The Riley boys, Tom, aged eight and Jack, ten, were the talk of the town. Basically, they were fairly normal boys, but had a knack of getting into trouble. So much so in fact, that if anything happened anywhere in town, everyone knew it was the work of  the Riley boys.

Their poor mother was driven to distraction by their antics and sought help from the Pastor. She told the good cleric that she had done everything possible to straighten the boys out, but to no avail. The Pastor agreed to talk to the boys, but that he wanted to see them one at a time.

The next morning at 10, Mrs. Riley sent the eight year old Tom over to see the Pastor. The good
man brought the young lad into his office, sat him down in a chair, saying nothing for a few minutes. The young lad sat sullenly with his eyes cast down, wishing that he was anywhere else than in the Pastor’s office.

Finally the Pastor asked, “Where is God?”

The poor boy almost parted company with his skin, but said nothing. A bit later, in a somewhat louder voice, the Pastor repeated his question. Still no response from Tom.

Finally, in a very forceful voice, the Pastor once more demanded; “Where is GOD?”

That was too much for the lad; he jumped out of the chair, bolted out of the door, ran home and hid himself in a closet. The older brother, Jack, noticed this and opened the closet door and asked his little brother what happened?

Tom replied; “I don’t know, but God is missing and they are blaming us.”

With thanks and gratitude to Peter Katims, who died in 2009 after many years of community work and service, doing way more in the Byron area than pass on funny jokes like this.