Remember When People Read Only Physical Books?

These are dark days for the physicality of books. Sales of physical books are falling further and further beneath the sales of the light and snappy e-books. Brick and mortar bookstores are closing across the nation. Wood and straw bookstores have been blown down by the Big Bad Wolf. Depressing news indeed.

The first book I ever remember reading was Make Way for Ducklings. It was a big, dark green hardcover with a gold seal on the front. I used to take it to bed with me, and hold it under the covers. That was my habit with all my favorite books growing up, and it was not until I was sleeping with Introduction to Statistical Mechanics in 11^th grade that my parents felt the need to intervene.

I was always very careful about my books. I had certain rules. A college classmate once wanted to borrow my copy of Utopia. I agreed to let her take temporary possession, but only upon her following my rules.

“Don’t open the book any wider than absolutely necessary, so that the spine does not crack.”

“Okay.”

“And try not to hold the book too much. Unless you are actually reading it, the book should lie flat on a hard surface, not too close to an open window, in case of rain, and not too close to a radiator. Heat can ruin the laminated cover.”

“Okay.”

“And if you absolutely must carry the book somewhere, hold it in your hand, but only if you can refrain from bending it. A lot of people have that tendency, I’ve noticed, during periods of stress or excitement. If you feel like you are entering one of those periods of stress or excitement, put the book inside of a backpack or satchel, but be very careful. Place it in the bag so that the spine is down and parallel with the ground, so that the corners do not get smushed by the sides of the bag.”

“Um, okay.”

“The best and safest place for a book,” I continued, “is a boofshelf. But bookshelves have their own pitfalls. For example, if there are too many books on one shelf, do not try to squeeze the book in between a small space. Otherwise the friction from the adjacent books as you try to squeeze it in will cause the book’s front and back covers to fold over, and once that happens…” I shuddered. “Just be careful, all right?”

She gave me the book back the next day. “I just couldn’t handle all the rules. I’m going to the bookstore now.” I caught her reading Utopia at the dining hall the next day, with the cover folded over. I shielded my eyes and ran out the door, appetite lost for the evening.

I was not a fan of the Kindle when it first came out. I remember telling my mother how stupid the device sounded.

“I mean, who wants to read a book on an electronic device? You don’t even get to turn the pages.”

“Oh, I think it sounds really cool. How much is it?”

“$349.”

“Well,” my mother said, “I’ll split it with you if you want one.”

And that how I ended up with a Kindle for $349. And I admit, it was pretty cool for a while. I downloaded hundreds of free books—Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare—and marvelled at the library I held in my hand.

“Look, Dad,” I said to my father, “this Kindle holds hundreds and hundreds of books!”

“How many of them have you read?”

“That’s not the point.”

But in the end he was right. I found that reading from the Kindle did not yield the same satisfaction as reading from a physical book. Percentages and locations were sterile metrics compared to page numbers. And somehow I couldn’t shake the feeling that because the book really wasn’t there, but was just a temporary arrangement of electrons, that I was not really reading the book, and that when I shut the Kindle off for the night, and the words disappeared from the screen, the meaning would disappear from my brain as well.

So I’m back to reading physical books. Sure, they’re heavier, and more expensive, and take up space that certain household members believe would be better spent on vases and bowls of plastic fruit. But in this crazy and forgetful world, physical books assure that knowledge, meaning, and beauty are eternal. Just so long as the spine is uncracked.

Posted on 28 July 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 21

Remember Telephone Books?

I was reading The Information, by James Gleick, and came across this passage on page 194:

“[Telephone books] went obsolete, effectively, at the turn of the twenty-first century. American telephone companies were officially phasing them out by 2010; in New York, the end of automatic delivery of telephone directories was estimated to save 5,000 tons of paper.”

What are small children going to sit on when they are too big for high-chairs, but too small to reach the dinner table by sitting on a regular chair? Copies of the The Information? Whatever the effects are, this intelligence reminded me of a story, as told to me by a friend. This is what he said:

“I always thought it was so nice of the telephone company to distribute free copies of the telephone book to the doorstep of each house. Every summer these yellow directories would magically appear, as if to say, ‘Your telephone company loves you.’

“On delivery day, I could see the books in front of every home. But the homeowners, for some reason, were not always that anxious to adopt the books, and often left them out there for a day or two. I smelled opportunity, and one year I went out and stole every copy of the telephone book that had been delivered in our neighborhood.

“Under cover of night I went door to door, grabbing the yellow tome before the homeowner awoke or dog started barking. It was tedious work. I could not carry more than two or three under each arm, and so had to make frequent trips back to my house. I stored the telephone books in my closet, and when I was done there was not much room for my clothes.

“I remember exactly how the telephone books looked in my closet. Five-foot stacks that shoved my pants and shirts aside. The pristine spines glowed like bars of gold with advertisements for personal injury lawyers. I thought about the thousands of names and addresses and telephone numbers of people I would never know. I thought about all of the pizzerias and locksmiths and hardware stores and roofers and orthodontists that were nestled in next to my old sneakers and a stop sign I stole over spring break. I thought about all of the trees that had been cut down to make these telephone books, and that by stealing them I was saving the trees, in a way.

“But what I did not think about was how I was going to keep these stacks of books a secret during a time when I still lived with my parents and did not do my own laundry. I guess I should have thought about that.

“I would later tell my mother, upon questioning, that I did not know why I stole the telephone books. Grown-ups always got annoyed when kids said they did not know why they did something bad. But in my case it was true; I really did not know. It just seemed like the thing to do. The phone books were free of charge, in the open, not nailed down, and easy to spot in the dark. In the summer, when there was nothing to do, this was something to do that did not entail hopping fences.

“With a little less MTV and a little more foresight, I might have told my mother that I was helping train my neighbors for a time when telephone books would no longer be distributed. I was doing them a favor! But instead I gave my stock answer: I looked at the ground and said, ‘I don’t know.’ I thought about that answer as I returned the telephone books to each and every neighbor that night.”

Had my friend continued I’m sure he would have concluded his tale by saying that he learned a valuable lesson; that no amount of midnight mischief is worth depriving one’s neighbors of their means of communication. But at that moment his cell phone rang. He picked it up and said, “Hello?…Really? The Verizon guy just left the modem sitting on their stoop?…I’ll be right there,” and then left, pleading a prior engagement.

Posted on 18 July 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 20

Remember When We Didn’t Have Piles of Chargers and Power Cords?

When I was a kid there was a power outlet next to my bed. I had no need for power strips or outlet multipliers because I only had two devices to plug in: my alarm clock, and a reading lamp that I used to heat up the thermometer whenever I wanted to play sick, just like Elliot did when he wanted to stay home with E.T.

Today, I can’t take two steps in my house without stepping on a power charger or cord. A charger for my Kindle, a charger for my laptop, a charger for my digital camera, a charger for my old digital camera (a Canon ELPH that cost me $500 in 2002 and which now gets the cold shoulder from every current operating system), a charger for the portable external hard drive, a charger for the electrical drill I’m forced to use whenever a blind needs hanging or a neighbor needs a root canal, a charger for the digital camcorder, a charger for the digital speakers, a charger for the steam mop, a charger of unknown chargee—so far behind the buffet that reaching it is not worth the health insurance deductible—and, last but by no means least, a charger of the purest white for my beloved iPhone.

These chargers and power cords congregate in a giant knot by the outlet. My wife dislikes these piles and is always trying to find ways to hide them.

“Mark,” she asks, “what are we doing about that pile of phone chargers in the corner of the living room?”

“What pile? What chargers?”

She pointed to the pile of black wires. If the scene had been out of a movie I probably would have chuckled and then mentally scolded the owner of the house for creating a fire hazard. But I was not in a movie and I didn’t chuckle. This was my life and it wasn’t funny. I explained that we couldn’t just move the wires because they were hooked up to things that could not be moved.

“Now, explain to me again how the modem affects where we can move the phone. We have cell phones. What do we even bother with a land line anyway?”

I told her that the only way that would be possible would be to put something in front of it the entire time, because to move the wires was not reasonably practicable. That would end the discussion.

“Well, smart guy, I guess you’re going to have to stand in front of it the entire time.”

And that’s how I found myself standing in one spot for hours on end, like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, except instead of a busby on my head there was a bowl of Tostitos in my arms, containing at its center a smaller bowl filled with salsa. Our guests come by me and dip some chips. I was amused at how often they succumbed to the pressure to talk to me. Most of them I did not know me that well, and struggled with the awkwardness. A few gave up.

Then there was the time that I tried to unplug my cell phone and ended up unplugging the Tivo, ruining my wife’s taping of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. “That’s my favorite one,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m going to miss it now.” I suggested she put an ad on Craig’s List for someone who taped that episode.

“It’s not a tape. I’ve told you this like a million times. What are you, stuck in the 80s?”

Eventually, the cords and chargers end up in a closet or in the basement. Deep down I know that the exiled cords and chargers will never be used again, but I am too scared to throw any one of them out. To throw out the charger is to throw out the device itself.

I spend at least 12 hours a week untangling the wires for all of the power cords in the living room. There must be a way to monetize that skill. People should want to line up and pay $5 a head to watch me untangle power cords and cell phone chargers.

I suppose, though, that I should not complain about the mess of chargers when the devices do so much. Instant communication, instant information, instant access, instant video, instant gratification—a small unsightly pile of tangled black plastic wires and domestic strife is a small price to pay for such wonders.

Do you have a knotty pile of cords and chargers in your home? How do you cope?

Posted on 11 July 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 6

Growing Old With Derek Jeter

The cover of the June 26th issue of the New York Times Magazine featured a candle that looked just like Yankees’ shortstop Derek Jeter, holding a bat as if waiting for the next pitch from, perhaps, a candle that looked like Tim Wakefield. The Jeter candle was lit, and navy blue rivulets of melting wax ran from the hat down the pin-striped uniform into the butter cream frosting.

The story, titled “For Derek Jeter, on His 37th Birthday,” was about how the Yankees’ captain, who turned 37 on June 26, has been in a type of hitting slump known as “aging.” The fancy scientific reason the beloved Yankees’ captain has not been as productive behind the bat, whether made of ash or candle wax, is because of age-related degradation in his fast-twitch muscles. Jeter now, apparently, requires a full half-second to decide whether to swing at a 90 m.p.h. pitch, rather than the mere quarter-second required in his 20s and early 30s.

I wonder how my fast-twitch muscles are faring these days. I notice that I am not squashing bugs as quickly as I used to. When driving, I do not swerve around roadkill as deftly as I once did. And it now takes me a full two seconds to change the channel whenever that annoying commercial for Progressive Insurance with Flo comes on, whereas I used to change it almost instantaneously.

I remember when my parents turned 37. I noticed that my father was taking a few extra seconds to pull the car over to the side of the road to yell at me for tormenting my brother with the business end of a seat belt. And when I went to the supermarket with my mother, I could swap the Cheerios with Fruity Pebbles before she could turn her head. I felt bad taking advantage of my parents’ aging, but Mariano Rivera would have done the same thing.

All around me I see evidence of age-related degradation of fast-twitch muscles. Insurance adjusters taking a few minutes longer to reject my claim. Cops taking a few extra seconds to flip on their lights when I go flying by them at roughly the same speed as a major league pitch. Even the worker at the deli I frequent—he couldn’t have been a day over 32—did not react quickly enough to my direction of no onions when making my sandwich, leaving me to pick them out myself.

When I was younger I was always very fast at tying my shoes. If I was inside watching television and heard, say, the ice cream man coming down the block, I would have my sneakers on and tied inside of 15 seconds, faster than it took my mother to say that I wasn’t getting any ice cream until I scraped the Silly Putty off the ceiling.

Just the other day I was lying in bed and heard the sound of the garbage truck coming down the block, and I realized, with a panic, that I’d forgotten to put out the paper garbage. Naturally terrified at the prospect of going another two weeks with a mountain of Penny Savers and empty boxes of Count Chocula overflowing the blue bin in my garage, I leaped out of bed and ran downstairs. I didn’t care if my hair was sticking out in several different directions, and I didn’t care if my neighbors saw me in my Spider Man pajama pants. But I didn’t dare go barefoot; that’s a good way to get a splinter.

I tied my sneakers as fast as I could, but something was missing. Like the unnamed scout observed about Derek Jeter, my hands were slower, and my feet were slower. I now know that a hundredth of a second separates not only a line drive to center field and foul tip into the stands, but also an empty blue recycling bin and a full one. As I dove in vain towards the departing truck, I heard the sanitation worker say, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

So to Derek Jeter, I say: Happy birthday, hope you get your 3,000th hit, and invest in some Velcro cleats.

Have you noticed any degradation in your fast-twitch muscles or in the fast-twitch muscles of the people around you?

Posted on 8 July 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 9

Life Without the U.S. Mail

I am saddened by what appears to be the imminent implosion of the United States Postal Service. All that rain and snow and dark of night, and the kill shot comes courtesy of the Internet and an underfunded retiree trust.

: Photo: Aranami

Imagine life without the U.S. Mail. No more kitchen tables blanketed daily with seventeen credit card offers that each must be opened and shredded at intervals lest the shredder seize up. No more catalogues from the previous homeowners to geriatric medical supply companies. No more pleas from alma maters for money on top of the money they are already owed.

What will we do with those extra hours not spent waiting on line at the post office, while one customer devours everyone’s lunch break by reviewing every type of stamp offered to mail a postcard? I’m going to miss gazing through the glass windows with wanton desperation at the postal workers strolling in the background.

Wedding invitations will have to be by email or text. The grandparents and Luddites who insist on living life without computers will have to miss the party. At least they won’t need to be sent a thank you note.

Another casualty will be the handwritten letter. I last received one in 1992 at a sleep-away gulag in the Berkshire mountains. It was from my best friend, and in the letter he described all the cast-away junk he had been smashing and setting on fire in my absence. In the margins he had drawn caricatures of teachers he disliked, set in violent and lewd situations. At night, when I was homesick for a good meal and a bathroom with a closing door, I would re-read the letter by light of my calculator watch. I’d still have the letter today if an ogre in Umbro shorts hadn’t used it to wrap his trout.

Such a personal letter could not be transmitted over email or Facebook today. The most we can hope for are emoticons, “xoxoxo,” and advertisements for Netflix. Perhaps someday technology will allow people to fill electronic messages with stylized handwriting and doodles. Curlicues, flourishes, and hearts over lowercase ‘i’s will return to written communication. Perhaps some genius will figure out a way to transmit the scent of perfume over the Internet. And we think the pop-ups are annoying now.

The only thing missing then will be the stroke-inducing wait at the post office. Someone will have to create a website for that, where your avatar brings a heavy package, and then waits on line during its lunch break with billions of other avatars on their lunch breaks. There will be button-commands for a cross of the arms, an exasperated sigh, and a glare at the unhurried postal workers. And logging in will cost only $0.44.

Posted on 17 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 11

You’ve Been Sued Via Facebook

: Photo: Bill Bradford

Courts in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are starting to allow lawsuits to be served over Facebook. This has got to be the best idea since the Magna Carta. Imagine signing in to Facebook, and right underneath an invitation to “Gwendolyn’s Fourth 29th Birthday!” is “Motion for Summary Judgment” from the parents of the kid who fell off your swing set two years ago.

Maybe they could just dispense with the need for serving a lawsuit and place a “sue” button on everyone’s profile page, right next to the “add as friend” button. “So-and-so would like to sue you for $500,000.00 plus interest and attorneys’ fees. Accept service? Yes-No-Maybe.”

In most jurisdictions, serving the initiatory papers in a lawsuit have the most burdensome service requirements; any papers after that, known as interlocutory papers, may be served by regular mail, overnight delivery, or carrier pigeon. So if a summons and complaint can be served through Facebook, it makes sense to allow other legal documents, like motions and demands for incriminating photographs, to be sent the same way.

But why stop at just documents? The whole trial could take place over Facebook. The judge would have his or her own “Fan Page,” with a photograph of the judge in the upper left-hand corner. The lawyers would post evidence on the page’s wall, and any Facebook user who liked the page, anyone at all, could post comments, such as “ha ha there’s the smoking gun LOL.” The witness’s testimony could be liked as well, and whichever witness gets the most likes would be deemed the most credible.

Turning Facebook into a legal forum would have the greatest utility in divorce proceedings. Freeing oneself of the old ball ‘n’ chain would take nothing more than changing one’s relationship status from “married” to “single.” Divorce papers would automatically be served, via Facebook messaging, upon the soon-to-be ex-spouse. To the extent that the spouses in litigation have friends in common, those friends would be given an option to choose one spouse or the other, so that things are not awkward.

The Facebook staff would have to add a photo editing feature so that people could be untagged and erased from group photographs, and comments referencing the former spouse would be automatically edited to reflect the new-found independence. So a comment underneath a photograph of the former spouses that once said

“You guys make such a cute couple!”

would be changed along with the edited photo to

“Watch out, fellas! Cougar on the prowl!”

What do you think about suing people through Facebook? Is this a good use of social media? What other public goods could Facebook provide?

Posted on 15 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 13

Remember Your First Summer Job?

This year brings a scarcity of summer jobs for America’s youth. It is unfortunate that so many will miss the tremendous learning opportunity that summer jobs present. I don’t know where I’d be today without such opportunities.

My first summer job, other than making spin art and being forced to play kickball, was at for a supplier of home security devices. My task was to assemble and mail marketing materials. The work was routine, and I was soon able to stuff, seal, and put postage on the envelopes while reading the books that my English teacher had assigned over the summer. The system went fine until I accidentally sent one of our paranoid customers a copy of 1984 with our catalog.

The next summer I answered the calling to sell high quality cutlery. We were trained to use the bonds of love to convince our family and friends that the wisest move they could make in their lives was to plunk down $600 for a set of butter knives. If they balked at the price tag, we reminded them that the knives’ warranty could be bequeathed to later generations, like the estates of English gentry. To seal the deal, we would demonstrate that the knives could cut pennies in half, perfect for salad or guacamole.

The most educational summer job was working at a convenience store. My first day on the cash register I produced an error of $900, and the IRS showed up and demanded free Slurpees. There was so much to learn. I had to remember which cigarettes were running promotions and which ones prevented osteoporosis. I had to know the price of every size of soda cup, from the 12-ounce regular to the 20-gallon Mega Gulp that included free use of the store’s dolly. I had to serve hot dogs to customers without scrunching up my face.

Selling alcohol required extra vigilance. Minors would try all sorts of tricks. One time a young man told me he was 45, but that he suffered from a rare disease that made him look 19 and wear his baseball cap backwards. I asked for identification. He said he forgot it at home. When I told him that, despite his condition, I could not meet his request, he threatened to sue me and then pedaled away on his bike. I am still waiting for the summons.

Approximately 90% of our business, it seemed, was selling lottery tickets. A man once gave me a list of six numbers to play, saying that those were his magic numbers. I informed him that, statistically, he would have the same chances of hitting numbers one through six in order, and I showed him the math on a napkin. He dismissed me as crazy. I was about to pull out the calculator, but the line was getting long and people were starting to throw packets of Equal. The next day the man played his magic numbers and the numbers one through six.

My shift was eight hours long with no break for lunch. When a friend of mine saw me snapping into a Slim Jim between coffee station drills, he said that the law entitled me to a half-hour paid lunch break for every eight-hour shift. I didn’t know if my friend was right, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me, and I told my co-workers I was forming a union. That night at home while I stenciled my picket signs, a black car drove by and lobbed stale doughnuts at my front door. I had gotten the message, and took a few of the doughnuts for lunch the next day.

I hope that the economy turns around soon, so that young people can have the same learning opportunities that I did.

Did you have any memorable summer jobs?

Posted on 13 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 15

Mash-Up, June 11: Graduation

This week we review a few humorous posts involving graduation.

Chase McFadden, over at Some Species Eat Their Young, was chosen by the high school he teaches at to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2011. His speech, titled “Go Find Your Rock,” demonstrates how to combine enough meaning so that the graduates go away with something more than a diploma, with enough humor to keep the graduates’ attention while they bake in the blazing sun under dark caps and gowns, wondering when they are going to eat lunch and get money from their relatives.

It reminded me of Woody Allen’s speech to the graduates, titled “My Speech to the Graduates,” first published in the New York Times in 1979. I would have sat under two caps and two gowns to hear the Woodman deliver this speech. I don’t think he would have enjoyed the heat, though.

I saved the best for last. A recent MBA graduate named Debbie posted an eHarmony video in hopes of, I imagine, finding companionship en route to everlasting love and affection. The first 35 seconds of the clip are a little slow, but the content after that makes me wonder how anyone could resist asking this young woman for her number.

And that’s a wrap. Enjoy the weekend.

Posted on 11 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 5

Of Ice and Men

A few weeks ago I came across a story about a turf battle between two ice cream truck drivers in Pennsylvania. Evidently one of the drivers tried to run the other drivers off the road.

: Image courtesy of Roadsidepictures via Flickr

In my investigation of the webpage reporting the incident, I found this comment posted by a “Miss Polly,” the wife of the victimized driver (all quoted material is sic) :

Hi Everyone, this is Miss Polly, I am the owner of the Ice Cream truck that actually called the police because the other Driver ran my husband off the road and almost hit children…The other driver has ran me off the road in another instance last year….[and] is intimidated by a female. I would never let my kids get ice cream off the trucks in our neighborhood b/c they were so scary looking…And so you all know…we are the ONLY ice cream truck business licensed in Uniontown, Pa…the other owner is not licensed and is operating illegally. The permit office is sending him a complaint letter. If you would like to see pics of our truck, us, our children and our fans, visit us on Facebook 🙂

Does anything arrest a child’s attention like the music of an ice cream truck coming down the street? During summer evenings, it did not matter how deep we were into a Monopoly game, or large random hole in the backyard; we would drop our little plastic hotels or little plastic shovels, shake down the closest adult, and run out to meet the truck, screaming “ice cream man” and shoving slower kids out of the way.

As I reflect on those innocent days, when the ice cream cost under a dollar, and could be consumed with digestive impunity, I try to imagine what it would have looked like to see another ice cream truck coming down the street in the opposite direction at the same time.

The first signal would be the music. The same tune would crackle from the trucks’ speakers – Scott Joplin’s ragtime classic, “The Entertainer” – but one measure out of phase, so that as the two trucks converged in front of my home, the dissonance would intensify, signaling that something dramatic was about to happen, and that there would be more than enough Bubble O’Bills with the red gumball nose to go around.

But instead of stopping, the two trucks would accelerate towards each other. Out of each driver’s-side window would emerge a lance in the shape of a waffle cone. The change in my hand would grow sweaty as I watched the ice cream men joust on my street.

Time would slow down. My friends and I would look from one truck to the other, and instead of the loud engine and crackly ragtime, we would hear galloping horses and the drums and strings from the Battle of Stirling scene in Braveheart. And one of the drivers – the one who came everyday, the one we knew and loved, the one who I had shortchanged on more than one occasion and who never called me out or told my mother – shouts to his enemy:

“You may take my route…but you’ll never take my Good Humor!”

Then each lance would pierce the opposite windshield, and the two trucks would collide and be annihilated instantly, like matter meeting anti-matter in a particle accelerator, leaving us kids with a puff of smoke, and a scattered and smoldering pile of Pop Rocks, over which we would fight to the death. Or until our parents called us in, whichever came first.

And to mark the end of an era, we would keep the money meant for ice cream, and never speak a word about it.

Did an ice cream truck grace your neighborhood? Did you run out to meet the truck like your pants were on fire?

Posted on 10 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 9

Is Your Dad Embarrassing?

Yesterday I read a story about a man who dressed in a different costume every morning, stood in front of his house, and waved to his teenage son going off to school. The man did this for all 180 days of the school year.

It reminded me of the times my own father wore a costume. He stopped trick-or-treating for Halloween in his 30s, so I only remember him wearing a costume for Purim, a Jewish festival that commemorates the triumph of the Jews over a Persian named Haman, who had tried to annihilate them with cookies filled with apricot preserves. It is the one holiday where Jews are commanded to drink in addition to sitting through a long reading from a scroll of parchment. And it is traditional to dress up as characters from the Purim story: the beautiful Esther, the resourceful Mordechai, the kind King Ahasuerus. My father dressed up as Pinocchio.

: My father’s Purim costume, minus the cricket

He wore a green Tyrolean hat with a feather sticking out, a white button-down short-sleeved shirt, lederhosen that buttoned up the sides, red suspenders, and a long fake nose. He wore this when we walked in and saw my Hebrew school classmates and their parents; he wore this during the Rabbi’s reading of the Purim story, enthusiastically shaking his noisemaker each time “Haman” was mentioned (as is the tradition…among children); he wore this as he served cake and ice cream to the congregants after the service, saying to each one, “When I’m a real boy I want a Bar Mitzvah with a DJ!”

I’ve often said that males over the age of 10 should not be allowed to wear shorts that end above the knee. My father does not sign on my theory. He wore his Pinocchio costume proudly, frequently swinging his arms and kicking up his legs as if controlled by strings, and seemed unmolested by thoughts of the social consequences to his teenage son.

“Hey, that’s a pretty cool costume your dad has on there,” said a friend.

“What costume? Whose dad?” I said. My friend pointed towards my father while I dove behind a stack of prayer books. I stayed there until I heard the sounds of people leaving and car doors slamming. Soon I heard people calling my name, and I emerged.

“Oh, there you are,” my mother said. “Where were you?”

“I was looking for my self-esteem,” I said. “It had rolled under a table.”

As we walked outside to our car, I hoped to see my father already behind the wheel, sunk down low in the seat like the drivers in Florida. But he wasn’t. He was standing in front of the synagogue, still in full costume, waving to the congregants as they got in their cars and drove away. He looked so happy. And as I looked to the congregants, I noticed that they looked happy, too.

Perhaps I was wrong to be embarrassed. The following year, I picked up a top hat, umbrella, and grasshopper costume, and father and son rejoiced together. And then waved to everyone.

Do you have any embarrassing dad stories? Share them here so I can pretend they’re mine and turn them into blog posts!

Posted on 8 June 2011 by Mark Kaplowitz 10