Isnt is nice when you figure out the meaning behind an annoyance? Often, you never do, but in Sam Fisherowitz case, the purpose behind his, yes, very annoying parking ticket, became perfectly clear.
Ill let him tell the story.
In the winter two years ago, I went to a communal event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Instead of parking in the parking lot, I parked on the street, next to a meter, never thinking it was active. It was nighttime.
I came out and sure enough I had a ticket on my car.
The next day I went to the City and County Building to see which court I had to go to, and when.
So later I went back and found the courtroom, full of people. It was absolutely packed.
On my left is the judge, sitting up on her high desk, and on the right are the participants and spectators. In the front are two tables with attorneys.
The only available seat is dead center, first row, right behind the attorneys tables, one seat only, which I took.
To my left was a very tall, muscular gentlemen, black, dressed in a khaki colored work uniform. He was the largest person I ever saw.
I wear a yarmulke, and its not hard to figure out Im Jewish.
He looks at me. He looks me up and looks me down. I have no idea what is about to come out of his mouth when suddenly he grabs me, and puts me a bear hug.
Im not sure whats coming next, and neither does the judge, as she glances down from her desk because the trial she is trying to hold is being disturbed.
In a very loud voice he says: Brother, I love you.
I really dont know whats going to happen next, and he proceeds to tell me a story.
Meantime, the judge is still trying to run her traffic trials. Each trial is five minutes long, at most, and people are constantly streaming up and down to her as she tries to continue.
With a little tear in his eyes, he tells me he was a teenager running with a gang of other teens, 13 or 14 years old.
This was in Brownsville, Brooklyn.
One of their favorite activities was to run into a shop and steal something and run out.
He must have been slightly smaller back then.
So once he ran into a knish shop and when the owner, a Jewish guy, wasnt looking he put his hand behind the counter to grab a knish . . . but the owner was looking, and he grabbed the kids hand and didnt let him go.
Just at that moment his mother was walking by and looked into the shop and saw what was happening.
His mother knew her son well enough to know that when she saw his arm behind the counter, she knew what was going on.
She came in and hit her son over the head with her purse and told the owner of the shop:
Call the police. Put him away. He needs to learn his lesson.
Instead of doing that, the owner said that he would have this young man work for him for three months not only to work off the knish that he ruined, but also to teach him a lesson.
At the end of the three months the owner sat him down.
Your time is up. You can leave. But I want to offer you something else. Would you come to work for the knish shop?
The owner offered him a job because hed become such a good worker.
So, he worked throughout his high school years in the knish shop.
At that point in the story, tears are streaming down his face as he is talking to me.
He says:
Had I not been caught like that, I would have been like all of my other friends, either in prison or dead.
This Jewish knish shop owner put his life in order.
Today, he is a tram driver in downtown Denver, on the 16th Street Mall.
The reason he is in courtroom to begin with is because a woman had gotten on his tram and realized she had left a package behind. She screamed out to stop. He got scared, and clipped his mirror on a light pole. He received a ticket for that.
This ticket might have caused him to lose his job.
So when his turn comes to get up in front of the judge she has overheard most of his story she suggests to him that he go back to his supervisor and tell him to call the cop who had written the ticket and ask him to reissue a warning, so that he could continue working. He would have to come back to her either to quash the summons (because hed gotten a warning) or to be adjudicated.
My friend by this time tears start pouring out again says to the judge:
Can I come up there and hug you and give you a kiss?
That is the end of his trial.
By the time I get up she winks at me and says:
$72. And thank you very much.
On that winter night two years ago, why didnt I just park in the lot across the street and not go the extra block? There are times when you need to keep your eyes open. Hashem is tapping you on the shoulder.
