About Zhugs

The letter Z comes from the Hebrew Letter Zayin (ז), the 7th letter in the Hebrew alphabet. The original meaning is sword. But it is also connected to food and sustenance. The letter Zayin also has a numeric value of 7 which has a strong link to our day of rest. Some scholars define Zayin that while pointless bloodshed is certainly not the ideal, we sometimes must fight in order to defend our lives and our way of life. 

My dad was not a hugger when I was growing up, but I knew that he loved me. He had served in the army and wore a closely trimmed flat top most of the time I lived at home. Mom made me a work shirt to match dad's before I started school and sometimes he would take me on a job with him and show me off as his little helper. As I got older, hair styles changed and dad cut the boys' hair and mom cut the girls'. There were 4 boys and 4 girls. I wasn't keen on the way he wanted to cut my hair, but that is a different story. 

Three years after Shirley and I were married (1968), dad and mom went to a Full Gospel Business Men's meeting at the invitation of a Jesuit priest who taught me in high school. Then he started hugging everyone. The first time he hugged me was awkward, but it felt good. Then he started enthusiastically reading the bible. At first I thought that my parents were getting sucked into a cult of some sort, so I decided to accept their invitation to a dinner meeting in order to check it out. Shirley wanted to watch the Miss America pageant, so I went by myself. My life has never been the same.

Our family life had always been centered around prayer. We prayed the rosary every evening on our knees in the living room. If someone was visiting us, they could either join us or wait in the kitchen. My grandmother on my mom's side would wait in the kitchen. I found out later, she was praying that we would get saved while we were praying that she would become a Catholic. I served daily mass at 6AM every day of the week from about the 2nd grade to the 8th grade and would walk to school, often in the dark. Once I was hassled by some drunk teenagers, so dad started coming to daily mass with me, a practice he continued till he died. 

Dad's favorite verse became James 1:2:  "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds . . ." His bibles were well marked with notes and he had many other favorite verses. But every one knew that he would quote this if they were having a problem. His belief was that the best thing to counter trials with is joy. 

When I started my first business in 1969, dad loaned me $20,000 and helped me set up my books. We met around the 5th of each month and would go over how the business did the previous month. It was a very professional meeting and it was a great day when we were finally able to pay him back. Fast forward to September of 1992. By then, Shirley and I had sold our office coffee company, I worked for the company that bought it for about 6 years. we had both grown a great deal and we were looking forward to working together with my sister, Jane in starting a software company. I couldn't wait to get to the office and see him. My first project was to do a video of the program. This was back in the VHS and camcorder days. Unfortunately dad died of a heart attack right after we finished the video. Jane and I were devastated. Mom continued to come to the office, but couldn't function for a year. She lived for another 28 years, but never really recovered. We never showed anyone the video. Then, when we sold the software program about 3 years ago, I ran across the video and showed it to the company that bought us. They incorporated it into their marketing video and I incorporated it into mine.