The Bar Mitzvah

Tampa, Florida

We drove to Walt's Fish Market on Tamiami Trail and bought some smoked mullet spread. It was disappointing compared to our memories.

Below, Zachary and his little brother, Joshua, have a ceremony involving a candle and some sweet herbs. The red-haired Rabbi is their aunt, who has flown in from England.

The Bar Mitvah dinner is held at the Lowry Park Zoo in bitter cold. It has evolved over the years. We're about at the spot where my uncle Burt filled a watermelon with whiskey at a family picnic I remember in 1955. Back then all they had was picnic tables and shelters. The kids at the dinner bring sleeping bags and camp out overnight with the manatees. They keep the lights on in the manatee tank all night for the kids.

These are Zackary's grandmothers, Emma and Alice. Emma was hidden in Holland during the occupation by sympathetic gentiles. She has flown in from Holland for the Event. Alice is an old friend. She is teaching American Constitutional Law in Ankara, Turkey on a Fulbright grant. Alice has also flown in for the weekend. She's worried about getting her grades posted by the 15th.

Here's Zachary looking at a gopher snake. He did a great job at his Bar Mitzvah. He made a nice speech in English and spent hours reading Hebrew from the Torah. The service in the temple lasted three hours and was followed by a nice lunch. They keep Yamakas by the front door for people like me that don't own one. I picked out a pretty bright orange one. Zachary's father is Jeremy. When Jeremy came home from Gulf War I, he asked me to drive my motorcycle and ran it though a concrete wall. I had figured that if he could drive an Aircraft Carrier, a motorcycle would be no big deal. His Mom is Alice and she owned the wall. She came out and asked what was going on with hands on her hips. We all ignored the broken wall and oil dripping from my motorcycle and told her, "Nothing, Mom".

A yamaka is also called a kippah (Hebrew: כִּפָּה, also kipah, kipa, kippa, plural kippot; Yiddish: יאַרמלקע, yarmlke, yarmulke, yarmulka, yarmelke, less commonly called kapel; English: skullcap, cap of maintenance) is a thin, usually slightly-rounded cloth cap worn by observant Jews (usually men, but not always).

This is James, Jeanine and Annabelle. James is the same age as our son. We took him on a three week camping trip to Canada back in the day. I remind him of the time we invaded an Indian fishing camp and went swimming in our underwear in a cold stream and got covered with hundreds of little black leeches.

Mrs. Phred is riding on a golf cart with Seth and his son Kai. Seth went on lots of three week camping trips with us out west. He remembers shooting a rifle for the first time in Nevada in the desolate area where Col. Paul Tibbets practiced bombing runs with his B-29 squadron. He also remembers the times we would hit a summit in the Rockies and unload the bikes so that he and Kenny could ride for miles without pedaling.

This was my first Bar Mitzvah. It was a lot of fun. I really wanted a picture of Jeremy, Mikail and their three boys but I could never find them all gathered in the same place. Maybe I'll go online and find one later.