The Time I Was A Jew

It was somewhere around 1959-61, as close as I can figure it; back in the years when I worked at WICC in Bridgeport CT. We were a family-oriented station, in those Top-40 days, and played a couple of album cuts every half hour. One evening, the dj played “Easter Parade,” the one with “In your Easter bonnet.”

The newsroom phone rang. I don’t remember which one of us picked it up, but the fellow on the other end had chugged down a few beers too many. “I’m with the Knights of Columbus,” he managed to get out, “and you’re playing ‘Easter Parade’ in the summer. You Jews…” We hung up on him.

I am proud that the founder of my religion was Jewish and that many of our practices can be traced back to the rituals of that era. But I don’t see how playing “Easter Parade” at any other time than, well, Easter makes me Jewish and, what’s worse, an evil anti-Christian defiler of the season.

After all, the song has nothing to do with anything faintly resembling religion. It’s about a bunch of dandies dressing up and walking along Fifth Avenue looking at each other and hoping they are the best-dressed people who will end up in the rotogravure.

The what? It’s the colored section of the Sunday newspapers, named for the process that produces it. In New York City, it’s to this day still called the “Roto” section. I don’t know if the newspapers still cover the Easter Parade, or if there is one. But if there is, you may end up in the rotogravure.