He just had a knack.
I wish I had ten bucks for every time someone described my father as having missed his calling in life. A brokerage operations guy by day, he had God given talent for making people laugh wherever he was—
even in the “cage", the back-office area where he worked as a supervisor, and where his colleagues would bodily shake trying to subdue laughter as they conducted the serious business of transacting stocks. I’m quite certain they never had more fun at work before or after his tenure. And neither did he. After all, it was an 8-hour performance opportunity.
Dom could have (and did have) a group of Kleenex-gripping funeral-goers huddled around him muffling snorts of laughter in the rear of a parlor at Pennsylvania Burial as some poor stiff was laid to rest 25 feet away. The mourners needed their tissues to wipe tears of laughter. “People need levity especially at funerals, Nat,” he justified to me on the way home. Can’t say I disagree. There he enjoyed a captive audience, and no one ever tried to make a polite exit. No one wanted the comedy to end.
Like most funny men, my dad had timing, delivery, broad based knowledge, and physical gesturing. (Michael Richards, Jackie Gleason and Sebastian Maniscalco readily come to mind). He also shared an ability to note, embellish and parody human idiosyncrasies with exactness and a somewhat innocuous delivery. It was all in good humor.
So, in honor of his birthday I thought I’d give credit due to the best storyteller I’ve ever known, my dad, Dom Pantaleo.
