As a half-and-halfer who leaned too much to the gentile side, I might have secretly liked one Jewish holiday — Passover.  To be honest, it’s the only one I knew.  Barely.  “We’re going to Seder dinner at Celie’s,” my dad would announce each year.   Celie was my dad’s younger sister who treated him like the baby of the family.  My dad, known as Duke, and stricken with polio as a child, walked his whole life with a brace & cane.  It was Celie, till she died, who hand made for him the flesh-colored, stretchy compression socks that improved his circulation.  Chappy, my aunt Celie’s husband — okay, my uncle — would conduct a pretty serious, religious event.  He was sanctimonious, no-nonsense, and an easy foil for my fun-loving dad.  I always came starved, but ate very little.

This was a rowdy, boisterous group — a ton of aunts, uncles and cousins that all knew each other well and lived in the VALLEY.  They seemed to include my brother in their group.  Me, not so much.  So, I clung to my dad for comfort, laughing at and enjoying everything he said, hanging on like it was his last day on earth.  That’s how it was with us all my life.  He was an older dad.  Magical.  My hero.  And out there in the Valley I was often petrified.  I secretly longed for that other soon-to-be-celebrated holiday, Easter — with the gentiles. (more…)