Long Time, No Ride/Write

Hello Ziggybackriders! Oh, how I've missed you. So much has happened since last we were together. Unfortunately, I can't write much now, but boy oh boy, when I can...

In the last few weeks, I've been to Washington, D.C., where I met with several Members of Congress and saw some of my favorite sites in this great nation of ours. I have plenty to tell you about that. I have also helped engineer my Temple's celebration of the Jewish holiday of Purim. For those unfamiliar, I will explain the holiday later, but just know that tax season is to an accountant as Purim is to a synagogue youth director. I'm pooped!

An exciting basketball season has continued for me as a player and as the coach of a high school girls' team, the Temple Israel Lady Rabs. They're not bad! It's fun! Speaking of basketball, I have seen less of the NCAA Basketball Tournament than ever before and that makes me sad, as it is my favorite of all sporting events. I will, however, be watching the NIT Semifinals tonight as my hometown Memphis Tigers take on St. Joe's in hopes of continuing what is now a nine-game NIT win streak and securing a berth in Thursday night's championship game.

Early tomorrow morning, I'm off to Houston, TX, which is a city I could mostly do without. Exceptions to that include that it is the hometown of much of my extended family and many of my college friends from UT Austin, and that tomorrow, it is where my father will be installed as president of all the rabbis of Reform Judaism, worldwide. A nice honor and a big responsibility. Glad I'll get to be there!

Okay, that's it for now. Just wanted you to know I'm still alive (which is saying something considering my next door neighbor was shot right outside my condo the other night while I slept. He, too, is alive and well, but I mean... you know... wow!).

See you soon!

The World According to Gum

The world moves so fast. It really does get difficult to keep up with things. The news, technology, diet and exercise crazes, new products - it's almost too much to handle. Sometimes, I think we definitely make it a little harder on ourselves than we need to. That theory was proven true when I went to buy gum the other day.

Even in the realm of chewing gum, the world is spinning out of control. Flavors used to be so simple - fruit, cinnamon, and mint. But we had to make the choice tougher than that. So the mints got divided into pepper and spear. Neither of those names makes sense to me, by the way, but we won't get bogged down in that. Eventually, it became apparent that those beloved old flavors just weren't enough to satisfy the sophisticated tastes of the world's gum chewers.

The big thing I've noticed recently is that all of the gum flavors are sounding colder and colder. I think the move to low-temperature flavored gum must have started with wintergreen. (Again, I don't even know what that flavor is. I like it, but what is it based on? Is that a fruit? A plant? Or did the folks at Life Savers and Wrigley's just get together and make it up?) After a while, I guess wintergreen began to seem stale, so, of course, here comes winter fresh!

But soon our mouths got accustomed to the freshness of winter and the chewing gum industry - always on their toes - responded to this potential crisis with a flurry of wintry cold brands and flavors - Arctic Blast. Polar Ice. Even Ice Breakers. I get cold just walking down the candy aisle now!

I don't know what's next - probably just frozen pieces of metal that we can get our tongues stuck to (like in "A Christmas Story." What a great movie!). I think that would keep our mouths cool. Or maybe they'll start selling little sticks of mint-flavored ice. Now, you'd think those would melt before they even got to you, but you'd be wrong. No, they wouldn't melt. Not with the high tech packaging they're putting gum in now. What's with those individual blister packs for pieces of gum. That's the same kind of packaging as medicine! That's how important chewing gum is in our society. We take care of it as though it has the power to heal. But I guess that in our hectic world, that's the sort of thing we have to do to ease our burden. This way, at least we know our chewing gum is safe. Frosty, therapeutic, and safe!

Am I the World's Strongest Man?

Maybe not, but I do like watching that competition. You know the one. It's on ESPN at like 2 in the morning and it's big guys with names like Lars and Jan wearing leotards and picking up stuff like barrels and small automobiles, and pulling wagons and sometimes even airplanes.

It's pretty crazy.

It is a little better than weight lifting, though, because the Strongest Man guys are at least lifting real things. Weight lifters are just lifting... weight. It was made for no other purpose than to be lifted. If people would stop making it, we wouldn't have to lift it any more. Anyway... my point is that the stuff they lift in the Strongest Man competition is actual stuff, so there's at least some connection to reality.

It's kind of an Amish reality, though, isn't it? Otherwise, how do you explain a man needing to tow an airplane?

"Pardon me, brother. Can thou help me move my airplane?"
"Why don't you just turn on the engines? It'll move."
"I'm sorry, but no. Thy way is not our way. Is anyone here really strong?"

I shouldn't pick on the Amish, though. It's not very nice. Then again, I'd rather the Amish be mad at me than Lars and Jan.