By Dan Bloom
CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — No sooner was the ink dry on a recent column here at the San Diego Jewish World about President Obama’s NASCAR-related remarks at the annual National Prayer Breakfast than a former religion columnist for the Kansas City Star named Bill Tammeus picked up his own computer keyboard and tapped out a semi-humorous blog post titled “Oh, Jesus, take the wheel.”
Tammeus is a former “Faith” columnist for the Kansas City Star, and the author of several books over the years, among them ‘They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust which he co-authored with Jacques Cukierkorn.
The book tells the stories of Polish Holocaust survivors and their rescuers. The two authors traveled extensively in the United States and Poland to interview some of the few remaining participants before their generation is gone. The book tells many stories that have never before been made public before: gripping narratives of Jews who survived against all odds and courageous non-Jews who risked their own lives to provide shelter.
In his recent blog column about my attempt to follow in the footsteps of other Jews like Irving Berlin who have written songs for Christian audiences, Tammeus — who is in my book a Christian humorist of the highest order and a wonderful human being to boot — told his readers right off the bat:
“Today I want to turn back to that [President Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast] speech, but with nothing serious in mind. In fact, anyone who finds anything serious in this posting will be arrested and eventually sent to the witless protection program.”
Writing that I had recently sent him a note with a link to the piece from San Diego Jewish World about Obama’s remarks to NASCAR hall of famer Darrell Waltrip, who also was at the prayer breakfast, Tammeus took his own turn at the wheel and delivered a track-side summary of where things stand for now with some humor added for good measure.
He noted that a crooner in Texas named J. Gale Kilgore did the vocals on for song lyrics that President Obama, in essence, co-wrote titled “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”
“An audio version of it is embedded in the San Diego paper,” Tammeus told his readers nationwide, and on Twitter as well. ”Give it a listen.”
And then came the humor, Tammeus style: “By the way, I told Danny [in an email] that Waltrip might want to ask Jesus to take the wheel, but I’m not sure I’d trust someone with that responsibility who never even imagined driving a car when he lived on Earth.”
And to top the humor off, Tammeus couldn’t resist a pun, ending his post: “By the way, do you know what Jesus would drive if he could? Obviously a Christler.”
Incidentally, Berlin wrote such well-known Christian holiday songs as “White Christmas” and “Easter Parade.”
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Bloom, based in Taiwan, is an inveterate web surfer. Your signed comment may be posted in the space provided below or sent to dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com