(No, he wasn’t Jewish)
The kids – regardless of age – at my congregation knew that for the High Holydays family services I would take an object out of the closet we had on the bimah. I would use some “thing” to illustrate the point I was going to make. The very first object I ever brought out back in ‘72 was the same I used in Beth El in my first holyday service two Rosh Hashanahs ago…a huge box decorated in birthday wrapping. The point was, if this is the birthday of the world, what gifts would we give the world?
The year Superman “died “was 1993 (a major occasion in the comic strip/book world). I had lost a ton of weight (for the nth time) so I decided to rent a complete Superman costume and wear it under my rabbinic robe. In that closet I removed my robe and came out in that costume. The point was, well, I don’t exactly recall.
Anyway, without digressing anymore, one year I took out a model of a Goodyear blimp. “Good year” is of course shanah tovah in Hebrew. How we can have a “good” year, not necessarily a “happy” one, was my point. But what’s important is that today, December 29this the 220th birthday of Mr. Goodyear. I’m using that as a segue into the story behind that blimp I used.
I wanted to get an actual Goodyear blimp to fly over my congregation on that Rosh Hashanah. I called the company in Ohio months before and spoke first to the operator. I told her the situation and I could just imagine her face…and her thought, “Some meshugenah is on the phone!” She said, “One moment, please,” and put me through to someone else; my story was once again told.
That person said, “Oh, I know who might help you,” and yet another Goodyear employee came on. This continued a while – one person after another, each kind enough to pass the buck, as it were – until I spoke with one gentleman who said, “Well, let me see the schedule of our blimps.” He apologized that the closest blimp would be flying over southern Florida that day (“Blimp over Miami, shine on my love and me…”???).
He really liked my idea though and told me he would arrange for the Goodyear merchandise department to send me the largest blimp toy they had, sold only in their headquarters’ gift shop. How nice! I asked him, “Sir, I went through at least a half-dozen people who kept passing the call. I appreciate the fact that no one hung up or told me they couldn’t help me. Why are you able to do this for me?”
I almost passed out when he said, “Well, Rabbi, I’m the president of the Goodyear Company.” On a stack of Hebrew Scriptures, I swear what I just relayed is the absolute truth…though at the time I didn’t believe it was happening!
About a week later a large package arrived from the company containing a really big blimp. Pardon the pun, but it went over very well.