Sunday, October 23, 2005

SNEESON'S GREEETINGS:
OR:
RETROGRADE ETROG -ADE

Barry Silverberg, of Kiriat Shmona via Winnipeg, looks back on the last 3 months through the Succa door:


The air in the Succa is as crisp as a cornflake, as I sit down at the computer. The network of wires and cables snakes through the schach.
Schach.
Achchchchcch! (I let out a sight of contentment)
Chag Samayach-ach-ach! (How much do you bet if I attack Bush on this page I'll get a Nobel prize for modern poetry?)
Chag Sam ay acchchchchchchchch!
This is a good time to clear your throat as well as your mind, especially if you spent the last two chilly nights outdoors.
Being sandwiched among 7 family members and several pets is no big deal to those of us who spent the August heat wave in Kfar Maymon Dissent Resort, where we slept 35,000 to a bed. Some of you weren't there, though at the time it felt like everybody was there, and you may have spent the week in Eilat or Panantanaikos in a four star, maybe even a five star hotel. Where we were you couldn't number the stars!

That's already three months away. The summer came to its bitter end; school, for most of us began, the high holidays flew by. November is already just a sneeze away and some of my classes, which always fell on the holidays have barely gotten off the ground. Particularly my 'Zayyin' boys class, which our staff feels is the wildest batch in years; I only met them a few times, always at 3:00 PM between sport and the final bell, and they hadn't received their books yet. Most of them still think I'm the custodian.


Below, I have inserted a picture to give you an idea of where I'm at when I write. You can all send me back pictures of your yards or kitchen, depending where you set the limits of intimacy between writer and reader. This picture shows the peaceful view from our yard, several dozen meters up the Naftali hills. The two girls in the box are not supposed to be in the picture but I don't have time to look up how to snip bits off pictures. Soon they will come out of the box and roll down the slope. Unfortunately, the lawn ends in a 20 foot cliff. That little shrub you see behind the brown rock is really a fully blown eucalyptus tree. Ahah! I've just used by burgeoning computer skills to position a bright orange arrow over said tree.

Next installment: A scene from our succa?



THE GRASSY KNOLL OF KIRIAT SHMONAH.






Kiriat Shmona, October 20, under the branches.