Not that I consider it any of Franklin Graham’s business, but I
tend to say “Happy Holidays,” unless speaking a specific person.
Here’s why.
Years ago, believe it or not. I exhibited the
characteristics of a fitness freak. Yep. It wasn’t unusual for me to run eight
to ten miles a day and attend morning exercise classes at the old Downtown YMCA
at Sixth and Broadway in Little Rock, Arkansas.
There was a Businessmen’s Club there and its members formed
a close-knit camaraderie, as males will do. Back in the day, men could even
swim together in the nude or take in the sun buck-naked at noon on a little rooftop
nook hidden from view. That all changed when they began to accept women members.
The impacts of the change didn’t occur swiftly, but that’s fodder for some
funny stories at another time.
Anyway. There was a member among us from a prominent Jewish
family in Little Rock. I’ll call him Eli Frank, as I know he would be
embarrassed to be identified for simply being a good person. And he was. My only
criticism of him involved the reason we seldom jogged together. He knew two speeds—a trait that he involved in every aspect of his life. Those speeds were, “full,”
and “a little more than full.” As I say, it marked his personal makeup and made
him a success in his field, although a solitary jogger.
In addition to being friends at the “Y,” we occasionally had
contacts through our respective businesses. We were, therefore, more than casual
acquaintances.
There was another man associated with our YMCA at the time.
He cleaned the dressing rooms. I really can’t remember his name, “Paul” maybe.
Everyone just knew him as “Pappa Wa Chickee.”
You see, his experience in some war or other had left its
impact. Although he was capable of performing limited tasks and living alone,
he spent a great deal of his time, as Patrick Clancy the singer described it, “living
among the Little People.” He was harmless and they let him stay at the YMCA.
His most frequent utterance was, yes, “Poppa Wa Chickee,” whether
responding to a taunt, requesting you to move so he could clean, or threatening
to “chisel the ‘C’ off the building’s cornerstone,” hence the nickname.
His appearance was what you might expect: unkempt,
overweight, often unshaven, and smelly. I’m proud to say that I don’t ever
recall having taunted him, but I would have been among the few. He was one of
those best described in the Gospel of Matthew as “the least of those among us,”
and thus fodder for being looked down upon and mistreated by the over-privileged.
Did I feel, in the least, proud that I tried to treat him
with respect? Hardly, that was simply a minimum standard, as I saw it. That hit
home with a punch one year, after I found that Eli Frank had picked the poor
man up and taken him home with him for Thanksgiving dinner with Eli and his family.
We can only imagine how the Galilean must have smiled.
A few days after learning that, I dropped into a downtown
store to buy greeting cards for the season. That’s when I first, as a result of
thinking what a good person this Jewish club-mate of mine was, opted for “Happy
Holidays.”
So:
Bill O’Reilly,
Franklin Graham,
Sean Hannity,
Donald Trump:
“Poppa Wa Chickee.” (Translation: “Bite me”).
Oh, and to everyone else: Happy Holidays.
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| The fitness club is gone, but the "C" still in the cornerstone. |
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