Now Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel. They were in the midst of a contest to see who could give Jacob the most sons. The score was Leah 4, Rachel 0. So Rachel gave Jacob her maid, Bilhal and she bore him two sons. That made the score, 4 - 2. (Evidently sons of maids counted to the total for her mistress.) So, Leah decided the score was getting too close, and she gave Jacob her maid, Zilpah. She bore Jacob a son, his seventh. Because he was the seventh, Leah named him Gad which means "lucky." Frankly, I think it was Jacob who was getting lucky.

As a child, Gad loved to run. He ran aimlessly from one place to another. Leah called him her little "Gad-about." He also loved to run after the sheep and pester them, and so Jacob often called him a "Gad-fly."

A Canaanite by the name of Abner Doublenight invented baseball

Most Americans thought Abner Doubleday invented baseball. That's why they always played "day" games, and on Sundays they would play "doubleheaders." This was in honor of Double-day. After the truth came out, they started playing night games, but it gets too late to play doubleheaders at night, so they play mostly single games.

When he was a little older, he started playing baseball (see sidebar) with the Canaanite kids. He was not very good, and the kids would yell at him, "Gad sucks! Gad sucks!" Now the Canaanites had a strange accent and to Gad's brothers, it sounded like "Gadzooks." So whenever Gad messed up, his brothers would yell,"Gadzooks, can't you do anything right?"

It's hard being the middle child; he was 7th of twelve boys. Gad never got much recognition like Levi and Joseph. In fact, when Israel was divided up for the twelve tribes, Gad's descendants had to settle for some land east of the Jordan. They never settled in Israel, proper.

But little did Gad know that he would become well-known in the English language with descriptive words and mild expletives. Speaking of mild expletives, crossword puzzle fans know that EGAD is a four-letter mild expletive. You older readers will remember a comic-strip character by the name of Major Hoople who always address his wife with the phrase, "Egad, Martha."

And so lucky Gad lives on in history. People don't name their children Gad these days, but they sure use his name a lot. Gadzooks, I can't think of anything else to write.