It wasn’t just an ordinary jelly donut with powder on top, it was a wonderful thing this donut, a taste of freedom, a taste of normalcy – mostly because it wasn’t allowed. It wasn’t allowed for political reasons, for philosophical debates as old as time itself prevented us from eating these luxuries jelly donuts.
I would bundle up, 20 below zero winds made it even better. I would ride my bike out to Brighton Donuts in the sub zero winter evenings. I would look both ways as if I were a child crossing the street, but this was merely to check that no one from my yeshiva was watching. No rabbi was staked out in his 87 caprice classic station wagon waiting to catch me eating treife, it wasn’t even treife, they said it was, but it really wasn’t – it was mostly political. A low mechitza combined with a white knitted yarmulke works wonders for modern orthodox shuls trying to get along with a yeshiva.
I liked the prospect of being normal, getting to walk into a donut shop just like everyone else. To be frank I was riding my bike in temperatures that news forecasts always warned people to stay inside. Those news reports about some old lady freezing to death while getting her mail always struck a cord with me, they didn’t stop me, they merely struck a cord. Obviously not a deep enough cord because here I was wearing ski goggles and three pairs of pants while riding my bike on snow just to get some donuts.
It really wasn’t the donuts, it was merely the fact I had a destination of sorts, its nice to have a destination, although I only spent about 2 minutes at longest in the donut shop, I would be greeted by cops and old men who stressed shock that anyone would ride their bike in whether such as this. It was an ego boost, and then I would order a strawberry filled donut and a muffin of sorts. I would never bring them back to yeshiva, I would merely ride around the beautiful side streets of Brighton.
I would then stop on this one side street that had an old crumbling staircase and unravel my cold moist donuts. It was an interesting affair, I never went with anyone, I was always a loner, but looking back I had all these special things I did by myself. I would eat my donuts and sit on the snowy steps of this staircase that no one used and I would look at the nice suburban homes and imagine what it was like to live in a house – I had grown up in an apartment and had no idea what it was like.
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{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
A good ‘ol classic Frum Satire post. No guest, no video, no grasping onto frum current affairs.
you sound like poor old orphan oliver twist…eating cold sweets in secret and wondering about the secret life of them rich folks.
Nice piece of writing waxing nostalgic. Bravo!
Rabbi D is sending Shlomo (you know who) to get you. All know that Brighton (now Dunkin’) Donuts are only for evil people. The Dunkin’ lost it’s hashgacha too…
A23 – these are my favorite things to write and I am sure you noticed that to keep up with the times I just post a bunch of random stuff – Frum Stire has evolved into a real blog – not just personal, although I like the personal stuff best.
You should change it into “HeshyFried.com” because you’ve left the original theme, at least a little.
Nice post Hesh.Brought back some nostalgic moments like- sneaking off the the movies on friday afternoon to watch Titanic, smoking cigs in the dorm’s basement barber shop(bartered off some Bais Medrash guy for ironong his shirts).Oh yes and my rebbe’s token “station wagon” stationed out like a cop car ready to bust guys working at the local bakery instead of going to night seder
Whoever wound up in my rebbe’s car was usualy punishment enough:Broken air conditioner(on a mid summer day in humid lakewood)and distict pleasure of smelling his car the hasn’t had an interior cleaning since his shver donated it to him as a wedding/I-feel-bad-for-you-kollel-guy present.What I always found ironic about those rides back to the yeshiva is that he bragged about bribing the yeshivish car machanic into passing his emissions test (good job in setting the example for dinah dmalchusah dinah)
Classic post, belongs in the “best of” column.
Speaking of non kosher donuts, I’ve got a major weakness for Krispy Kreme. Y’all may laugh but for many years there were no decent donuts in Japan at all. When KK came it was like a blessing from God for me. I was one of the first 100 people in line on opening day. Got a souvenir T Shirt and everything.
I’ve commented about this in the past and I didn’t get much support, but I don’t care- your spelling really sucks. I have to chalk it up to poor education. I notice similar problems with the yeshivish guys who post comments. And of course, you can always spot chasidish commenters. It’s unfortunate that an otherwise bright guy such as yourself should come off as so uneducated. I really blame these shit yeshivas that you went to.
Some gems:
“these luxuries jelly donuts”- luxurious (I’ll set aside that I don’t think you mean that the donuts were luxurious. Delicious? Indulgent?
“always struck a cord with me”- really, it struck a piece or rope, or did it strike a chord
“old men who stressed shock”- I’m sure old people stress about shock, but I think these guys probably expressed shock.
“in whether such as this”- do you watch the whether channel often? Weather
Anon did you not read my disclaimer – I blame my poor spelling and grammar on my horrible yeshiva education – I went through this stage where I was receiving tons of complaints and you know what my response was?
If you don’t like it you can leave, I don’t charge you to come here, I never forced anyone – I wish I could edit everything – but I can’t so if you want to complain do it elsewhere.
If you want edited versions of these posts go to Jewcy.com where they have paid editors to edit my work.
Anonymous
I think your just jealous of Hesh because he has facebook groupies who will fulfill his every desire.Unfortunatly grammer geeks like you are very boring and uninteresting and don’t get much action.The only thing you guys could hope for is a kiss from your mom.Nice try on venting your fustration on his grammer we all know what your really pissed about.
Happy Editing zzzzzzzzzzz
Hot Chick,
You dont have to be a grammar geek to care about this. Mostly it doesnt bother me, but sometimes it does make things hard to read. OTOH, I understand the TOS for this site so it is what it is.
(As proof that Im not a grammar geek, not the complete lack of apostrophes and gratuitous use of netspeak shortenings.)
(Note also that my hot wife kisses me plenty enough thank you very much)
Hesh- I’m aware of your disclaimer. You pointed that out last time too. I’m not frustrated by Hesh’s success- quite the opposite. What annoys me is that a guy like Hesh was deprived of a decent education by the backwards charedi mindset. In the MO world I was brought up in, a premium is placed on secular and Torah education. The world of these fly-by-night barely-legal yeshivot is foreign to me. Hesh clearly has talent and an audience that appreciates it- including me. I hope Hesh continues to write. If he were to type his posts into a word document first, it would catch some of his spelling errors and he could continue to improve his writing and perhaps pursue a career in which his natural talent for writing and humor would go to use. The point is- the yeshiva world stifles talent and breeds mediocrity and homogeneity. This is not news. Hesh- especially with a blog, you never know who is reading and the material is on the web forever. Use Word with a spell checker to catch your mistakes so you’ll avoid them in the future, and pick up Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style” ($10 on Amazon) to check grammar usage if you’re uncertain about a sentence. I never wrote a paper in college without that book on my desk. Improve your writing so people are not distracted from your intellect. Keep it up.
For what its worth, spell check in Word helps but doesnt catch homonyms and words which are spelled correctly but wrong in context. Dont even get me started on the grammar checker. I can spot a document by someone who trusts it from a mile away. Most helpful thing I could suggest is to wait an hour or so after writing and actually read before posting.
Stream of conciousness is an accepted writing technique, its worked well for many comedians and writers so again, no complaints from me.
Oh yeah… I really want a donut right about now.
Anonymous
Not all yeshivas are semi-legal and some have great English classes.Check out almost alomst any Chofetz Chaim yeshiva(I said “almost” for a reason Hesh)
I went to a certain yeshiva(no I am not gonna mentions names as it’s loshon hara).Anyway the rebbe was giving a class and come across a very difficult aramaic word.Instead of researching the transalation of the word he just so”whatever it’s not nagayah,I didn’t have time to look in artscroll(in a scarcastic tone of voice)”.the idea being if your part of the”yeshivish club” you can get away with anything,if youll get hazed,then pissed off,then go to YU