My Papa was the Man!

It was my Papa's yartzeit (anniversary of his passing) yesterday the 23rd. In Judaism, one of our customs is to light a candle to burn in memory of the individual. So at sundown of the 22nd my mom lit her Manischewitz brand yartzeit candle in memory of her dad, my papa, David Drexler. Now, just so you know, my Papa was the coolest dude around. He lost a great deal of his family in the Holocaust and imigrated from Austria. He was a barber by trade and because of that was meticulously well groomed. I think he probably used a straight razor until the day he died. No Bics for him. And his coolest quality...he thought WWF wrestling was real. Even as a little kid I knew Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper weren't really trying to kill each other in the ring. But he would be sitting there on the La-Z-Boy screaming at the screen shouting "Rip his head off!!!". Therefore, my brother Alan and I would invite all of our friends over to watch Wrestlemania on our illegally unscrambled Pay-Per-View station. Instead of staring at the TV, most of us kept our eyes glued on Papa. Hell, I found him way more exciting. Also, whenever we would be eating together, he would constantly be commenting on what I'm doing. "Why aren't you eating", "You took too much food", etc etc, forcing my Granny to scream something in Yiddish that sounds like (Dov, Nisht blah blah blah ) which probably meant, "Dov, stop that and keep your eyes on your own darn plate!" I wish I knew yiddish. All I ever learned from various family members were bad words. They only spoke yiddish when they didn't want us to know what they were shouting about. You know what I mean? Papa was just an awesome dude. He didn't talk much and usually grunted a hello when approached, but he was totally cool. Anyway, moral of the story is, my mom just called to say the 24 hour memorial candle she lit Tuesday night is still burning bright two days later. Just like theres still a little bit of Papa still burning in me. Papa, I miss you. You were a righteous righteous dude.