It’s with real sadness that I pass along the news that Paul Pagano, AKA Father Time, died at 9 a.m. today, Oct. 21, at the age of 93.
For decades, Paul spread cheer wherever people were – outside a ball park, as a parade grand master, at every kind of fair imaginable. That would have been enough to make him my favorite person in my book The Colorful Characters of St. Louis.
Paul started being everybody’s goodwill ambassador as a way out of despair. After his his wife died in 1979, he withdrew from life for two years. Then he decided he’d had enough, dressed in red, white and blue and started giving out smiles whenever he could. He was still doing it at my book’s release party on Oct. 2. It was his second to last public appearance. He loved showing people the book he got at the party. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.
Jim Merkel the Writer 