Candle #2: “This Holiday is Out of This World! And a Tribute to M&Ms”

  This Chanukah is the 27th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Endeavor’s trip to the Hubble telescope. They had to potchke around to make sure it was working right. Among the astronauts was Jeffrey Hoffman, a nice Jewish boy from Scarsdale, New York. There have been a few Jewish astronauts, but he was the only one whose mission coincided with Chanukah.

  With that in mind, his pride in his religion prompted him to take along a traveling chanukiahand a dreidl. Now for some reason he couldn’t kindle the lights (oh, that’s right, oxygen issues) but he displayed it. And he also spun his dreidl. 

   Can you imagine that dreidl game? If you play with M&Ms as do we, you’d have red, orange, green, yellow, blue and brown Ms flying all over the capsule. What would happen if you landed (Hmm, an unplanned pun) on gimmel (ganz = take all)? How would you collect them? I’m not sure, but loving M&Ms as I do, I’d find a way. After all, “a great miracle happened there.”

  Speaking of M&Ms – and my love of trivia – did you know that the red ones were eliminated from bags of the candy from 1976 until they came back a decade later? There was a question as to whether the dye used was a health risk. Apparently, the Mars company dye did not but there was such a hullabaloo all over the country that it was decided to ditch the red over concern that people would stop buying the bags of candy altogether.

   Also, what was the last color added to the rainbow of colors (Just curious if you’re actually reading the stuff I write)? If you know, send your answer and a bag of M&Ms to me…ONLY KIDDING!) And here’s a bonus question that will get you absolutely nothing as will the original question…what color did it replace?