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Luzerne County Courthouse interior restoration begins

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<p>SCRANTON &#8212; So the dad walks into the kitchen during a big family holiday gathering and catches his 3-year-old son standing on a chair with chocolate on his face and hands in the cookie jar, and the boy says &#8212;</p><p>Well, maybe you should have to buy the book to see the punchline, but the Rev. Charles Cummings readily notes it has long been one of his most popular stories both at the pulpit and in smaller gatherings, eliciting loud laughs every time. At the prodding of friends and family, Cummings &#8212; who ministered in Wilkes-Barre and Mountain Top during his long priesthood &#8212; put 61 such stories to paper and had them printed in a book titled &#8220;Love, Laughter and Living Saints.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;Some stories are funny, some are very serious, all of them are local,&#8221; Cummings, 75, said during a phone interview from his current residence in Williamsport. That&#8217;s where he finished out his active service before he reached the mandatory retirement age after his last birthday.</p><p>The book is available at Amazon.com and at several local stores, including Bedwick&#8217;s Pharmacy &amp; Gifts on Hazle Street in Wilkes-Barre. It is also on sale at the new Heaven and Earth gift shop that occupies what used to be the Diocese of Scranton&#8217;s Guild store at 400 Wyoming Ave. in Scranton.</p><p>In fact, Cummings will be at that store Sept. 1 from 5 to 9 p.m. to sign copies. The signing opportunity coincides with the opening of La Festa Italiana staged annually on the nearby Courthouse Square.</p><p>And, no, Cummings notes, he is not getting rich. Only 1,000 copies were printed so far, and he just wants to sell enough to pay production costs.</p><p>A Williamsport native, Cummings attended a Catholic school there before heading off to college and then entering St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton &#8212; a once-thriving diocesan school for future priests that closed in 2004.</p><p>Ordained in 1968, Cummings served the diocese in many places, including St. Mary Parish in Dunmore, St. Jude in Mountain Top, St. Patrick (now St. Andrew) in Wilkes-Barre, as chaplain at Mercy Hospital in Wilkes-Barre &#8212; now Geisinger South Wilkes-Barre &#8212; and Mercy Hospital in Scranton.</p><p>&#8220;They are short stories I&#8217;ve told in my homilies and family gatherings,&#8221; he said. &#8220;My brother and nephew suggested I write them down, and I started to. Then they said &#8216;Why don&#8217;t you have them published?&#8221;</p><p>A cousin who used to work for Grit newspaper in Williamsport edited the stories before a local printing company put them together in the book. Cummings said the effort was surprisingly difficult and took &#8220;about five years.</p><p>&#8220;Writing under deadline is easy. I had no trouble writing church bulletin announcements,&#8221; he recalled. &#8220;But when you just sit down and write, it can be hard, there are so many excuses to put it off.&#8221;</p><p>Asked for a favorite or funniest story, Cummings initially demurred, insisting &#8220;You have to buy the book.&#8221; But he relented.</p><p>&#8220;We were all sitting around the TV, about 10 of us at Christmas or some big family gatherings. My nephew was about 3 &#8212; he&#8217;s one of the guys who encouraged me to write the book. He disappeared and my brother went looking for him.</p><p>&#8220;He found him in the kitchen on a chair at the counter with the cookie jar. My brother asked &#8216;What are you doing?&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;My nephew, without batting an eye and with chocolate all over his face, said &#8216;I&#8217;m getting a cookie for <em>you</em>, dad!&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>That one&#8217;s free. For the other 60, as Cummings said, you have to buy the book.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Did you hear the one about the boy and cookie jar? Priest writes book