Hello everyone! It is strange what things in life trigger our memories. Today, it was a bagel. I was at work and break time came around 8am. I, like most everyone else, went to the junk food machines to see if anything appealed to me. To my surprise, the vending machine people had added several new things to the assortment of unhealthy goodies that seem to be permanent selections in their machines. Nestled among the Snickers bars, M&Ms, chewing gum, half-stale doughnuts and an array of other high-calorie, high-fat snacks were two new additions...Apples and Bagels. I decided to try one of their bagels before they got stale or turned green. After warming the bagel in a microwave and pouring myself a hot cup of coffee, I sat with some of my buddies and spread cream cheese on the warm treat before me. While everyone else was talking football, which is a subject I avoid whenever possible, I began to remember where I got my first bagel... Uncle Abe Weiner was very dear to all of us during my childhood. Whenever he saw us coming down the street toward his tailor shop, he would drop whatever he was doing and run out onto the sidewalk, dropping down on one or both knees to give us a great bear hug. Every Sunday, Uncle Abe would come over to our place after visiting the synagogue. (He never missed worship at the synagogue.) He would always bring a paper sack full of bagels, which we called doughnuts. These were strange doughnuts...they didn't exactly taste like doughnuts....they didn't have any icing....they were a lot tougher than any doughnuts I had ever had. They did, however, look like doughnuts, and at our age that was good enough for us. Uncle Abe always told us to eat all we wanted, but save him the holes. My sister and I spent many afternoons sitting on opposite legs of Uncle Abe while he told stories and joked with us. He said that without us he would be all alone. Then, one time, when it was just me on his lap, he got quiet and told me a story. That story has stayed with me all my life. Uncle Abe told me how he lost all his family--his mother and father, brothers and sisters, wife and children were all gone. Then he showed me a tattoo on his wrist as a tear spilled from his eye. Uncle Abe was the only member of his family from Poland to survive the death camps. Everyone else died in gas chambers at a place called Auschwitz. What struck me the hardest is how a great and gentle man such as this could suffer all he did and still bring me bagels and show such unrestrained love for my family. I asked him questions that were like questions many children would ask. Who did this? Who were these mean people? Were they coming to get me? and so on. Uncle Abe told me he had forgiven those people and all they had done. It is in God's hand's now. Then I asked the real hard question....Why did these mean people do this? His stared off into space for a few moments, then said almost in a whisper..."They didn't know any better". Now, when I have dealings with those dregs of society that we all are forced to deal with--when I encounter people who lie, steal other people's property or ideas, bully, con, or hear of those who murder or violate others, I often wonder why these people do the things that they do. Then I remember Uncle Abe's words and tell myself, "They don't know any better". I think I will go have a bagel now. Copyright 1999 Stan Magnesen Yelowstone@aol.com