{"id":1024,"date":"2012-07-03T08:45:44","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T12:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/?p=1024"},"modified":"2012-07-03T08:45:44","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T12:45:44","slug":"bagel-man-and-shmear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=1024","title":{"rendered":"Bagel Man and Shmear"},"content":{"rendered":"

… or why it is not a good idea to have two martinis before story time<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Let’s see…\u00a0Berenstain Bears?\u00a0 Winnie the Pooh?\u00a0 Bread and Jam for Frances<\/em>?\u00a0 I love the\u00a0drawings in that book.”<\/p>\n

“Dad… you always fall asleep when you read\u00a0Frances<\/em> stories\u00a0to me…”<\/p>\n

“I’ve had a long day.\u00a0 How ’bout Stand Back the Elephant is Going to Sneeze!<\/em> The drawings in that book are hysterical.”<\/p>\n

“Dad… do we have any Super Hero<\/em> stories?”<\/p>\n

“Super Hero?\u00a0 Super Hero!\u00a0 Who told you about Super Hero’s?”<\/p>\n

“Ari\u00a0Widlansky’s father reads him Super Hero stories.”<\/p>\n

“You mean Ari\u00a0Widlansky’s father reads him comic books!”<\/p>\n

“But Dad… they’re fun<\/em>.\u00a0 Lots of action… saving people, beating up the bad guys and driving cool cars like the Bat Mobile!\u00a0 At Tumblebugs, sometimes Ari and I pretend that we’re Batman and Robin!”<\/p>\n

“Batman and Robin?\u00a0 When I was a kid I used to like the Green Hornet and Kato.”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know them.\u00a0 Are they good guys or bad guys?”<\/p>\n

“They’re good guys… just like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans.”<\/p>\n

“And they’re Super Hero’s, too?”<\/p>\n

“In a manner of speaking.\u00a0 Hey… here’s Blueberries For Sal<\/em>.\u00a0 That’s a great story!”<\/p>\n

“Dad… are there any Jewish<\/em> Super Hero’s?”<\/p>\n

“Other than\u00a0Sandy Koufax and\u00a0Groucho Marx?”<\/p>\n

“Dad!\u00a0 Stop making stuff up!”<\/p>\n

“Well… when I was a kid we had Bagel Man…”<\/p>\n

“For real?”<\/p>\n

“For real.\u00a0 He had super power strength… could walk thru brick walls.\u00a0 He had an enormous brain capacity and could instantly solve complex math problems, he scored a perfect 800 on his college boards, he had total memory recall and he could name every English Ruler going back to Ethelred the Unready.\u00a0 And for all his Super Power strength and smarts, he still was someone who was kind and thoughtful enough to help an elderly woman to walk\u00a0across the street… and if some wise-guy delivery person on a bike got too close, he would whip out his Reverse Semi-Automatic\u00a0Bialystok Stun Gun, and shout, ‘Stand fast you knave!’\u00a0and then blast the kid into the next time zone!”<\/p>\n

“Wow!\u00a0 Did Bagel Man have a side kick<\/em>?”<\/p>\n

“Side Kick?\u00a0 Sure!\u00a0 Shmear!\u00a0\u00a0Shmear went everywhere with BagelMan… they were a team<\/em>.\u00a0 They even went to the opera together!\u00a0 One time they got first row mezzanine seats\u00a0for the Metropolitan’s production of Don Giovanni<\/em>.\u00a0 And in the scene when Don Giovanni sings, “Versalino! Eccelente Marzemino!”\u00a0<\/em>as he was\u00a0about to descend into the dark netherworld, Bagel Man stood up from his seat and shouted, ‘Don’t do it!\u00a0 I’ll save you!’ And he started to jump down to the stage, when Shmear stopped him and said, ‘It’s OK BM, Mozart wrote it that way.’ And Bagel Man looked around at all the people in the audience staring at him, and said to Shmear, ‘Thanks, dear friend.’ And Shmear said, ‘That’s what friends are for!’\u00a0 That was Shmear’s famous line… he was always saying, that’s what friends are for… <\/em>Like when they went to the 21 Club for dinner and Shmear picked up the check, he would say, ‘That’s what friends are for!’\u00a0 Bagel Man and Shmear!\u00a0 Truth, Justice, Observing the Sabbath and making sure that young men get into medical school!\u00a0 And like all Super Hero’s they had one vulnerability… they wouldn’t rescue the downtrodden or stop a felony on Rosh Hashonah or Yom Kippur.”<\/p>\n

“Dad?\u00a0 Why don’t we read Bread and Jam for Frances<\/em>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… or why it is not a good idea to have two martinis before story time   “Let’s see…\u00a0Berenstain Bears?\u00a0 Winnie the Pooh?\u00a0 Bread and Jam for Frances?\u00a0 I love the\u00a0drawings in that book.” “Dad… you always fall asleep when … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry-of-jokes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1024"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1024\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}