Daniel Patrick Brady was chosen.

As the St. Joe hawk, DP traveled with the basketball team to Madison Square Garden for the National Invitation Basketball Tournament.

At the beginning of his senior year, DP Brady received a scholarship from the Jesuit Society of Philadelphia that would cover his senior year’s tuition. The society was investing in DP because they saw in him the makings of a profound Jesuit priest. Under Daniel Patrick Brady’s photo in the St. Joseph College yearbook it said: “A born leader.”

During DP’s last year at St. Joseph, he decided to become a priest. But not a Jesuit priest. A priest of the Catholic church. DP’s father wasn’t thrilled. His appliance business was growing and he was hoping his son would join him after he finished his education.

DP’s father was convinced this religious thing of his son’s would blow over like a nasty summer heat wave when DP was handed his diploma. Flynn Brady had already painted a sign saying BRADY & SON as a surprise graduation present for Daniel Patrick and bought him a nice Bulova wristwatch. DP accepted the watch but not the sign, and consequently the BRADY & SON unveiling on the roof of the store never happened.

It broke Flynn Brady’s heart.

He stored the sign in the basement of his appliance store.

Daniel Patrick Brady was accepted at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary on Lancaster Avenue and City Line, again not far from the family’s row house on Stoneway Lane. St. Charles Borromeo resembled Versailles. The seminary was an impressive collection of immaculate white stone buildings surrounded by a high black wrought-iron gate. St. Charles Borromeo stretched across acres and acres of well-kept formal gardens and hundreds of healthy and well-kept oak and maple trees.

Young Brady was one of one hundred students to enter the seminary. In one of the books he was given to study was written:

The Lord has sworn, and he will not repent:

“You are a priest forever…”

PSALM 110:4

DP Brady turned himself into a dedicated seminarian.

He graduated from St. Charles Borromeo with honors.

In 1999, when Billy Constable was eight years old, he walked over to the Bowling Green, Kentucky, fairgrounds, where the annual county fair was in progress. Billy roamed around watching the rides and listening to the calliope music. He was mesmerized by the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round, the flying saucers, the loop-the-loop, and the many exciting booths.

All of a sudden something stopped Billy Constable dead in his tracks. It was the big hunting knife he noticed hanging above what turned out to be a very large roulette wheel. Billy didn’t know the first thing about roulette wheels or that the knife was a prize. All he knew was he wanted that hunting knife more than life itself.

Little Billy walked up to the man behind the roulette wheel counter and said, “Can I buy that there knife for fifty cent?”

Billy held up his half-dollar to show the man.