One of my students could not take my college seminar final exam because of a funeral. "No problem," I told him. "Make it up the following week."
That week came, and again he couldn't take the test due to another funeral.
"You'll have to take the test early next week," I insisted; "I can't keep postponing it."
"I'll take the test next week if no one dies," he told me.
By now I was suspicious. "How can you have so many people you know pass away in three weeks?" I asked.
"I don't know any of these people," he said. "I'm the only gravedigger in town."
On the Upper West Side of NYC lived an assimilated Jewish man who was now a very militant atheist. But he sent his son Morris to Trinity School because, despite its denominational roots, it's a great school and completely secular.
Our Lamaze class included a tour of the pediatric wing of the hospital. When a new baby was brought into the nursery, all the women tried to guess its weight, but the guy standing next to me was the only male to venture a number.