborating with us for the sake of missions? I tried to do that. I don’t know if we’re successful all the time. But it really is what I tried to do. And once we, it’s a great joy to have Mark alongside.
Ryan Freng 22:23
It’s tough. I imagine it’s tough to and we’ve worked with lots of different Catholic groups and religious groups. And, you know, occasionally we run into something where it’s like, well, I prayed about this. So I think it should be this way. And it’s difficult, because it’s like, well, I also have been praying about this project. And I feel like this way. And it’s kind of like, okay, well, when we have these discussions, like prayer is not a reason. Because we can easily disagree on our interpretation of what we’ve experienced. But I’m curious, like, with decision making, and you know, you guys are kind of still like in a honeymoon, maybe kind of like on the, of working together. You know, you’ve been friends for so long that you probably know how to work through disagreements. But it’s been, it’s been fascinating for me to just, you know, go through this with John, and Scott, who were
John Shoemaker 23:18
Ryan, we’re gonna make something something happen here. He’s trying to we’re three
Ryan Freng 23:22
or three equal partners, right? We’re gonna end up somewhere here. We’re three evil partners. And we have to Yeah, you, you just got to trust me, you got to, you know, wait a minute. We’re three equal partners. And so correction can sometimes be disagreed with, right. You know, I thought we should have done this. And we did this. Well, I disagree. I thought we should do this. But I think we’ve gotten you know, in the last seven years, in, you know, maybe last four years, with Scott being a full partner. We’ve gotten a lot better at how we share and work through those disagreements. But it’s always been unique because again, we’re now all equal partners, so somebody might just disagree with you. And we got to try to figure out how to sort that out. Like, how do you guys here we go. How do you guys deal with that? You know, obviously, Father, you’re the captain. You’re the boss man. But like you said, you really gotta lean on the strengths of your your players and your your teammates. Like, what how do you guys kind of deal with that conflict resolution, you know, having a good personal relationship, but then also having that professional relationship?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 24:36
Well, after we moved out to Colorado and market the enemy out there after a month, we learned to work quickly. We’re gonna move out there for a year together and then he moved back to marry his wife, which I can’t hold on to. She’s a very wonderful lady. But no, I think I think part of it is just knowing your own strengths and weaknesses and having the humility of acknowledgement, like, I don’t have every gift. And I know those areas I’m strong in, and I think I’m leading out of those springs, but then also the areas that are not as strong in, you know, turning whether to be mark or to other people who have more expertise in certain areas that I don’t, and really just, you know, asking for their feedback. Once again, using the analogy of like a coach or whatever, like a sports team, you know, like a head coach of a football team, there’s reason he has somebody in charge of special teams, and somebody in charge of the defense and the offense, he can’t, you know, be equally attended to every single aspect of the team. And so I think, you know, the coach kind of knows his strengths, and then puts good people in place to kind of deal with those other areas that he either just is not as strong in or doesn’t have time to deal with. And that’s really what I’ve tried to do with our staff as best as I can, you know, I’ve only been here 10 months, and we’re still kind of thinking through a lot of things. But um, you know, I think in that sense, obviously, some at the end of the day, the buck does stop with me, I know when that ultimately has to make some decisions and others flexibility falls with me, but I would be foolish not to ask Mark, you know, what His thoughts are on things, that he’s got more expertise or experience an idea, or just these more gifted in or whatever. And likewise, with a bunch of the other employees, I have also.
John Shoemaker 26:19
I mean, I think there’s an importance to just not to make too light of it. But there’s an importance to just arbitrarily deciding who will make the final decision. Because like, when you get a group of people together who are working on something, like you just can’t go to like group consensus all the time, because you often can’t get to consensus. So you just need to have somebody. And yes, it’s important to have like, you know, leadership experience. But sometimes like in this kind of comes out, when we’re working with clients, sometimes we’re just like, I just need somebody, you know, I need a point person who’s just like this, we’re just just say which way we’re going, after all this group discussion, this is all good stuff. You can always sort of, I mean, again, like, it’s not doesn’t always work this way. But you can always change your mind, you can always pivot if you made a decision, and then you’re like, I never mind, let’s, let’s go with the other one. You know, but just kind of getting over that hump of like, okay, we’ve got all these ideas circling around. What do we do?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 27:26
We like to cast lots a lot. That’s very biblical.
Ryan Freng 27:32
And when you disagree, you like tear robes in half and stuff.
Marc Laudonio 27:39
About what was that? I said, stones are usually involved.
Ryan Freng 27:45
Yeah, but but I’m not going to be the first one to cast it.
John Shoemaker 27:48
You know, you only you only, you only know if somebody’s really serious, if they come in, and
Marc Laudonio 27:59
yeah, a lot of emoting is happening.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 28:02
One of the things, though, I mean, just with, once again, whether it be work relationships, or wherever I feel like upfront communication is really important, and to try to talk through things. Like right away, as soon as you’re aware of issues. And, you know, I get a chance to work with a lot of couples that are either preparing for marriage, or they’re struggling in their marriage, I mean, their marriages failed. And one of the things I always find with that particular type of relationship is just once again, how important communication is and communication begins to break down, or if it was never there in the first place, how difficult it is to have a strong marriage. And obviously, once again, work relationships a little bit different. But I do think, you know, just trying to have open channels of communication all the time. And, you know, one of the things I try to say is just, you know, my office is always open, you know, when you’re aware of things, either in your own life or on the parish or whatever, like this is talk about it in, you know, throughout every idea we can, because once again, I don’t have all the answers and nobody does it. Let’s just kind of throw everything on the table and then try to like, just make wise decisions and discern like, what is the best path forward. And then to your point, John, you know, recognizing that we might even make some wrong decisions, and that’s okay, too. We can learn from those. I mean, we’re, we’re aware of it not being so kind of proud or kind of stuck to our ideas or attached to like, this was my idea that we’re not humble enough to just say, Okay, I think at this point we need to pivot or something of that nature.
John Shoemaker 29:29
You’re muted, Ryan.
Ryan Freng 29:31
Oh, that hasn’t happened because we’re in restream. It hasn’t happened a long time. We got some comments here. Grant McGurn says Todd Kenley says hi. That’s a fun. Try to follow that.
Marc Laudonio 29:44
Well, yeah, that’s grant is he’s the office manager down at the Cathedral parish downtown. He’s he started working there. Not even a year before before I left and then Todd is like the the maintenance supervisor downtown. And we used to have a good time. We used to have a lot of good conversations and things so man hey guys,
Ryan Freng 30:05
I also like to, I like to think that grant is not saying hi himself. He’s just like, Oh, hey, Todd is saying hi.
Marc Laudonio 30:12
Yeah. And second thought grant. Forget you, man. Oh, yeah. Oh, Father gear declaration.
Ryan Freng 30:21
Yeah, yeah. So I feel like we got to have maybe a priest off with Father Garrett and father Scott here, you know, these are fighting words.
John Shoemaker 30:31
Is that a greater than sign or is that a leads to?
Ryan Freng 30:37
Yeah, Mark has to listen to Father Scott, I think is what it says.
Marc Laudonio 30:41
Well, I guess they’re both true. You know?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 30:44
So Father Garrett, though he’s just a little contentious right now because we’re gonna be in this baking competition together.
Ryan Freng 30:51
Oh, that’s right. Yeah. And Sunday are well at least
Fr. Scott Jablonski 30:54
partially baking with Ryan’s wife Monica on Sunday here and I’m gonna be making bread and baking cake and I’m going to be this baking extraordinaire. And what is that for? For fun? It’s
Ryan Freng 31:08
a fundraiser Yeah.
Marc Laudonio 31:10
Okay, for for what
Fr. Scott Jablonski 31:11
we’re putting the fun back in fundraiser in fact. The line for the last like 20 minutes by the way. Um, no, it’s for the CMF Catholic Diocese of Madison foundation or something like that but okay, okay. Yes. It was a brought making competition for the gear would beat me because he’s like used to like processing meats and putting them in like, you know, skins or something. I know everything sausage, but if
Ryan Freng 31:37
that’s casing Yeah, checks out, put them in skins.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 31:41
I think we’re on equal footing.
Ryan Freng 31:44
Oh, this is great. Here we go. We got some more comments, but I gotta throw this up. Monica says, Bring it bring it Sunday, Garrett. So the gauntlet was already thrown. But now just other gauntlets are being thrown as well. So that’s
Fr. Scott Jablonski 31:59
your birthday though. Yesterday, so we should take it easy. Oh, yeah. Happy
Ryan Freng 32:04
birthday. What are you talking about is yesterday. This is today? Yeah. It’s Athena says converts rock. That’s true.
Marc Laudonio 32:13
Oh, Athena. Yeah.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 32:15
Thanks. Yeah. You know, I don’t know if we’ve ever actually met. But once again, I think you know that your husband and I worked together. We valet parked cars back in college. And that was quite an experience. One of my great college jobs, I think, okay,
Marc Laudonio 32:29
father Scott has had his father’s got by far has the best collection of random jobs that anyone’s ever had. So that’s one of them. He used to sell used cars. But
Ryan Freng 32:43
wait a second. Wait a second. Father, Scott, the pastor used to sell used cars. Is there a joke in there? Somewhere.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 32:52
Joke was I had to do that to make a living.
Marc Laudonio 32:57
You want to know his best job that he’s ever had in college, or maybe I may have even already graduated. But we were still living down on campus and everything. And I think he was still in college. And he was just trying to find some job, any job. And he was always going back and forth between not any
Fr. Scott Jablonski 33:16
job. I was looking for very particular, like high skilled jobs. Yeah.
Marc Laudonio 33:20
Well, because like the worst job you ever had was like he was a perma security guy at Camp Randall. And one day, one day he comes home, he’s like, Oh, my gosh, they got me working the overnight shift regarding the ESPN track. He had to work from like 9pm to 9am Guardian, the ESPN track for game day. And then like, come home and sleep for two hours and then go back and work the game. And we’re just like, Oh, wow. But then so then he finds but the best job he comes home. He’s like, I think I’m gonna apply for this job. I’m like, what is it? He’s like, the freshman girls volleyball coach at Madison West High School, um, like, literally never coached anything or played volleyball in any sort of organized way in your life. Why are you doing this? He’s like, I’m just gonna try. Two days later, he comes home. So I got the job.
Ryan Freng 34:07
And I’m like, Oh, my gosh, life experience.
Marc Laudonio 34:11
I don’t know how he got the job or but like, I don’t know, those girls seem to somehow learn a thing or two from you. So way to go.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 34:20
Yeah, it’s all about bumping setting and spiking. So I set myself up in the interview, and then I spiked it. I don’t know.
Ryan Freng 34:30
Did you did you last the whole season? Like did you guys win any games?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 34:33
Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Actually, my goal going into the draft was, you know, their tryouts was like very nice and tall, tall women like kind of seen in the front and do what you do at the front. And then it sounds
Ryan Freng 34:47
like you know a lot about volleyball.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 34:52
Like if we were sitting at Madison Public Library and like buy a Wii or rented VHS S E on this will use VHS, VHS, VHS and rented VHS tape I’m like the rules of volleyball. Like,
Ryan Freng 35:11
couldn’t you just have found a PDF? Yeah. Like a VHS player. Basically,
John Shoemaker 35:19
this is like, this is like the substitute teacher comes in. And it’s just movie day, like every day of class. So Congress Scott comes in, he’s just like, alright, team, we’re gonna pop it in a movie, let’s pay attention
Fr. Scott Jablonski 35:37
knows that the kids loved me. We were pretty awesome. They found out at the end of the season, like tons of people that applied for this job. And they all had like, way more qualifications than I did. And I still to this day, I don’t know what happened. Like I think the person who hired me like, you know, just like grabbed the wrong application when he was living in a phone call and maybe call somebody else. conversation was like too late and he just was like committed or somehow like
Ryan Freng 36:05
who? This is an important question because this is a happy hour. So Father, Garrett asked, what is everybody drinking? So I mentioned I have this Arenberg Ulay single malt scotch whiskey it’s very good. It’s out I need to get some more. What are you guys drinking?
John Shoemaker 36:23
Cheap. Pina Colada mix with Bambara dark rum from Turks and Caicos. How do you pronounce that? Bambara it’s actually to art so it might be Bambara
Ryan Freng 36:34
Bambara is that checks out?
John Shoemaker 36:38
Boom actually probably Boom Boom Bara
Ryan Freng 36:41
boom Bara
Fr. Scott Jablonski 36:43
you should say the whole bit on this behind you.
Ryan Freng 36:46
Whatever Yeah, well yeah.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 36:49
Cars are here behind you get the job and go
Ryan Freng 36:53
alright, Father, what are you drinking all this has got like a little thing in it.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 36:57
Yeah. So once again, I have the local beer from Cross Plains here afters. Testers Anniversary Special in the spectacular Polska year year’s dine here So really being pretty magical. Yeah, it’s a little weird drinking a German beard Polish mug. We have kind of pretentious history between the two countries. But as it tastes different, I’m really trying to put that into practice here.
Ryan Freng 37:24
Tolerance.
Marc Laudonio 37:25
I’m also wrapping a not quite as local but somewhat local brewery. Lucette is up in Menominee, Wisconsin, and this is their farmer’s daughter, which is a blonde ale with some spices so it got some coriander. It’s a nice and refreshing after you mow your lawn.
Ryan Freng 37:42
Yeah. Which I was gonna try to do today. It’s been raining, so that’s great. Yeah, I got a couple other comments here. From Max rattler curious your thoughts on Tootsie Roll. Sounds like there’s probably like a bad story you can talk about behind this, which is great. Unless it’s a dance like you’re dancing.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 38:01
Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. In fact, yeah. Two weeks, staff members wedding.
Marc Laudonio 38:10
Yeah, Molly are my coworker Molly got married a couple of weeks ago, and we were at her wedding and congrats, Molly. So Ryan, I don’t know. I mean, I know you’re a few years younger than me. And even though you grew up in Kenosha, it was a little bit different. But I grew up in a park and OSHA were when we had the McKinley Junior High socials in those early to mid 90s. That Tootsie Roll was a classic dance that we would get going so Oh, absolutely. Yeah. In that and the percolator and the Harlem Shake.
Unknown Speaker 38:41
No time it is
Ryan Freng 38:44
it’s time for the percolator
Marc Laudonio 38:46
indeed. Oh, man, right. Love it. Yes. Yes. You got those KTown vibes
Ryan Freng 38:55
for so. Oh, my God. I’m
John Shoemaker 38:56
curious to know, Mark, if you ever saw this very. This is very specific talk by John Campbell at St. Paul’s. Where he he used that reference. And it’s time for the speculator. And he like danced in like that’s what I always think of when I hear well, I
Marc Laudonio 39:20
don’t know that but that is I’m quite what is happening right now
Ryan Freng 39:25
is empires want to learn how to do the Tootsie Roll.
Marc Laudonio 39:29
Wow, he’s really getting very deliberate with that.
Ryan Freng 39:31
This is like it’s like a tick tock video. Like all right, turn your legs here we go. Ready?
Marc Laudonio 39:36
He’s just he’s just got to do it. He’s just he’s still a little that’s a little too. That’s not fluid enough, man. I mean, it’s the right eye fluid. Yeah, it’s got to be a little more fluid.
Ryan Freng 39:47
I got a wedding to go to tomorrow. So I gotta I got to learn how to do this. Yeah.
You said please do please make it awesome. I
Marc Laudonio 39:59
think exactly what he said. Yeah.
Ryan Freng 40:02
I really hope your parishioners are joining and enjoying this.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 40:08
I think Mark did become the grand nature and make to Columbus and he can sell Tootsie Rolls and do the Tootsie Roll
Ryan Freng 40:13
while doing the Tootsie Roll.
Marc Laudonio 40:17
Yeah, that might. Yeah, that’s a good marketing ploy. But
Ryan Freng 40:20
that’s amazing. There you go.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 40:23
So speaking I just want to share this publicly as well. Just last weekend, I decided to do the definitive priest, fast food taste test
Marc Laudonio 40:35
is a terrible idea.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 40:36
So within 20 verses
Ryan Freng 40:38
the definitive who, what what
Fr. Scott Jablonski 40:40
the definitive priest has? No, I can’t say definitively freeze fast food taste test. So within 24 hours that went to McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Culvers and got a burger, a small fry, and Akula
Ryan Freng 40:58
did that come with a doctor’s visit? Like,
Fr. Scott Jablonski 41:02
three days to flush my system out? So
Ryan Freng 41:06
I assume your system flushed immediately. No, yeah. Did you? Did you
Fr. Scott Jablonski 41:13
ever think this is the best burger? McDonald’s is the best fry and they also have the best coke. And that’s coming from Greece. And that’s really the grace of ordination. That’s like, a touch. Like, clearly this is like the how it is. I mean, it’s just it’s true. It’s fat.
Ryan Freng 41:33
Okay, you’re also the guy who studied in Rome, and had all that Italian food and was like, I just need a burger. I just need some good Wisconsin food.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 41:43
It’s true. Yeah, I mean, I have a very refined palate, as you can tell.
John Shoemaker 41:48
That’s really great. If it wasn’t so inaccurate, as a as a fast food, kind of sewer. Or no, actually, I’m a common sewer is how you Okay, anyway, the I Agree coke from McDonald’s. Yeah, that’s they put drugs in that or something. It’s amazing. McDonald’s fries are pretty good. But they’re good for like five seconds. And then they’re the worst. They’re the bottom of the pile. They’re the worst. If they’re cold. Yeah, Burger King has a pretty good fry game. Oh, boy.
Ryan Freng 42:26
I don’t remember that. But Burger King was my favorite fries, like through high school in college like this, like secret?
John Shoemaker 42:35
And then do Wendy’s get anything? Any points from you
Fr. Scott Jablonski 42:38
know, I actually took two bites of the Wendy’s burger, and I couldn’t even eat it was that
John Shoemaker 42:44
because it was the fourth burger.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 42:48
That’s probably true, in fact, but anyway, just once again, just public service I provided for everybody and just wanted to share those results.
Marc Laudonio 42:57
I just want you to know, you could have arrived at those answers without having to do that entire thing. I think it’s just knowledge. John Doe needing a doctor’s ending. I mean, honestly,
Fr. Scott Jablonski 43:11
Well, speaking of which, but this is coming from Mark. So we recently went to a brewers Cubs game, he and I and his cool his kids. They’ve never been to a game before. And so we went out there and we’re going to stop and you know, we’re first going to tailgate, but tailgate again. So then I went to a stop at a decent restaurant. And like, I don’t know, we just got lost directions really bad. So we didn’t go to IHOP. And like, it was like the worst three brewers meal I’ve ever had in my entire life. Like, they give you pancakes with everything. By the way, I didn’t know that either. So it’s like, Hey, here’s this like bacon cheeseburger like mushroom tea sauce over and a side of pancakes that Adam Sandler had recently gone to an IHOP and has like, had a really bad service experience. And they made like some sort of viral video or something about it. But ours was like, pretty equal, like the service pretty slow. We’re almost late to the game. And it was I would just also recommend don’t go to IHOP before brewers game.
Ryan Freng 44:08
You don’t want the International House of Pancakes. You want the national house. So you want you want to go to N hop directly. We do have a couple other comments here. Kathy barman says that they can help you make the casing broad so I think we have to have a challenge. We have to have a meet, you know, like a meat cook off. But maybe you choose your own meat like maybe it doesn’t have to be abroad like that would make it more interesting. Like you could pick something that you love and are good at. Father Garrett could pick something that he loves and is good at and somehow charity gets money. I don’t know how that works. But that’s that’s how you amazing and I get to eat the food. Right?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 44:44
Exactly. You’d be the taste. Yeah, thank you. That’s very kind. Well to figure that out.
Ryan Freng 44:51
Let’s see. We got CJ Gron says best
Marc Laudonio 44:59
night yeah. So CJ CJ, I think she works with Father gear right now. Like doing faith formation stuff. But back in college, didn’t she live on your floor father’s guy? No, she
Fr. Scott Jablonski 45:11
lived the floor right above me. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s awesome friends of people on my floor. So she came down a lot and she saw me a lot. You didn’t see you quite as often. Omar. I want to I want to say why you may have had other preoccupations.
Ryan Freng 45:29
What were those preoccupations you center?
Marc Laudonio 45:34
Hey, what happened about nine casting stones first, man.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 45:40
This is a little funny. So Mark, it was March 2. He was a little burnt out. And at the end of that second or the end of that year, my first year, his second year, there was a talent competition that prizes is like a fun thing. And some of the guys on mercs floor did a like a song that they had written all about how they didn’t know who their RA. Because they never saw he was never a rapper. consideration when I hired mark here in Cross Plains, I was like, Mark, like, I might need to see you on occasion. I know you have a history.
Ryan Freng 46:17
You’re just on the other side of the planet is all
Fr. Scott Jablonski 46:22
like other great important things. So it just was what it was. But
Marc Laudonio 46:26
yeah, now hopefully I’ve grown a little bit as a
Ryan Freng 46:31
human being and someone as of last Tuesday.
Marc Laudonio 46:34
Yeah, well, that’s you Right? Um, no. Yeah. But oh, those were those. What
Fr. Scott Jablonski 46:42
are the speaking of other fun things? So, I mean, I’ve shared the story 1000 times, but for everyone who was watching publicly. So when privately when Ryan and his wife Monica were pregnant with their first child, Claire Monica was working with Mark downtown and I was doing an internship that summer. And so I was with sister Jean a beloved elderly sister who was doing homebound in hospital community business at the time. Morning, I got to the church and sister Jean is like Monica is not here today. I bet she gave birth to her baby. I was like, Okay, interesting. No, I barely knew Monica at the time. And you know, I think maybe I seen Ryan like five times in my entire life. Asking whatever. So sister jeans like, well, we’re gonna go to the hospital and bring communion. So I go with her. And we bring a couple of the elderly people who were sick communion in their beds and whatnot. But then sister Jean decides that she’s going to like walk up and down the entire hospital trying to find Monica not even knowing for sure that she’s there. And so she just starts sticking her head into every room is like Monica Monica. Monica has given birth to Claire and so Ryan and Monica are holding their brand new baby. Nobody’s seen them yet. Nobody’s even knowing that Claire is born like David their families. And here’s sister Jean and I like hopping in. Here we are. And one of the more awkward moments of my life. And at that point,
Ryan Freng 48:08
oh, super, though super special, though. You know, like, I can’t remember what the timing was and if we did receive communion or not, but just like that coming in, like that was that was super special.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 48:22
Yeah. I feel a little awkward about it still to this day.
Ryan Freng 48:26
I love that you feel awkward because it you know, aside from us not seeing anybody else and just coming out of it or whatever. Like, that was a super special time. It was not awkward to us. It was it was kind of fun. And it creates a great story.
Marc Laudonio 48:43
Yeah. What I was thinking I should probably mentioned as long as we’re all here. So Ryan and I go back. I mean, even though we grew up in the same town, we didn’t really know each other back then. But um,
Ryan Freng 48:55
yeah, real quick. Bradford pride. So, yeah, so Red Devils. What was what was your mascot Trojans? I guess both of our mascots were terrible. Yeah, they’re both Yeah, mildly inappropriate. We had a lot of good shirts that were not appropriate. Again. So guys,
Marc Laudonio 49:11
yeah, it’s so moving on.
Ryan Freng 49:16
No, I just want to live in this space where we feel awkward. It’s great. Everyone’s loving it. The numbers are going up.
Marc Laudonio 49:24
So like father’s got mentioned, I worked with Ryan’s wife, Monica at the church downtown and the cathedral parish. And we actually so when they had Claire, their first child, me and Julie, our first child Dominic was born six days later. So you know, we kind of traveled through that pregnancy together. And then our first kids were six days apart. And then 10 years later, a couple years ago, we had it was our fourth kid but but your your sixth kid that again were born are suddenly I was born three days before.
Ryan Freng 50:02
Yeah, you guys beat us. It was awesome.
Marc Laudonio 50:05
I so it’s crazy. So two decade or a decade apart, we had a double baptisms downtown that Monsignor homes, the priests downtown was really happy to, to do that. So it’s kind of it’s kind of wild, kind of the history we’ve, we’ve had there, but um,
Ryan Freng 50:22
oh, it’s awesome. And that story is fun, too. Because Monica worked there for a hot minute. She worked at the diocese, and then she got the job downtown. And we went out to dinner.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 50:34
What’s that? She worked at the diocese. Yeah, she
Ryan Freng 50:37
was an administrative assistant. I don’t know if she if it was for a department or what she did so much crazy stuff. Like, we gotta give props to all of our administrative assistants, she well, they asked her to coach and she’s like, I can write a website over here. Like, she would do insane things like, you know, normal administrative assistants, like printing things and coordinating whatever. And then it’s like, can you create this for the website and develop it and like she, you know, she got crazy tasks, which is fun, you know, when you have capable people, you can do stuff like that. But, you know, she has a theology degree. Yeah, she got her Mrs. From was that Ave Maria? College, but, you know, working downtown with Mark, and I can’t remember it was a little into, let’s say, 2008. We got married. So it was probably later that summer or fall mark, you might remember the timing a little bit better. But Monsignor took us all out to eat so that we could hang out. And you know, it was kind of like the first time I thought maybe she started in that summer. So it was right after that. Probably 12 weeks after our wedding. Right? Well, right. Yeah, we were Yeah. Yeah. So we were at dinner and right away. Monsignor, you know, just a very charitable person, there’s six of us or five of us there. And he’s like, alright, well start with two bottles of wine. So we get that and you know, we we love wine. But pour some wine for Monica, myself and Julie and mark. And we are pregnant. So like, it’s our first one too. And so we’re like, okay, no lunch meat. No alcohol. Don’t even look at, you know, a trampoline. I don’t know. We’re just really weird about the, you know, overly concerned about all the pregnancy stuff that they tell you. So, I’m drinking my wine. I’m reaching over and drinking her wine. I don’t remember mark if you were doing that, but but drinks kept coming out. And I picked up on and I was like, huh, because we were so hyper aware. Like trying to hide for whatever reason. It was just early on, that we weren’t drinking. And then after we walked away, and this is like two bottles of wine, and then maybe another bottle, and then everyone gets like the lemon jello shots. I was trying to remember that restaurant was just sammies, right.
Marc Laudonio 53:06
I don’t even know. Like, knew the chef.
Ryan Freng 53:09
Yeah, it was like mussels and fruits. And it was like his favorite place downtown right off of State Street. Yeah. So you know, and then the Yeah, those little shots come out. Monica was so good. String good so much, trying to keep this ruse up. And then we were like walking away. And I’m like, Julie wasn’t drinking anything, either. They’re totally pregnant. And sure enough, that’s how we got clear and dumb. I mean, we had Clearin DOM at that time. We weren’t telling anyone.
Marc Laudonio 53:38
Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty wild. And now they’re in sixth grade together. So
Ryan Freng 53:43
yeah, yeah. And you’re you’re right now at Hm. Because you have to give a puberty talk. Right. That’s amazing.
Marc Laudonio 53:55
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well done. Yeah, you got to coach girls and volleyball. I get to talk to fourth and fifth grade boys about why they’re growing hair in places they never had before.
Ryan Freng 54:08
And they’re gonna snicker and giggle. It’ll be great.
Marc Laudonio 54:11
It should be pretty fantastic.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 54:13
Speaking beer, though. Real quick. I just want to also give a shout out to John and his wife, Amanda. Just last September. I think it is international by a priest the beer day. They’ve dropped off a bunch of beer here at the rectory in Cross Plains. And really, it was a great gift and none of my other good friends did that. So I just want to
Ryan Freng 54:32
wait a second what was this it was national beer day and John
Marc Laudonio 54:37
Yeah, somebody a priest a beer
Fr. Scott Jablonski 54:38
day. Internet. Well, it’s international. It’s not just national. This is all
Ryan Freng 54:42
like every Friday.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 54:47
Sunday’s the day the resurrection Fridays are
John Shoemaker 54:49
far as I know father Scott.
Ryan Freng 54:52
Yeah, it’s it’s probably Monday’s your day off. Right? You don’t want it before the weekend. You got a lot of work to do. So it’s Mondays.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 54:58
Exactly. Oh,
John Shoemaker 55:01
yeah, no, I was just a random thing. I think you I think it was. I don’t remember when you came over across planes, but it was, it seemed like it was shortly after that. And we’re just like, oh, I want you know, like we should. So random thing that popped up Amanda saw, and she’s like we should we should go running around and drop off some beer.
Ryan Freng 55:21
Yeah, I saw that it was like international by a priest beer day. Yeah.
Marc Laudonio 55:25
You know those things are posted all the times. John. Don’t you live kind of out by Cross Plains ish? Yeah,
John Shoemaker 55:32
I mean, I can. I can see the steeple of St. Mary’s and Pine Bluff from here. Okay. Yeah. And then Cross Plains is just a little just
Marc Laudonio 55:42
down the road. Yeah, hop, skip and a jump from there. Yeah. Awesome.
Ryan Freng 55:47
I love that. We are alive, everyone. So please do post your comments, we will answer them or answer the questions even if they’re awkward, especially if they’re awkward, like Tootsie Roll, or other things like that. Please do. Shout out. Father Garrett. He’s got classes to teach. So he’s drinking bourbon.
Marc Laudonio 56:07
I don’t know how that correlates. Like, No, it’s great. I love it sort of going straight for the hard stuff. Yeah.
John Shoemaker 56:15
Well, maybe he’s got a puberty talk to give. So
Ryan Freng 56:20
yeah, I mean, you need a little bit more.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 56:23
Yeah, so the question back in these a fall 2004. I’m aging myself. It’s actually just a question. I’m trying to figure out how old I am. I know how that works,
Ryan Freng 56:35
isn’t it? That’s great, though. Like, I feel like we all like no one could guess our ages. I don’t know. And maybe that’s just because we’re getting older. We look. But like, I mean, that’s not what I’m saying. But like, we just don’t have like, I feel like we all kind of have baby faces. Like we don’t have we don’t have facial hair, or anything that really indicates like our age. I feel like, hey, why don’t you in the comments. Guess our ages? That’ll be fun.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 57:04
weeks or weeks afterwards?
Ryan Freng 57:07
Yeah. Okay. So for those who are old enough, ASL, guess our age, sex and location, you know, like, like an internet chat room.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 57:15
Speaking of a weight though, Ryan like you’ve like lost a lot of weakness last year. Like you’re like exercising all the time, or eating better or something.
Ryan Freng 57:23
All of it. I mean, I eat all the food that I want. I do like the other night, two days ago is ridiculous. At the end of the night. I was like, Okay, I’m gonna have a bar of chocolate. I’m gonna have a little ice cream. And I’m gonna have some popcorn because I needed specific macros. But I have lost in the last three months, about 15 or 20 pounds. Just working on health. What’s that?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 57:49
We should talk at some point because I think I put on those 15 to 20 pounds.
Ryan Freng 57:53
Yeah, yeah, it’s reciprocity. So if somebody loses it, somebody else picks it up. So but
Fr. Scott Jablonski 57:59
I’m trying. Not doing but the problem is Pope Francis said you can’t be a Monsignor till you’re 60. So it’s just kind of frustrating. fatal for another like 20 years.
Ryan Freng 58:10
Well, like doesn’t Father Mike Schmitz doesn’t he workout. He looks pretty fit. You know, like, that’s the thing. It’s for your health and longevity, right? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my trainer was it was a good Catholic dude, or is a good Catholic dude was like he’s gone. My program technically ends this week. So I can’t afford to do it every month. So I’m gonna jump in and like two more months. So I have a plan for the next two months. But he’s a great, great Catholic guy as well. So you do
Fr. Scott Jablonski 58:43
well, is that you do it with a bunch of other people.
Ryan Freng 58:46
Yeah, actually. So here, here’s gonna be a plug for my trainer. Luke Briggs, Luke Briggs, Briggs fitness. That might not be it but Luke Briggs look him up. You can look me up to I think he shared some stuff on Facebook recently. But it’s fantastic. It’s it’s great science backed community based stuff. There’s a great community we check in every Wednesday and we talk about stuff and struggles. And, you know, I’m kind of at the point where I get kind of annoying with stuff. Like we had a great discussion. And you know, we share everything but I’m like, here’s my question. On the back of chicken, or a burger, for instance, it says that there’s 30 grams of fat. Well, I know when I grill that burger, there’s constantly fat dripping and fire starting so how much fat is actually in there? Is that the prepared or the pre prepared macro or nutrient information? Basically, it’s the the before you prepare it. So then I had to research like, how much fat do you lose when you grill and depending on the fat content like on on a 90 Let’s see on an 85 1585 A 5% Lean 15% fat, that’s what I think that’s what it is, you’re gonna lose like up to 30% of the fat when you grill it. So then I got to a to like chicken on the back of the bag when it’s in the freezer or fridge, it’ll say 25 grams of protein per four ounces. When you cook chicken, it loses a lot of water. So how much water weight does it lose? So yeah, I’m kind of at the point where I’m doing weird, you know, kind of measurements and analysis, and it’s
John Shoemaker 1:00:34
on the back of on the back of every chicken I’ve ever looked at. I mean, there’s just more feathers. And I know what you’re doing this information.
Marc Laudonio 1:00:43
But you have chickens. John, you guys raised chickens. No.
John Shoemaker 1:00:48
But it’s it’s John, can you please get eggs? It’s imminent. It’s in my future. I can see it coming. I can’t stop it.
Ryan Freng 1:00:56
How can I buy you? I’ll buy you like chicken feed once in a while. Yeah, and then I get eggs. Yeah,
Marc Laudonio 1:01:05
seems like a fair bartering.
Ryan Freng 1:01:07
I mean, your children have to do all the labor, right? It would be the idea, because you’re not going to do it. You’re too busy working. And I
John Shoemaker 1:01:18
try. I try to I mean, all these things that happen.
Ryan Freng 1:01:23
I try to step away just for a second. You keep going. Andrew is leaving. He’s leaving for Utah, and he’s never coming back. So I’m just gonna jump out real quick.
Marc Laudonio 1:01:33
I mean, okay,
John Shoemaker 1:01:36
I try to I try, you know, he could have like, minimize his like saying or something.
Marc Laudonio 1:01:42
Like, does this guy run a media company or he left
John Shoemaker 1:01:46
like a huge hole in the in the screen? So I try to say, I’m not going to do the work with these things that like, oh, we want to get that pet. I’m not going to, you know, Oh, you want to get that thing? Yeah, sure. But I’m not going to be responsible. I’m not going to do it. And then I ended up doing I have successfully. I haven’t touched the snakes. Rowan’s got two garter snakes, their captivity raised and the girls have have dwarf bunnies to two small rabbits. Okay. I’ve successfully not done anything. I did have to hold them one time when they were cleaning the cage. But can we
Ryan Freng 1:02:35
get things out of those rabbits? What’s that? Can we get eggs out of those rabbits? Only before Easter? Okay, yeah, not after
Marc Laudonio 1:02:44
they’re filled with a Cooney
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:02:47
Center. Yeah, speaking and speaking is a movie taking a retreat here in June, I haven’t had a chance to do that in a couple of years. I’m going down to Alabama where I did my retreat right before I was ordained a deacon, and was out there for my Deacon one I was going to retreat for like five days is going to fly back to Chicago. And there’s really bad weather. So my flight got delayed today. So I had like one day down there to do nothing. And there’s some brothers that kind of run the place down there. And one of the brothers and a couple of like high school boys from like South America that were like discerning or, I don’t know, visiting or something. And they were wearing like these white dress shirts with like black dress pants, it kind of looked like they were you know, going to like a lawyer concert or something. But he made them run through the fields and like Knakal tickets and try to caption so that he could work through them. And there’s this is like the most surreal, weird experience of my life. And then that any butchered all the tickets to like serve for dinner for all the people on retreat and everything there. But I always kind of felt like I was preparing to become an Old Testament, like animal sacrifices rather than a New Testament priests and everything like that. So I’m really excited to go back, but I’m kind of a little nervous to like, Are there going to be like, chickens everywhere. And, you know, as these hands are made for chalices and our calluses, so I’m just like new for like manual labor and everything. So we’re a little nervous about that. That’s your
Ryan Freng 1:04:09
ulterior motive of John having chickens, right? You really want to chase him around. And
John Shoemaker 1:04:14
I’m going to remember the old days, exactly. Every, every few weeks or a few months or so. I’ll just slaughter a chicken and leave it on your doorstep.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:04:25
Along those lines, so there’s a great story from the seminary in Rome and NAC where I studied for a couple of years about a priest I think from Wisconsin who was trying to teach some East Coast guys how to like do that. So they’re up on the fifth floor which overlooks St. Peter’s Basilica. before evening prayer one day, they’re like watching these chickens and like pulling the feathers off, and all of a sudden they realize that they’re going to be late for evening prayers so they run to the rooms change real quick good a prayer. Meanwhile, the rector the priests in charge of the entire Seminary is walking like prospective donors through the entire place. This bloody feathery mess all over and, you know, first, you know, they’re kind of like, are there some sort of like satanic things going on? Like, you know, obviously, your mind just goes to like really like worst case scenario. So became a policy at the NAC that you are not allowed to slaughter live animals. They’re just because a reputation to uphold there.
Ryan Freng 1:05:21
Yeah, the neck. I don’t know if you mentioned it the North American college. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love that I love to hearing that story. And this is I love our relationships. Like, I love being in your guys’s lives and just hearing your past, you know, where you came from, where you are the challenges, you know where that you had and that you are having. And sharing that together is awesome. And I love that we also share that with our families. Like, it’s my favorite thing, father to have you over because I want our kids to be around like a normal person, like a priest, right? So at mass, it looks different, and they’re up there and they’re separate. And then they have to talk to 100 people, and it can be a different experience. But when you’re over, you can joke around with us, you can goof around with the kids, you can show them just the human side, right. And for my boys, right, I want to see that in terms of vocation. I want them to see what it’s like to be a real human being and be a priest. And then, you know, it’s similar, like, Immaculate Heart of Mary. We’ve got the Sisters of Mary Morningstar, and they come over and visit and bless you. I think that’s, that’s just such a fun and fascinating thing for them. But it’s also I feel like it’s also awesome for me, and, and my wife just to be close to, I don’t know, the priesthood or the ordained the life in that regard. And it encourages us in our vocation, which is, I have a title here, conversion vocation in basketball, but it encourages us, like, in our vocation to like, hey, yeah, we, we have struggles, but priests have struggles too. And they do these awesome things. So we should also be able to do awesome things as well. So I feel encouraged even though our vocations are different, just in sharing life together. So that’s, I appreciate that.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:07:32
My biggest struggle is probably with one of my employees. I will go unnamed right now.
Ryan Freng 1:07:40
Just rhymes with FARC. It has to do with the lark, Millau, Dhoni?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:07:53
No, but I think you’re right, Ryan. And you know, one of the great blessings as a priest is to be able to get involved in people’s lives and to be able to go and spend time, you know, with all of your families and to get to know your wives and to get to know your kids and whatnot. And I always think that the church is best when we have, you know, obviously good priests, we have good sisters, and, you know, good married people and just lay people living their vocations. And we all complement one another. And, you know, those days when I get discouraged, or I’m just overwhelmed, and I, you know, realize that, you know, Mark is trying to, you know, run three kids in different directions, like music practices, and sports practices, or whatever, and, or, you know, I am having a day where I’m like, why am I doing all that? I’m doing it I hear, you know, what John and Amanda are doing with their kids are you and Monica do with yours? It just encourages me. So I think once again, we mutually help one another when we’re living our vocations. Well, and it doesn’t mean that we’re all perfect, we’re not saints, yet, you know, they’re not handing out little prayer cards with our picture on. But I think the goal is to keep striving for that, to keep striving to grow in holiness, to grow in authentic love of God and others. And I think we spur one another on just by trying to live the life that God calls each of us to, but to the best of our ability with his health.
Ryan Freng 1:09:06
Monica loves that, too. She mentioned that anytime we’re kind of around people together. Just that comment you made but it’s so true. You know, our kids, our kids are crazy. I mean, adults are crazy, too. But like, their energy is so much and like when you come over there, like flipped me, you know, hold my hands and flip me and then let’s run and I’m gonna punch you and like, all these things are like, Okay, well, you know, let’s respect them a little more. He’s a priest, but they’re still crazy and that you still interact with them and have fun, you know? But at the end of one night at like, nine o’clock, you’re like, Hey, I gotta go. It’s, I think it might have been a Saturday, you’re like, I gotta get up early and just prepare for mass and things like that. And he’s like, you know, our kids had just had dessert and we’re running around crazy. And he just said, Thank you for confirming me in my vocation. And I we love that you know so much because it’s like the same thing. Like you’re you’re saying Seeing thank you for, you know, the work that you do, and how that reflects on me and what I do. And I think of that too, like, with what you do, like, you know, there’s we’re called to different things right? Like, that’s, that’s the idea of this vocation, and, or the idea of vocation. And I just I appreciate that, you know that you said that. And it’s so it’s just so clear that we’re called to different things. We’re called to do different things. And it’s not necessarily that we’re always great at it. But if we listen to that, if we listen to that call, it should be worthwhile and fulfilling.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:10:44
Absolutely. I recently was visiting my sister down in Indiana, her my brother in law eight kids, and it’s great being a priest, being an uncle, you know, kind of in those roles you used to get to go and spoil and sugar kids up and then get to leave. I went down there, and I brought a bunch of sugar, of course, a bunch of candy, and then a bunch of, and I have seven nieces and one nephew, and oh, my god, like this large Tyrannosaurus Rex, if you press the button on the back, like roars, and it’s being shown as tongue sticks out, and it like makes us noise. So my little nephew thought was awesome. He’s just like running around chasing all of his sisters with it. And they’re like screaming and running away. And then I got them this gumball machine. And they’re like, eating like seven pieces at the same time, and trying to steal all them from my other sisters, and just all the things that kids do. And it was so awesome. I loved all them. I love all them, just like I love all of your kids as well. But it was just once again, I totally came back after 24 hours. And I was like, You know what, I definitely am a celibate priest and like this, like, I have to be quiet and everything. So I really am in awe of all of you who are married with kids, I just, it’s not easy raising kids, especially in this day and age. And I just think, especially the three of you. On the screen here, I think you guys are all doing a remarkable admirable job. And I just really am in awe of the work that you’re doing. Because at the end of the day, I still get to go home to a quiet house, where you don’t get to go home to like to do lists, and the kids running around and screaming. And yeah, it just really is.
John Shoemaker 1:12:18
But at the end of the day, there was a friend of mine one time years ago, who was he was kind of in the discernment phase. And he was trying to decide, you know, where he thought he was called. And he was talking about marriage and said something about how, you know, he’s like, I’m not sure, you know, I’m not sure if I’m, if I could handle the all the sacrifice or whatever. And I kind of laughed, and I’m always like, I’m pretty sure whatever vocation you land, you’re going to be called the sacrifice. Like, if you don’t, if you don’t think a priest is sacrificing, you know, like, there’s, that’s just kind of the punchline of it is like, it doesn’t really matter, like everybody, like what we’re called to is to sacrifice, you know, like, we’re, we’re giving our lives for something else that’s like outside of us.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:13:18
So that’s super hard. Like I was actually talking to somebody earlier this morning, even and it’s talking about, you know, love, we’d love to talk about love. But love is really hard to do, you know, when I have to come out of myself, and I have to die to myself, and I have to give myself away, whether it be to my my spouse, and my kids or my parishioners. You know, we all kind of struggle with kind of these moments where we just want to close in on ourselves. But giving and giving and giving to sacrifice over and over and to recognize, to live it authentically human life is to live a life of sacrifice. And that’s what pointed it breaks us per se but just in a way that’s continually stretching us and calling us out of ourselves. And it’s actually we do that that’s where we find fulfillment, but it kind of goes so against kind of our fallen human nature, will we ever want to be comfortable? And to do what’s easy and
Ryan Freng 1:14:11
things of that. Right? Right? Yeah. And I’m listening to this, this book on health right now. And it’s fascinating because I don’t know, the Christian status of this author. But I feel like we’ve kind of cornered the market on sacrifice, and that type of thing, you know, and willpower sacrifice, and giving something up for something better is so unique and somewhat countercultural right now. So you know, we’re called in our faith like as you know, Oh, no. Oh, Luke, there. Marks jumping on his phone because his computer is dying. Here we go. Turn it sideways. Mark. Can you do that for me? We’ll get a wide angle. Oh, no, it doesn’t work does it John. You tried it that one.
John Shoemaker 1:14:59
It does work. But you’ve got to say,
Ryan Freng 1:15:06
oh, you know what, let me try this.
John Shoemaker 1:15:08
It does work. You’ve got to turn it. And then you actually have to like, move the page up, because it’s not a very, it’s not like mobile optimized or something. Then you also have to have your phone set to, you know, rotate itself.
Ryan Freng 1:15:23
Yeah, we got your back. Oh, no, I screwed it up. We were alive. Yeah.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:15:31
Are you gonna
Ryan Freng 1:15:34
sacrifice that computer? I hope you weren’t using a computer in order to do give your talk. But oh, yeah. Okay, we got you. So that idea of sacrificing will willpower and discipline are so important. Yeah. You’re in? Yeah. There you go. You’re a little janky We’ll make it work. Sacrifice willpower discipline are so important. I feel like we’ve kind of cornered the market. And not like, not in a bad way. But in a good way. Because there’s a lot of data out there that says, let’s see. I’m trying to paraphrase, paraphrase what I just read, but you know, operating under discipline and executing your willpower, using your willpower to stave off gratification, will statistically make you more successful, more healthy, live longer, like all this stuff, and it kind of comes down to like, I want that ice cream. Okay, well, let me let me give it 10 minutes, I acknowledged that I want that ice cream, but I’m gonna not let that desire control me. Right. And we, as Catholics, obviously have a lot of training or you know, a lot of teaching in that regard. But now the health folk are also kind of catching up and be like no disciplining your, your mind, disciplining your body, all of that is going to make you more successful, make you more healthy, and do better. So it’s fun listening to this book, and I’m like, yeah, yeah, we’ve been doing that for a couple 1000 years, you know, like, I, I know, when I fail at health or faith, it’s because of discipline or pride, and overcoming that means that I’m going to be a better father, I’m going to be a better, you know, Child of God, would be a better business person. And hopefully, I can live a little bit longer.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:17:46
Yeah, I think it’s really interesting how, you know, there’s a big time moving right now, and like the health industry, all with this intermittent fasting. And it’s kind of funny in the sense that the Church wants to get there a couple of 1000 years that, you know, obviously, the church’s understanding, it’s good for the higher good of like, a deeper spiritual union with God or virtue. We’re in like a health industry, it’s more of just being physically fit. But it also speaks to the fact that once again, we believe as Catholics, our bodies and our souls are united, and what we do in one affects the other and vice versa. So to your point, I agree with you, Ryan. And I think that, you know, you look at as well as Christians, Republican disciples, and you know, the word discipline is connected to disciple. And so just to live a well ordered life is to not be militant in discipline for the sake of discipline, to be discipline, for the sake of something greater, namely, generosity, authentic love, goodness, being able to kindness entering in other people’s lives. And, you know, it really flies in the face of our culture, which is just obviously built on like modern advertising for the last few decades here, we know kind of inundated or bombarded with all of this advertising, saying, you know, just do this now, it just given to this desire here. And, you know, in a sense, wanting to enslave us to kind of every desire that we have, where, you know, the church really holds up a vision saying no, like, you need to ask questions, whatever desire we have, is this desire, actually a desire that’s human and is it from God? Is it going to lead me to a place of virtue and into deeper relationship? Or if I give into this desire is actually just going to continue to enslave we live in kind of our higher pain, so to speak.
Ryan Freng 1:19:39
So we’re at about one hour or excuse me, 1:17pm. The time got away from me. I have a lot more questions. So we’ll have you guys back in a little bit. But I did want to do two more things before we’re done. I wanted to hear father Oh, Mark’s gone. He’s like I’m out. Screw this. I do want to hear kind of that moment of of your conversion and what you did in Colorado, you know who you met who you talk to. That’s a super fun part of your story. And then I think we can do it right after that do a tutus and ally, you know, just so that we can get to know each other a little bit better. So, while marks away, the rest of us will play he’s back. Yeah, so tell me tell me that part of your story. Father, you know, you were considering considering Catholicism and where do you go? And what do you do?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:20:44
So I’m living in Denver, I moved out there right after college once again, and I’m living in Denver, proper counseling, kids that are part of this nonprofit where they came from really broken families. And they were either well, they were living there and went to school during the day. And then we would work with them at night with social workers, and psychiatrists and all that. And so doing some good work and everything, but it was a secular kind of job, and still really wrestling with the questions of faith. I had kind of spent the last few years with Mark in the evangelical world, and really was wrestling with just the big questions of, you know, obviously, there are a bunch of different churches, some religious scholars and said, there’s 30,000 different types of Christian denominations, with obviously holding a lot in common, but also differences. That’s why there’s 30,000. And they’re not all one, and really wrestling just with some big questions in terms of what church goes back to the time of Christ and the apostles. And, you know, what do we believe about communion? What do we believe or who should be baptized, which we believe about particular moral issues and how you kind of think through that, and once again, they’re just, you know, all different persuasions, all these different arguments, and they will use different scripture verses or other arguments to kind of, you know, try to argue their position. And, you know, in the end, it’s like, well, how do you sort through all this. And so when I was in college, right before I moved out to Denver, I that year that Mark and I were RAS or hosts fellows on there was a Catholic girl on my floor. And we had engaged in a lot of conversations about some of the similarities and differences between Catholicism and Protestant Christianity. And so I’m living in Denver, and just still wrestling with kind of some of these things and trying to figure out the next step in my life. And, and all of a sudden, one day as I’m kind of sitting at this coffee cup, just kind of with all these kind of questions I’ve been thinking about over the course of a couple years, like little notes that like scribbled a thing, if I’d read an interesting passage, either theologically or historically, or scripturally. Like, note, like if I had an extra napkin at the time, I’d read it on that if I had like a piece of paper, a post it note, I’d write it on that. So it kind of had all these things laid before me at this coffee shop. And I just like had this moment where I’m like, I think the Catholic Church is kind of what I’m looking for. I think there’s the theology there satisfies all of these questions, which was really kind of hard for me to come to grips with. They just didn’t expect myself to be there. And so I thought, well, I need to go to a Catholic mass and kind of like, see all this figured out and know is the Catholic Church what it claims to be. And so I went to Catholic church I knew at the time was downtown, and it would drive idle and kindness living down there. And it was a febrile so I went to Sunday evening mass at the Cathedral and I sat in the back I had Catholic sensibilities, you don’t want to get too close to the altar even back. Yeah, and I’m kind of just taking everything in and watching everybody else stand and kneel and cross themselves. And you know, all of that. And I’m like, Alright, I need to talk to a priest. And so as everyone’s leaving after mass, and the churches being closed up and locked up and wait till pretty much everyone was gone. And sorry, I talk with my hands. You can tell I lived in Italy for some time. But anyway, I kind of am Leaving and I see somebody at the back of church and I go up, I’m like, you know, are you a priest? Do you work here? Can I talk to you? And it was Archbishop chap, you Charles Shafie, who’s the Archbishop of Denver at the time, wearing the bishop’s mitre and Crozier and all that and, you know, not having been the immersively Catholic. Well, they didn’t know what bishops dress like. And
Ryan Freng 1:24:24
you’re like, Are you a janitor? What?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:24:28
You know, is that to like, beat all the people away. We’re like, trying to
Ryan Freng 1:24:32
but are you corralling sheep? What’s going on here?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:24:35
Chickens may be crawling chickens. But anyway, so we end up getting together over the course the next few months, confirm me and after answering a bunch of my questions, and at that point, I was confirmed practicing Catholic and I wasn’t married and it just seemed that I needed to kind of wrestle with the whole summary question at that point. And so so I did and efficient Morlino the bit Shiva Madison at the time, graciously accepted me I have a really fun story cancer that’s very real quick to the First Amendment Bishop. Oh, we had seminarians studying in Denver at the time. So I had to do the vocations office back here. They said, you know, Bishop Morlino is going to be in Denver. I was living in the mountains this year, that point. So can you drive down from the mountains? Meet Bishop Morlino to go to dinner, and he’ll talk to you? Yeah, absolutely. So I had this red Dodge Neon that I had been driving in the mountains of Colorado, and I would hit like patches of ice and snow and so the entire front bumper is like falling off of this car and I have like duct tape holding it together. And so I park as far away as humanly possible from the seminary, because they don’t want the bishop to see like this is go kart I’m driving more or less. And I’m just like, right in the off like this guy can’t into the seminary. And so I park and I walk all the way up to the summer and I meet Vishal Morlino and we’re gonna go get go to dinner, and I just presume he’s got a rental car. And he’s like, Scott, you don’t mind driving? Do you? Just like you’ve got to be kidding me. So I have to figure out how I’m gonna like approach the car with Bishop Merlino from the back so we can see all the duct tape holding the bumper together as we begin the car, and there’s just no way I can I mean he sees the cars a disaster but he gets in. And then this was right before everyone started have GPS devices. So he had printed off Mapquest directions to this restaurant. So good. Yeah. But they gave us wrong directions. So we got lost like three or four times and we’re like doing like why turns and like back alleys and everything. We finally get to the restaurant, I’m just I’m so embarrassed by all of this. And then he insists that I take my car to the valet to have them park it. And I’m like Bishop, we’re gonna have to leave a tip that’s like, greater than what the car’s value is worth to have them park his car. But he’s just like, No, this is what we’re going to do, Scott. And we did that we had dinner and the rest is history. But um, it’s kind of a very first funny or very,
Ryan Freng 1:26:54
you know? That’s awesome. So Mark is gone. He’s gone forever. At least until next time, his phone died, his computer died. It’s the first time he’s been on the internet. Apparently. That’s fantastic. You don’t have
John Shoemaker 1:27:11
any he doesn’t have electricity where he?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:27:17
Operator here with the filth and most of his work.
Ryan Freng 1:27:20
I’m amazed that you allow him to continue on that typewriter.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:27:25
Well, I mean, only so often, but
Ryan Freng 1:27:29
All right, so here’s what we’re gonna do, we got a couple of minutes left. Often we will do teachers and ally and we will all say teachers and alive but I want to respect your time and everybody’s time at home. If you do have questions, you can throw them in there, we can maybe get to one or two afterwards. But we didn’t give you any time to think about it. So I want to give you a second to think about your tutors and Ally tutors in line. We’re going to then see who gets them right. So you’re going to tell us three different stories. Very briefly.
John Shoemaker 1:28:05
I bet he doesn’t need time. He seems like the kind you probably don’t need time. Yeah. So wise very fast.
Ryan Freng 1:28:13
To have your truths. Or excuse me, you’ll tell three stories. Two of them are truths. One is a lie. And we have to figure out and the people watching at home has to figure out which one is the lie. And anyone who gets a right. I’m going to write your name down and you’re gonna get some backflips swag we have we’re actually making coasters. So it’s very appropriate for a happy hour to have coasters. So if you get it right, you will get a coaster So continue to interact and guess a low Yeah, what I can do are other wrap up while you’re thinking. I’m good. If Are you know what? Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I figure you gotta have a good memory as a priest. So.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:29:01
Okay, here we go. Three stories, right.
Ryan Freng 1:29:03
All right, three stories. One is a lie. Who knows?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:29:07
Okay, the first is I was flying to California where my aunt used to live when I was in middle school with my family. And when we were there, I ran into Kevin Bacon at the airport, which I thought was really ironic given, you know, there’s that full Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing and I felt like I was not going to be like, one degree away from him and be able to be used in that whole thing. So all my friends back in the day and I just kind of thought, you know, I’m not gonna be a part of every story. So that’s one. The second is when I was in fifth grade, I was practicing like, three quarters long shots for basketball, like standing like at one end of my driveway and just like, you know, times expiring, you have to whip the ball from one end of the court to the other. And if you do that, you make it you know, you all the fame and glory and all that. So I did that and I let go of a shot. And as soon as I let go of it, I knew it’s gonna be an airball, so I started running after it, it hits the portal dead on It bounces back. I trip on it and I knock myself unconscious in the driveway. And my mom, like wonders where I’m at because it’s time to have dinner and my sister says, Oh, he’s just playing dead in the driveway and my mom comes out I’m like, knocked unconscious. Oh my
Ryan Freng 1:30:14
gosh.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:30:16
One is back when I was in college at UW, one of the players who played on UW, the UW basketball team, the Badgers basketball team. I actually bought Bucky Badger boxer shorts for as a Christmas gift, and I think he may have worn them someday.
Ryan Freng 1:30:37
Say that last one again.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:30:39
So one of the players on UW is basketball team. I bought Wisconsin badger boxer shorts for him as a Christmas gift. And I think he may have worn them one day so I bought underwear for a basketball player on the Badgers.
Ryan Freng 1:30:55
These are great. I’m thoroughly impressed in your skill at this game and also a little bit scared. Remind me not to play? What was it mafia with you? Or like one night werewolf? Exactly. I think you would destroy us. So please do guess at home. Let us know what you think. So the first one is flying to Colorado. You ran into Kevin Bacon at the airport, California.
John Shoemaker 1:31:19
Oh,
Ryan Freng 1:31:20
I wrote the downright fun fact. One of my three degrees away. I acted in something in college with a woman who went on to act in something else that somebody he acted with, acted in with was in so 1233 I’m three degrees away. It counts and number 2/5 grade practicing long shots of basketball airball. He ran tripped yourself knock yourself unconscious. That’s amazing. UW and third ones UW basketball team bought badger shorts. underwear for somebody on the team. And they may have worn them. You don’t know.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:32:03
I didn’t ask.
Ryan Freng 1:32:04
Yeah. All right, John, what do you think in here? And at home, let us know what you think. You can win swag. I tell you what, anyone at home? If you answer I’m gonna write your name down and you’ll all get swag.
Oh, no. I can’t hear you. Can you? There you go. You’re back. I
John Shoemaker 1:32:30
feel like I’ve heard the Kevin Bacon story before. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a lie. It seems like the one that would be the lie. But and just thinking about how crafty you are. The other two are like local personal stories. And then the Kevin Bacon one seems like there was no way. I’m gonna go. I’m gonna say the the underwear basketball player.
Ryan Freng 1:33:04
All right, so you’re guessing number three. We’ve got a couple of guesses in here. And guess what, Meg, you win some swag. We can hook you up with more than just a coaster to
John Shoemaker 1:33:17
also your account because we’re there. One, two and three, not ABC.
Ryan Freng 1:33:24
First of all, second of all, a third of all, one, two and three. So we’ll we’ll call that a one. Father Garrett says Kayode is not true. That’s a good one, too. I figure. I’m gonna go with number two as well, just because it seems like a story that somebody’s told you. And I would love for it to be Mark’s story. And not yours. And I think you would totally buy some underwear for basketball team member that’s the one you picked. Right, John? That’s what I picked. Yeah, yeah. And then the flying to California ran into Kevin Bacon. It’s not super relative. So it seems like a random story that you’re telling. So John picked number three. I picked number two, knocking yourself unconscious by the Garrett number two mag number one anybody else? So you have like five seconds to get your vote in. We do have like 10 people or eight people watching live right now. So you got you got 10 more seconds to let us know. You’re sure. What’s that? Yeah. This is fun. No, it’s fine, too, because it’s like other friends that we like to hang out with that watches all this stuff and interact. So it’s so much fun. So we’ve got let’s see. Sorry if I’m mispronouncing this wrong, Desi. Yeah, do you think All right, so we’ve got a little bit of everything number one, number two and number three. Chris, let’s see. We got to know their answer, Chris, I gotta write these things down. Says number one. There’s a lot of people who say number one. Alright, Father, what is it? What’s the lie?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:35:10
Answer is I never ran into Kevin Bacon in an airport.
Ryan Freng 1:35:15
Oh, wow. So Desi Chris mag,
John Shoemaker 1:35:23
it was too easy.
Ryan Freng 1:35:24
You all got it? Do you know somebody who did or do you just make that up? I just made it. Nice. All right, sorry. I’m writing this down. It makes for a really good TV when I’m writing stuff down to do this. Actually.
John Shoemaker 1:35:39
I’ve heard I feel like I’ve heard the story before. But we weren’t I don’t think I’ve ever played two truths and a lie with you. So did you lie to me before or?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:35:53
Sorry, John, if somebody else has told you the same lie, then I’m sorry.
John Shoemaker 1:35:57
Could be Yeah.
Ryan Freng 1:35:58
So you knock yourself out, huh? That’s
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:36:01
right. I literally knocked myself out. My sister just on either left me. And just like, you know, 10 mins later. My mom’s like, where’s your brother? And she’s like, oh, yeah, he’s just laying in the driveway pretending his dad, my mom comes about after like, go to the hospital have a CAT scan, like it missed a couple of days. It was pretty rough. And literally still this day. I’m like, my sister was just gonna let me like, stay there until the vulture started picking up my flash or something.
Ryan Freng 1:36:25
And then you sent underwear to a basketball player.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:36:28
Yeah. So one of the basketball players went to my high school. And my freshman year at UW, he was filling, or maybe it’s even my sophomore year. He was still in high school and he was on his way to come to UW to play on a scholarship. And his mom wanted to get him UW badger boxer shorts as a Christmas gift. And so his mom knew somebody who was friends with my family and long story short, like three or four different connections. I got asked to go to the UW bookstore and violate boxer shorts with Bucky badgers based on or this basketball player. They eventually played for the badgers and was pretty successful for them. I don’t want to say who it was was kind of embarrassing, but I did buy an underwear and I always wondered like when he was dunking if he was wearing the boxers that I bought him.
Ryan Freng 1:37:14
That’s awesome. It’s probably the only only way that we win is was when we buy our favorite athletes. Underwear. Right? Exactly. All right. Well, it’s 135. So that’s, that’s our time. I do want to give you a second if you have anything you want to promote. I mean, you guys are doing awesome stuff out there. In Cross Plains. Is there anything you wanted to share? You guys have anything coming up soon?
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:37:42
Oh, no, really, I think I just uh, one thing is obviously this coming Sunday’s Pentecost. And so I think we just obviously want to pray that all of us open ourselves back up to the Holy Spirit and live a life in cooperation with him. If you’ve never seen before, go on YouTube and type in Pentecost and Pantheon in Rome, where they have videos of all the rose petals falling from the hole in the pantheon, which kind of symbolizes the tongues of fire falling down upon the early church is one of the things they miss a lot from Rome is just really, really beautiful. But yeah, other than that, you’re always welcome to visit us and Cross Plains. I’d love to have you come and stop by and join us for a master. He’s locked for some time and working out in Las Vegas kind of hanging out with everybody.
Ryan Freng 1:38:27
Awesome. Thank you so much. And coming up. We’ve got let’s see you next week. Brent and Peggy Hoffman. Then after that the guys from who gohealth Also that company that I should write down. onesies. Oh, Father, Scott, I’m totally gonna buy you a onesie an adult onesie from this company. What’s it called John?
John Shoemaker 1:38:44
Forever lazy?
Ryan Freng 1:38:45
Forever lazy? Yes, that’d be amazing. That would be a great Christmas present.
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:38:50
Even I feel like you can read I think they’re more depicts his personality. You and
Ryan Freng 1:38:55
Mark will have the same one, I think and then not to wear them together to the Christmas party. We’ll get a collar on it. So we got the hookah health and forever lazy group coming up and then a patchy Dan forth, who works with paradigm. And then shortly after that, we’ll actually have Rob Perrow the namesake of paradigm. He’ll be coming in and hanging out with us. That’s what we’ve got. Do you have anything else John? You wanted to share? I’m I’m right. I asked this every time it’s like you’re unprepared. Fantastic. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Father. Thank you Mark for joining us as well. Sorry, your computer ran out. You got older couldn’t make it charge or whatever. This was a blast. Like I said before we got so far and I didn’t ask a lot of the questions I want him to so we’ll save those for part two when we when we have you guys back. That’ll be awesome. Thanks again. And
Fr. Scott Jablonski 1:40:00
thanks guys everyone All right
Ryan Freng 1:40:03
thanks everyone for tuning in we’ll see you next time bye
