I Had a Hat

Some probably persecutory thoughts about what goes on — and goes on inside — my head.

You know the joke, don’t you? It’s… a “Jewish” joke. I guess I’ll retell it here, for those of you who don’t know it, because it seems like just as good a way as any to begin this particular essay. It makes me uncomfortable, though, I’ll admit; telling a Jewish joke. Here. Anywhere. Today. Anytime. It was actually first told to me at a play rehearsal, probably a decade ago, by someone who isn’t Jewish — that makes it more problematic, I think. I won’t get into whether or not that makes it, or him, anti-Semitic, as that phrase has gotten… pretty warped these days, I’ll say. Anyway, here’s the joke. Forgive me:

A Jewish (*cringe*) grandmother takes her grandson to the beach to see the ocean for the first time. He’s dressed in a smart little sailor’s suit, not unlike the one I’m pictured wearing here in around 1982:

He definitely had a hat, too.

Anyway, the kid in this story had a hat on his little kepilach (that’s “head” in Yiddish, gurlz). The boy is playing happily by the water when, suddenly, a massive wave comes and washes this boychick out to sea. The grandmother is, understandably, distraught. After all, we know how important boy children are. She falls to her knees on the beach and beseeches an allegedly merciful God to return her grandson to her unharmed.