Shedding Light on Hanukkah

The forces that put two people in the same spot on the planet have always mystified me. My standing on the sidewalk of an institution for the developmental disabled one unseasonably mild day last month brought a strangely familiar shuffle of feet behind me. Before I turned around, I recognized the shuffle and who it belonged to even though I had not seen this person in about fourteen years.

He greeted, “What is your name again?”

“Joe Tornatore.”

“Joe, I know you, don’t I?” I must have triggered his long term memory synapses because he shot off a short list of people we both knew in the past. Mutual friends quickly turned into a grimace. “I’m worried abut my Hanukkah man. My Hanukkah.”

“Don’t worry about Hanukkah, Franklin. It will be here soon enough. Hey, I thought you were Lutheran anyway.”

Franklin repeated his concern. “But I’m worried abut my Hanukkah man. My Hanukkah.”

I took a half step back to evaluate the confusing situation. While Franklin looked scared massaging his descended belly, his aliterating manner of speech came storming back to my memory banks.

I spewed almost triumphantly. “Now I understand. You have a hernia, don’t you Franklin?”

“That has been what I have been telling you all along. I’m worried about my Hanukkah, man.”

Sometimes even a Lutheran needs some light shed on Hannukkah.