Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Kfar Saba, Israel: If I Had A Hammer

So a neighbor comes over with a couple pounds of pecans off the tree in her back yard, small but perfectly good. My boys are sizing them up, wondering how to crack them, and Aunt Shoshana behind them starts yelling, 'Patish! Patish!' My kids didn't know it meant hammer, and I saw no point in translating; Aunt Shoshana didn't anticipate or didn't care about the mess that will result from the conjunction of two boys, a hammer, a several pounds of pecans. But great heart shall not be denied, as Tolkien said, and the language barrier was crossed, pecans were eaten, and the mess was eventually cleaned up.

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