I feel like I'm being passed over

I'm not Jewish, but some of my best friends are. And I believe that if you've lived in or around New York City for more than half your life, you are, to some degree, honorarily, osmotically, Jewish.

Given all this, I get the distinct feeling that here, in Upper Virginia (as differentiated from Northern Virginia--a locality packed, I would assume, with Jews), that I'm being passed over. That is to say, the issue of Passover seems utterly moot. To wit: there are no sales people at my local Harris Teeter unpacking cases of Kadem kosher grape juice. Likewise, although I may just have missed it, there hasn't been a single article in the Leesburg Times or Loudoun County Mirror on how to cook latkes.

So it was with some delight that I learned that my friend Earl's aging mother confided in him the other day that she had assumed I was Jewish all these years. To quote the old Indian chief in Little Big Man, "My heart soars like an eagle."

Now I, Raymond, can take my rightful place among the great Jews. Men like Einstein. Wasserstein. Springsteen. At least in the eyes of one aging woman.

And though my tires have been slashed and I've almost crashed right here in the swamps of Leesburg, I will not be denied.

So go ahead. Pass me over. See if I care.

Besides...that's a good thing, right?