Yom Kippur Squirrels

Yom Kippur 1972.

Syrian and Egyptian tanks swarmed over Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights and the Suez Canal. The Arab Forces initial successes were reversed by strategic blunders and Israeli air cover, however the losses to the IDF were catastrophic for the small nation. If a country the size of the USA had suffered the same casualties, the deaths would have mounted into the 100s of 1000s. Russian intervention was deterred by a stern warning from President Nixon.

DefCon 3 to DefCon 4.

Nuclear war.

MAD.

Cooler heads prevailed and prevented Mutual All-Out Destruction on a global level and Yom Kippur has resumed its position as a day of atonement for the Jewish People with Bobby Vinton leading the way by singing his hit I'M SORRY.

No holiday is without humor.

A small town had two churches, Presbyterian and Methodist, and a Synagogue. All three had a serious problem with squirrels in their buildings. Each in its own fashion had a meeting to deal with the problem.

The Presbyterians decided that it was predestined that squirrels be in the church and that they would just have to live with them.

The Methodists decided they should deal with the squirrels lovingly in the style of Charles Wesley. They humanely trapped them and released them in a park at the edge of town. Within 3 days, they were all back in the church.

The Jews simply voted the squirrels in as members. Now they only see them at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Of course my late father hated squirrels. Not so much hated them, but cursed them during his visits to my mother’s grave. The town cemetery was overrun with the tree rodents. They scrambled into the paved roads before cars.

A game for them.

An accident waiting to happen for humans.

My father swerved away from a daredevil squirrel and crashed into a gravestone almost 100 feet from the road.

“Damn Squirrels.”

He drove over the next squirrel brave enough to play ‘chicken’.

And he was a Convert to Catholicism.

No Yom Kippur for him.

For him the only good squirrel was a dead squirrel.