Fritz asked me what my three wishes would be if I encountered a genie in a bottle.
My first wish would be to speak and understand every language in the world. This would let me communicate with everyone that I encounter.
The second wish granted would put one thousand dollars under my pillow every morning.
This is where Fritz asked me why wouldn’t I just wish to be a billionaire . At which I replied that billionaires have to work hard watching their money and when they die they lose it all. Never seeing how it is spent.
A guy that has just a thousand can do immediate good and see how his money is spent everyday. A guy with a thousand can change the world on a smaller scale and still have some cash for a rainy day.
My final wish is a little more powerful. I would like to be able to turn ugly things into beauty.
I would like to be able to look at a pile of garbage and turn it into a rose bush. If I saw an abandoned parking lot… I could stare at it and turn it into a prairie. Where there are weeds on Wednesday would be a tree or bush on Thursday.
I could get on the CTA and just look out the window and beautify the city of my birth. This gift would give people more hope if they woke up in a neighborhood with more nature and less concrete.
All three of my wishes are humble and unselfish. Probably because I’m closer to seventy than I am to thirty. 1990’s Jumbo would have taken the billion, asked for a bigger shwantz and have a big wedding with Julia Roberts.
2020’s Jumbo would be able to speak with everyone in the world. Take them out to a good meal and buy them something they need.
…..And I could do this on a daily basis without seeing graffiti on the side of a building. Without seeing fast food wrappers in the gutter and in a town with less abandonment and more recovery.
My question for Fritz was what kind of genie do I get. The Robin Williams genie from “Aladdin” or the Barbara Eden genie from “I dream of Jeannie?”
If you see me having lunch this weekend speaking Mandarin with a stranger and you ask yourself, “Has this tree always been here!”
You’ll know that I got my wishes….
Today is Rosa Parks day. Am I embarrassed that I live in a country where a black woman was forced to the back of a bus seventy years ago?
I am, but I’m more embarrassed that Jews are still living with antisemitism on a daily basis.
I’d like to be able to turn on WGN in the morning and not hear about a Kosher Pizzeria in Skokie having swastikas spray painted on the facade.
That is where my thousand would come in handy. I’d drive up to the northside and hopefully be able to order a sausage and cheese pizza at EJ’s Pizza. (Can you get a sausage and cheese pizza at a kosher pizzeria?) Then leave a nine hundred and seventy dollar tip to go towards the repairs. Speak Yiddish with the owner and then walk along Dempster turning ugly into beauty.
I can do all of this and still drive Betty the Green Blazer to work.
