Tag: family

Hold You

February 3rd, 2026

There are times when out grandson, Asher, wants me to carry him. That is usually not a problem. He’s just over five years old, and he tips the scales at just over forty pounds. The thing that I have to keep in mind is that, with each passing day, Asher is a bit bigger, and I am a bit older. At some point, perhaps soon, I won’t be able to carry him. That’s just reality.

Last night was a rough one for Asher. He sleeps with me. He has done that for years, and he dozes off with his heavy head lying on my left bicep. When he came to bed yesterday, his legs were hurting. He had been playing and kicking a lot earlier in the evening, but I don’t think that’s why his legs were bothering him. He has sudden growth spurts, and when those occur, his legs ache. Sometimes, the soreness is mild. Last night it was fierce. He quite literally had growing pains.

Asher fell asleep in my arms, but he was awake again after only an hour or so. He was crying and moving around. I got up to find him some Children’s Tylenol. My wife and I asked him to take the Tylenol for his pain, but Asher wanted no part of it. He doesn’t like to take pain meds. That might be a good trait for later in his life.

Eventually, Asher settled down and slept again. About two hours later he was up again, once more crying. My wife came to bed to comfort him. Asher laid between the two of us. The tears flowed for a while, and then he calmed down and slept.

This cycle went on for most of the night. Asher would sleep fitfully for a while, then wake up and cry because of his aching legs. Each time, I held him close as he wept. I could feel his body slowly relax and his sobs fade away. I couldn’t think of anything to do anything to ease his pain. I could only hold him so that he would endure it. He did.

The last attack came before 3:00. It wasn’t as intense as the previous bouts of pain. His body was finishing its work extending his bones and muscles. Asher eased on to my shoulder and closed his eyes. He finally slept peacefully.

I stayed awake. I stared at the skylight and thought about the words of a song:

“I can’t carry you forever, but I can hold you now” – lyrics from, Hold You Now by Vampire Weekend

Making it Work

January 24th, 2026

I visited my friend from the synagogue a couple days ago. We did what we always do: sit around, drink a beer or two, and commiserate. It is a cheap form of therapy, and it works. We try to meet for a session once a week if we can.

One of the topics in our discussion was my friend’s upcoming fortieth wedding anniversary. He was wondering out loud what to do to celebrate the occasion with his wife. Forty years together is not as big a deal as fifty, but it is still a major milestone, and it should be recognized as such. My wife, Karin, and I had our fortieth in August of 2024. I told my friend,

“Karin wanted us to get a blessing from our priest during Mass, so we did that.”

My friend thought that was absolutely hilarious. He was imagining an Orthodox rabbi he knew marrying him and his wife in a Jewish ceremony and he burst out laughing. As a note, his wife is not Jewish and has no intention of ever becoming Jewish. I can see how my example of how to commemorate a wedding would seem absurd.

However, my point in mentioning the blessing in church wasn’t really about celebrating the anniversary in a religious way. It was about celebrating the event in a communal way. Yes, Karin and I wanted the priest to pray over us, but we also wanted a public display. We wanted other people who knew us to share our joy (and surprise) at making it for forty years as a couple.

I could write a long essay on how to make a marriage (or any other type of relationship) work, but I would be talking out my ass. Honestly, I have no idea how Karin and I made it four decades. Our struggles were numerous and sometimes overwhelming. My words and actions often made it more difficult for us to stay together. Yet, somehow, here we are, still married after nearly forty-two years. It’s amazing.

I want to go back to the communal aspect of a relationship. For those who are film buffs, you might remember a scene from The Godfather where the young Michael Corleone marries his Sicilian bride in her home village. In the movie the couple has a wedding procession through the little town and are surrounded by boisterous well-wishers. I mention this because Karin and I had a similar experience on our wedding day.

We were married in a small centuries-old chapel in her hometown of Edelfingen in Germany. We walked at the front of a procession through Karin’s village from her parent’s home to the church. Friends and neighbors cheered for us. I had my pockets full of candy and pfennigs to toss to the little kids lining the Strasse. It was a communal event.

Why were the people shouting and waving? Well, Edelfingen was a sleepy little community, and our procession was a show, like having the circus come to town. On a deeper level, I really believe that the people gathered there cared about us. The unspoken message was, “What you are doing is important. It matters to us. You matter to us.”

American culture considers marriages and other intimate relationships to be private affairs that are nobody else’s business. To an extent that is true, however, to make a relationship work in the long term, outside support is needed. A couple usually cannot do it on their own. Other cultures make it clear that the health of a marriage has a powerful impact on the entire community. We have lost that sense of being part of a larger whole. In America it’s raw individualism with little thought for anybody else, and we are poorer for that.

Christmas Cards

December 21st, 2025

I send Christmas cards. Lots of them. I think that my wife and I have mailed over seventy cards this year. I have posted most of them. Almost every day I wrote notes in some cards, put stamps on their envelopes, and dropped them into mailboxes.

Why do that?

The main reason that I send out Christmas cards is because I like doing it. I suppose that is the main reason for me to do anything. In this case, I do it in order to maintain the tenuous relationships I have with far-flung friends and family. I write cards to people all over the world, and with some of them I haven’t seen their faces or heard their voices in decades. Yet I still feel a connection with them. Sometimes we get responses to our cards, but often we don’t. Writing a card is a lot like putting a message in a bottle and tossing it into the sea. The recipient might get it, and they might read it, and they just maybe might write back. Writing and sending physical messages is an anachronistic practice, one that is nearly lost in our age. However, it a means of communication that has soul. There is something almost magical about sending or getting a handwritten card.

It should be noted that I am choosy about what kind of card I send to an individual. Some folks are very focused on the religious aspect of Christmas, and to those persons I usually send a card with a Christian theme. However, I know Jews, Muslims, Buddhist, and atheists who don’t give a hoot about the birth of Christ, yet they celebrate during the season. They get other types of cards. My Jewish friends all got Hanukkah cards. We are celebrating different festivals, but they long for the same things: love, joy, and peace. I try to express similar hopes and wishes in the cards I send to other non-Christians. My family celebrates Christmas, but the message of the Incarnation is universal.

I know people who are insistent that Christmas be solely about Jesus. These are the ones who believe there is a secular war against Christmas. There may in fact be a war, but the real enemies of the holiday are consumerism and greed. Christmas has always been tied with paganism in some way, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Years ago, we had a real tree in our house and burned real candles on it. That’s a very old German tradition that harks back to pre-Christian times. Christmas has a deep connection with ancient feasts that celebrated the winter solstice and the rebirth of the sun. The holiday is fundamentally about the return of light and warmth in a world that has become cold and dead. The symbolism is all around us this time of year. I have only to look out my window and see all the Christmas lights trying to bring a bit of joy to my part of the world.

When I send a card, I write a message in it tailored to the recipient. I seldom just scribble my name on a card and call it done. Do others actually care what I say? Maybe not. I think they realize that some effort has been put forth. I hope the recognize that I give a damn.

Peace on earth.

Screen Time

December 10th, 2025

There is a meeting this afternoon for caregivers of kindergarteners at our grandson’s school. The topic is “Media and the Effect on Child Development”. My wife and I have thought a lot about the subject. We try to limit Asher’s screen time. It is a struggle to do so. He loves to watch YouTube videos, and he would watch them all day if we let him. We don’t. He gets no time online during the school week, and only a couple hours of it on the weekend. Sometimes, it is very tempting for us to allow the screen to act as a babysitter for Asher, especially if we are busy with other things. If Asher is not watching videos, then he is demanding our immediate attention. That can be exhausting.

The subject makes me remember our vain efforts to keep our own children away from the TV a generation ago. In some ways it was the same fight. Back then, Karin and I simply refused to even own a television. We were absolute Luddites about it. People offered to give us a set, and we wouldn’t take it. Needless to say, out three kids nagged us incessantly about not having a television in the house. We held fast, but they slowly wore us down.

I can recall one evening when I was lying in bed reading a book. Our eldest son, Hans, had his bedroom next to mine. That night, as I was reading, I heard strange voices emanating from Hans’ room. I chose to investigate. His door was closed. I went inside anyway.

Hans was staring at his Gameboy (does anybody remember what a Gameboy was?). He had somehow converted it into a miniature TV. It had a makeshift antenna and a microscopic screen. I admired his initiative and ingenuity. However, I felt bad that he needed to watch his shows in such a furtive way. It was like I was a member of the Stasi who had suddenly discovered that his teenage son was secretly watching programs on the BBC during the Cold War days. I let him watch his show.

Eventually, we bought a television. I think it was as bribe to get our daughter to clean her room (she did it once). We tried to fight the good fight, but I am not sure our efforts had much effect.

I don’t watch anything on online anymore. I find it nearly impossible to function in a room where there is a television playing. My attention is irresistibly attracted to the glowing screen. Movies are the worst. After watching a video, especially with intense scenes, I suffer an emotional hangover. I used to like watching films, but now they always feel overwhelming to me. I avoid all types of motion pictures.

So, I read.

Not Home for the Holidays

November 30th, 2025

“All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?” – from “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles

Three of us sat at the dining room table for Thanksgiving dinner: Karin, Asher, and me. Our holiday meal was simple. We had chicken, a green bean casserole, zucchini fries, and a yogurt dessert that Karin had dreamed up. I think Asher, our nearly five-year-old grandson, actually ate mac and cheese, but at least he ate with us. Karin and I have three children. None of them were able to be with us on Thanksgiving. Our tiny gathering in no way resembled the Normal Rockwell painting from The Saturday Evening Post in 1943. I suspect that almost no Thanksgiving dinners look like what Rockwell idealized.

Thanksgiving is a strange beast. It is officially a secular event with all the trappings of a religious holiday. It commemorates the first Thanksgiving in 1621 when Pilgrim colonists in Massachusetts shared a feast with members of the Wampanoag tribe. The original gathering has a symbolic and mythical status. The current holiday is supposed to be an occasion for people to share food with others and express gratitude for what they have. It is also an opportunity to overeat, binge-watch TV, and then buy unnecessary consumer goods the following day. Thanksgiving is a day full of contradictions. As such, it is profoundly American.

Karin and I said a Christian prayer before we ate our meal with Asher. Then we recited a Japanese Buddhist verse that we learned from our friends, Senji and Gilberto, long ago. We chanted “Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo” three times, and then we joined hands with Asher and said, “Froelich heisst beim Abendessen: Guten Appatit!” (a German phrase that Karin learned as a child that roughly translates to: “Happy means at dinner ‘have a good appetite'”.

Years ago, before Asher entered our lives, I used to go with a small group of people from the American Legion to visit patients in the psych ward at the local VA hospital. We went there every Tuesday evening for a couple hours to spend time with the vets. Around the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas, the ward was packed full of patients. Holidays that emphasized being with family and friends were particularly painful for veterans who had no loved ones. The loneliness that these vets could somehow keep in check during most of the year overwhelmed them, and they wound up in a hospital ward loaded up with strangers who felt equally forgotten. I’m glad that I had the chance to spend a few hours with these men and women. We shared our common humanity for a little while, and I learned things from them.

Our culture and our technology encourage us to remain isolated. We need to be physically together at least once in a while. I give thanks for Asher and Karin for being in my life every day. I look forward to being with others too.

Carrie

October 19th, 2025

Carrie Zettel is dead.

On October 12th, Carrie was killed by her daughter. The young woman bludgeoned her mother to death with a rock in the backyard of their home. The killing was all over the news, probably because of its particularly gruesome nature. My wife, Karin, and I didn’t know about Carrie’s murder until a couple days later. The funeral was yesterday, Saturday the 18th. Karin attended the service. She went there because, years ago, we knew that family quite well.

Two of our children attended Tamarack Waldorf School with Carrie’s two kids. She had a son and a daughter. Her son was in a class with our youngest boy. Both of our families lived in the southern part of Milwaukee County, which is far away from the Waldorf school, so we carpooled to school nearly every day. We did that until our son and her son graduated from Tamarack in 2008. After that, our paths diverged, and we lost contact with each other.

Every death is a tragedy, but some deaths defy understanding. Apparently, Carrie’s daughter has a long history of mental illness, so perhaps the killing was not completely unexpected. But still, how does a person wrap their head around this kind of violence? How does Carrie’s son deal with this? Is it even possible to come to terms with trauma like this?

I don’t know. I have never dealt with a death of this sort. The closest I’ve come is when our oldest son went to war in Iraq. He killed people there, and I have had difficulty accepting that reality. However, my experience is like nothing compared to what Carrie’s son has to process.

My wife told me that the funeral service was well done. The son gave an eloquent eulogy about Carrie. Another person mentioned to me that the son “stood tall and spoke well of the new commandment” (“Love one another” from John 13:34). I thought that maybe I should’ve gone there with Karin.

I had another place to be when the funeral was in progress. My friend from the synagogue, Ken, had invited me a couple days before the funeral to come to his home for kiddush, seeing as it was Shabbat, and his wife was out of town. I had already told Ken that I would come to share the meal he had prepared for us before I knew anything about the time and date of the funeral. It was impossible for me to tell Ken that I had a funeral to attend. Since he is an observant Jew, he does not communicate electronically at all on the sabbath: no phone calls, no texts, no emails, nothing. I couldn’t just not show up. So, I went to Ken’s home and kept him company for two hours. I needed to do that. We ate, we talked and enjoyed each other’s company. Shabbat is a gift from God, a day for rest, prayer, and friendship. Nobody should be alone on Shabbat.

I told Ken about Carrie, and we talked about her at length. I am sure that Ken prayed for her. Even if I wasn’t at the funeral, I remembered her.

She was good woman. I grieve for her. I grieve for her children.

Old Men Talking about a Boy

October 13th, 2025

The old man sat across from me in his apartment. His wife had gone for a long walk when I arrived. Maybe she needed some air, or maybe she just didn’t want to be part of our conversation. I can understand her wanting to be elsewhere. It wasn’t a terribly pleasant discussion, but perhaps it was a necessary one for us to have.

The elder and I were talking mostly about my grandson, Asher. The old guy, who is my father’s age, couldn’t understand Asher’s strange behavior in their home when we came to visit a couple weeks ago. The old man is a Ukrainian Jew. I know him from the synagogue, and we have been close friends for several years. He has had a hard life by any objective standard. He and his grandfather fled to Kazakhstan just after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Both of his parents were officers in the Soviet Army during the war. The old man knows all about hunger and poverty. He knows about fear, having grown up during Stalin’s regime. He’s experienced raw antisemitism. He immigrated to the United States with his wife after the Soviet Union collapsed and attempted to start a new life here at the age of sixty-five. The man has been through hell.

Asher had behaved badly while we were visiting the old guy and his wife. The man and his wife love Asher dearly. They really do. The man had found a small model school bus to give to Asher as a gift. At first Asher wanted it, but then he got annoyed and frustrated. He refused the present. I told Asher that we would take it home with us. The little boy got angry and argued with me. He became more and more upset, to the point where I couldn’t control him. The man’s wife had prepared a lunch for us, and Asher saw nothing that he liked. Eventually, he ate a single slice of bread and then we left. I did not take the toy with us. I think at the end Asher gave the old guy a hug, but overall, the visit was painful for the elderly couple.

The old man talked about that visit with me. I would have preferred to forget the entire episode, but he didn’t want to do that. He asked me,

“Don’t you think you should teach Asher to be grateful and thank people for gifts?”

I apologized for the fact that Asher had been rude to the man. He went on,

“No, I don’t mean just to me. That is nothing. I mean in general; shouldn’t he learn to be polite?”

I told him, “Asher is a wonderful boy. He is a good kid.”

“Yes, yes, of course he is. But he must learn how thank a person.”

I thought to myself, “Yes, he should learn that.” Then I said, “We try to teach him that, but he has been through some terrible things already. He has been through a lot of changes, especially with the new school. He struggles to control his feelings.”

The old man asked me, “What feelings?”

I replied, “He’s scared.”

“But scared of what?”

“He’s lost people in his life already. It’s hard for him to be with strangers.”

The old man said, “But I am like his uncle. I am no stranger.”

The truth is that almost everyone is a stranger to Asher. He has me, my wife, and his mama. That’s it.

The old man softened his voice. He told me,

“My wife and I, we often talk about you and your family. We know it is hard for you.”

I nodded.

He said, “I think of you as a beacon to your family. I think I am using the right English word. You have to show the way.”

Do I show anybody the way? If I am a beacon, I often have a dim and flickering light. I try to figure things out, but I am in the dark.

The old man continued, “You have to keep things together for your family. You have to do this for Asher, for your wife, for his mama.”

I don’t want to be the one to keep it all together. I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if I am strong enough. But if I don’t, then who will?

There was no more to say about Asher. We both stood up. He shook my hand and put his other hand on my shoulder. He said,

“We think of your family every day. You are always in our hearts. You understand?”

“Yes.”

“Tell the boy that his uncle will have another toy car for him the next time he comes.”

“Okay. I will.”

I haven’t told Asher yet. He needs time. So, do I.

What Does Minnie Say?

September 10th, 2025

Our grandson, Asher, has been in kindergarten for an entire week. It seems like much, much longer. I take him to school every day, and then I usually hang around in the school’s neighborhood, because it makes little sense for me to drive all the way home and then make the arduous journey across town a second time. There is plenty for me to do while Asher is in class. He is at school from 8:00 AM until 12:30 PM. While he is busy learning, I can write letters, drink coffee, take long walks near the lake, and engage with impromptu conversations with strangers. The first conversation of the morning is often with Asher as we fight rush hour traffic. Asher doesn’t really want to know what I have to say. He wants to hear from Minnie.

Asher has a toy, one that looks like Minnie Mouse. It is a large object, and Minnie rides shotgun in the passenger seat as I drive Asher to the Waldorf School. Asher insists that Minnie wears a seatbelt. He also insists that I answer any questions that he might have for Minnie. For almost the entire trip, Asher is asking me,

“Grandpa, what does Minnie say?”

Asher is relentless in his interrogations of Minnie (me). It just goes on and on and on. He’ll ask,

“Grandpa, what does Minnie say about the weather?”

“Minnie says, ‘It’s cool, but the sun burning off the fog on the fields, and the trees are starting to turn color.’ “

Then Asher cries out, “The leaves on that tree over there are already bright red!”

Then he asks again, “What does Minnie say?”

When I needed to merge into heavy traffic, I told Asher,

“Minnie says that Grandpa needs to watch out for the other cars so that we don’t get in an accident and die.”

That comment had little or no effect. Asher continued to query Minnie and only stopped when he noticed that I was running out of breath. Then he asked me a question.

“Grandpa, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Grandpa, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Because, Grandpa, you got to be okay.”

He’s a perceptive boy.

Today Asher was okay with going to school. Yesterday he fought it tooth and nail. He screamed as we came to the school building yesterday morning, “I don’t want to go to school!” Fortunately, the early childhood coordinator, Martha, was on hand to rescue me. As I was literally dragging Asher out of his child seat, Martha came to take him out of my grasp. She smiled, sighed, and said, “The honeymoon is over.” Then she carried Asher away in her arms as he cried out to me.

Martha smiled again and told Asher, “Say bye to Grandpa. We’ll see him again after lunch.”

Her words implied that I should make myself scarce as soon as possible. I did. A few minutes later, as Asher waited outside with his classmates for school to start, I caught a glimpse of him. He was just fine, calm as could be. He quit protesting as soon as I was out of sight. I was no longer available for negotiations.

Asher went to class. I walked next door for a black Brazilian coffee and some well-deserved quiet. It seemed like a really good idea.

“What does Minnie say?”

Funeral

September 6th, 2025

Yesterday morning I dropped off my grandson, Asher, at the Waldorf school. It made no sense to me to drive all the way back home since I need to pick up the boy in four hours, so I wandered around the east side of Milwaukee. I decided to walk from Brady Street south on Van Buren to the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist. The cathedral is the heart of Catholicism in southeastern Wisconsin. Sometimes the heart seems to be suffering from arteriosclerosis, yet it still beats. Many years ago, when our kids were at the Waldorf school, I would often hike down to the church. Somehow, after nearly a quarter century, the journey yesterday seemed significantly longer.

The doors of the cathedral were unlocked. Way back when, the place was always open during the day. During the winter months, homeless people would huddle in the rear of church, often sleeping in the pews buried in their overcoats and caps, just trying to stay out of the bitter cold for a while. When I walked into the sanctuary yesterday, there were no homeless folks, but there was a funeral Mass in progress. A woman handed me a pamphlet describing the liturgy. I took it and sat down in the back.

The Mass was for Thomas “Tommy” August Salzsieder, a person unknown to me. The priest was in the middle of giving a eulogy. I wondered how well the priest knew Tommy. I have already been to funerals where the presider knew almost nothing about the deceased, and his speech was basically a work of fiction. The priest described Tommy as a man of faith, and that “his life was not ended, just transformed”.

I also wondered about that comment. What does “transformed” actually mean? Looking at the assembled mourners, I noticed a lot of people with grey hair or no hair at all. They were all elderly, my age. We are all in the batting order for this transformation of our lives. The priest talked about heaven, a concept that I simply do not understand. When I was young, I thought heaven was someplace where God pats you on the head and gives you a cookie for being a good boy. Now, I have no idea what it is. Honestly, heaven does not sound terribly inviting. I would be okay if the end of my life was like when they put me under anesthesia for surgery. Nothing. A void. A blank screen.

I thought about Tommy, and frankly I envied him. His work is done. He no longer needs to fight or struggle in life. Life is beautiful and glorious at times, but it also literally exhausting. Tommy can rest now, whatever that actually means.

The liturgy was a work of devotion. I could tell that. The cantor did a soulful rendition of “Panis Angelicus” from Cesar Franck. A funeral can be inspiring if there is love involved, even love that is buried in grief. I have been to funerals where it was obvious that the service was the result of reluctant duty. People went through the motions hurriedly in order to get the dead person deep in the ground as quickly as possible.

A while back my therapist gave me an odd question. He wrote and asked,

“What do you want Asher to remember about you — not what you did, but who you were?”

I have no idea. In a way, the question seems irrelevant. I won’t care what Asher remembers when I’m dead. I’m pretty sure of that.

However, what Asher remembers may very much matter to him. His memories might affect the trajectory of his life. Will he remember when I was angry and impatient? Will he remember when I had his back? Will he remember when I failed to listen to him? Will he remember that he received unconditional love from me?

But I’m describing things I do, but not who I am. I don’t know who I am, not really. Maybe Asher will have a better idea of who was when I’m gone than I have right now.

I hold Asher in my arms at night so he can sleep. When I die will a meta-parent hold me in their arms? Will God whisper to me,

“I embrace you now. I have always embraced you.”

Santa Claus-of-Color

August 23rd, 2025

On Thursday morning I took Asher to see his therapist. He goes every week to get help for a number of things. The boy is only four and a half years old, but he’s had more than his fair share of trauma. Asher spent an hour with his clinician, and then I came back to the office to collect him at the end of his session. He wasn’t quite done, so I sat around and talked with Eli and Dr. A. Eli is the office manager and Doctor A runs the whole show.

Doctor A smiled at me and said, “Frank, only four more months and you are going to be our Santa Claus.”

I need to explain this. Three weeks ago, I was sitting in the clinic’s office and Doctor A remarked on the luxuriant growth of my beard. I do have a decent beard. I’m bald as an egg, but I can grow a beard. It reaches down to my breastbone, and it is mostly white and curly. Doctor A, out of the blue, asked if I would be Santa Claus at the clinic’s holiday party for the kids. I thought about it for a moment and said, “Yes”. A life changing decision.

I had thought that maybe Doctor A had been kidding me about the Santa gig. She was not. The woman was deadly serious. I’m committed. I have never been a Santa, and as my wife told me, I would be a rather grumpy one. However, it is my time in life to be St. Nick for children that are involved with the clinic.

When I came to pick up Asher on Thursday, Dr. A start talking to me about the Santa thing again. Eli made comments too. They both seemed much more excited about this event than I am.

Doctor A said to me, “We are going to have to feed you. Now, when you are the Santa-of-color, we need to give you soul food. Frank, what do you know about soul food?”

Whoa…back up. It needs to be noted at this point that Eli and Dr A are Black. The clinic has an eclectic ethnic population, both with regards to service providers and clients. Asher and I are very white. So, how the hell am I going to be the “Santa-of-color” for these kids?

I have been thinking about it. I’m white, but I tan well. Right now, considering my facial features, I could probably pass for somebody from the Middle East or North Africa. Many years ago, When I first met my wife in Germany, she was absolutely convinced that I was Turkish. In the German culture, at least at that time, Turks were considered people of color, and not in a positive way. Could I be an Egyptian Santa? Egypt has some Coptic Christians, and I know a smattering of Arabic. By the time Christmas rolls around, I will be pasty white again. I’m sure as hell not going to try a Trump fake tan. This is just bizarre, but I’m still going to be Santa.

Back to Doctor A’s question. I replied to her, “I like BBQ.”

Both Doctor A and Eli shrugged and groaned. Bad answer.

I tried again, “I’ve had collard greens. I like red beans and rice.”

They both smiled. I had some minimal street cred.

Doctor A talked enthusiastically about soul food. She asked me,

“Frank have you ever had the mac and cheese? You know, the kind that Black people make?”

“Uh, no.”

Eli grinned and said, “Oh Man, it’s got that crispy layer of cheese on the top.”

Doctor A told me, “Frank, it’s goooood. You got to try it.”

I was getting hungry. I hadn’t had anything for breakfast, and these people were talking about food to die for. Fortunately, Asher appeared, laughing and jumping around. It was time to go.

I said, “Asher, we got to go. These people are going make me pass out from hunger.”

I bet we talk more about the Santa gig next Thursday. Doctor A had joked about me wearing African colors when I with the little kids. That might actually happen. I have no idea where this is all going.

Ho ho ho.