We are Jewish. With that in mind and with the approaching time of year at this writing, let me share two brief anecdotes.
The Jewish Festival of Lights has many transliterated spellings in English. There is Hanukkah, Chanukah, Chanukkah, Chanuka, Khanukah and perhaps some others. All of them are correct, none of them are wrong.
When one of my sons was in third grade, he took a spelling test which included the spelling of this particular holiday name. He put down the first spelling in the above list and was marked wrong for that. His teacher would only accept the second spelling shown above. However, not only was he improperly "corrected" for his so-called error, he was also scolded for it because in that teacher's opinion, the error was unacceptable from a cultural standpoint.
Third grade!
We spoke with that teacher but impregnable ignorance unfortunately held firm. With absolute denial of the proprieties of the alternative spellings, we were instructed that the one spelling was the absolute one-and-only correct spelling and we'd just better learn that ourselves and teach our son accordingly.
That was utter nonsense and of course, we did no such thing.
Now the happier one.
I took my car to the gas station last year, on December 25th to be specific, and went to the cash register to pay in advance as usual. The attendant was a cheerful fellow and he seemed especially upbeat as he took my money and set the gas pump accordingly.
I would guess that he was either Indian or Pakistani and perhaps Hindu or Muslim. I don't actually know, but from appearances, that would be my best guess.
As I later came back for my change, he wished me, a Jewish man, "Merry Christmas". I grinned at him and returned the wish.
It just struck me how here were two non-Christian men, each wishing the other the best of a Christian holiday.
I thought that was really and totally cool.
Excellent piece John! I really enjoyed the story.
Posted by: Lee Sirio | December 06, 2012 at 08:53 PM