Jewtholic Mothers

Well, I find myself in Philadelphia. Great city. It's a really good thing, I think, that Jeff Bergman and I drove into the city on Sunday morning, rather that my original plans of driving by myself on Monday. Philly was hit with a snow storm overnight, and parts of the area I would have been driving through have gotten over twelve inches of snow. How crazy is that? Worst snowstorm this city's gotten in a while, I'm told. Which makes sense, since I've heard from more than one source that Philly is pretty consistently about 10° warmer than Pittsburgh.

I spent my first night in town with Jeff Bergman and his parents. What a delight they were. His mom especially is a sort of hyper version of the prototypical Jewish Mother. As the snow was falling, she was deathly worried about letting us go out. "Do you have a hat? Do you have a scarf? Where are your gloves?" It was like being home again. My mother is Catholic, of course, but Catholic Mothers learned their stock in trade from Jewish Mothers, and though it happens rarely, sometimes the student outperforms the master.