Blog #358                                         January 18, 2024

 

Carol and I belong to a country club.  We don’t play golf at the club, but we dine there often.  The club, however, is closed for a week at the beginning of January for rest and repairs and whatever else clubs do when they’re closed.  During that week, several other clubs, in the spirit of camaraderie and bonhomie, grant dining privileges to the people from our club to eat there.  So on Saturday night, we went to a very waspy, Christian club that probably has no Jewish members.  We were one of four or five tables from our club, all Jewish.  I was a little anxious, what with the extremely virulent antisemitism pulsing through our country, but my misgivings were unwarranted.  We were treated as pleasantly and efficiently as possible.  Somehow, though, my suspicious mind was convinced that the staff had been warned:

 

Be calm and polite when you speak

And brush up your serving technique

Just watch your behavior

Then pray to your Savior

That the Jews won’t stay more than a week.

 

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and keeping warm.  It has been a chilling week with temperatures here in the Midwest lower than Chris Christie’s poll numbers.  On Monday, it was -5^o, and the high was +5^o.  I don’t know if that’s Centigrade, Fahrenheit, Kelvin or whatever, but it’s so cold that free-range chickens are volunteering at KFC.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold (Henry VI, Part 2).  Cats get cold too, and when I do, I can always find Pops.  He’s usually sitting in a chair, covered by a blanket and reading some ancient smelly book.  His lap is always warm.  Purr.

 

It’s so cold that I’m reading books about Hell just to stay warm.  Yes, people say that I read a bunch of old and weird books.  I have, after all, read Moby Dick six times.  Paradise Lost by John Milton is certainly old (350 years), but not weird at all.  It is a beautiful allegory about God and Satan, Heaven and Hell, Adam and Eve.  As Satan first comes upon Adam and Eve, he remarks that Adam was made for contemplation and valor, whereas Eve was created for softness and attractiveness.  In other words, men have the brains and the strength, while women are only good for cuddling.  What was Satan thinking?  Hasn’t he heard of Women’s Suffrage and the Women’s Rights Movement and the Me Too Movement?  That’s probably why he was sent to Hell.  Hell is the place where a man goes when he doesn’t respect his wife.  Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to die to go there.

 

With that attitude, Satan could never be elected to public office, although I bet some of you think he was already President once.  No, today, to be elected, you must recognize the worth and importance of women and you must embrace diversity.  In our zeal to appease the god of Diversity, every individual has to be placed in a cubbyhole so that we can keep score.  In every cluster, there must be a fair representation of Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Ethiopian Midgets, Albino Vampires and Silly Old Men Who Read Moby Dick.

 

Weekly Word:   Each week I attempt to teach you or remind you of a word you may or may not have known.  I am a teacher at heart.  Some of you, I know, need that kind of help.  I have a friend who thinks euthanasia is a group of Chinese students and another who thinks a veterinarian is a retired German soldier.

 

It’s good to know new stuff, although nobody ever tells me anything.  My daughter never told me about the parties she had at the house when we were out of town.  Don’t tell my Dad.  My business partner never told me about all the traffic tickets he fixed for my daughters.  Don’t tell Fox.  My wife never tells me anything.  Sit down and shut up.  In fact, I am perpetually on a Doesn’t Need To Know Basis.

But I know a lot of important stuff.  I know that Timbuktu is in Mali and bonhomie means good-natured friendliness.  So there!  It’s so cold that my pet store is selling penguins. 

 

Monday was Martin Luther King Day, which always reminds me of Friday, April 4, 1969.  It was my first job after college, teaching high school math at Kinloch High School in St. Louis County.  Kinloch was an all-black school with not one white student, teacher or administrator.  Except me.  That Friday was the first anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King, and the Superintendent of Kinloch Schools called an all-school assembly for speeches and remembrances during which the vitriolic hatred of white people was often and clearly elucidated.  I was hiding under the bleachers. 

 

 

On page 29 of the Union Prayer Book (that’s a Jewish thing), we are assured that, “There will come a time when morning will bring no word of war or famine or anguish.”  Really?  Well, God in all His glory notwithstanding, I’m not convinced.  Where are the Good Old Days (and I don’t mean the 1950s) when God would smite the bad guys, like the Hittites?  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of smiting and smoting of the bad guys these days.  I guess we live in the No Smoting Section.

 

Thank you for listening to all that; I needed to get it out.  And I apologize to all you Hittites out there.  But now I need to cheer you up, although it’s difficult at this time of year.  To celebrate all this depression, we should all gather at a local restaurant for Miserable Hour, where we can bitch about our health and the price of medications and our daughter-in-law’s parents and why it is that our neighbor is paying $5 less for cable than we are.  That, and half off on the Chicken Parmesan, will make us as happy as we’re going to get.

 

It's so cold, middle-aged women are begging for hot flashes.  And the rest of you are begging for me to go away.  And so I will, but I’ll be back next week.  Stay well, count your blessings and pray for Israel.  I’d say chill out, but it’s too cold for that.

 

Michael                                    Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com