Crushed Nuts

Posted on October 13, 2002 by Jim

I turned up the street on my normal route bringing Suzy to school a few days ago, and I heard the unmistakeable crunch of my tires crushing nuts that had fallen from the trees…

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I went to Gaylor’s for grades 1, 2 & 3… before entering Hamden Hall in grade 4. Gaylor’s was a tiny private school that was a throwback to the 19th century. It was a one room class room… now granted there are probably a few of these schools still kicking around today in the rural parts of our country. And while New Haven isn’t a huge metropolis, it is still called home to 150,000 souls. So a one room school for Grades one thru six had to be a bit of a novelty.

Why was I there? I have no clue. I think my parents thought that I would do better in a small environment… I would stay there thru grade six and then I would enter Hopkins… where Paul had gone to school.

I can remember just 2 boys from Gaylor’s… and only because they also moved over to Hamden Hall with me in grade four.

The school was in this old Victorian home and I don’t think there were more than 50 students in the entire complement (that’s grade 1 thru 6). The backyard of the school was the outside play area. No grass to speak of. A graveled drive, and this huge horse chestnut tree dominated the entire space. I remember falling on the gravel (it seemed more like rocks to me) and scraping my hands, ripping the knees of my pants, and cutting my knees.

In the fall, those huge chestnuts would litter the backyard. The nut themselves were enclosed in yet another shell that had bumps and made me think of corn fritters or sea mines. If you stepped on one of the fallen nuts by mistake you knew it… you would practically twist an ankle. But there was an special crunch to tromping on the nuts and grinding them into the gravel rocks. The nuts were also good for throwing. There must have been some prohibition against using them as missiles; but I can’t help but think that it would be awfully hard to keep 3rd grade boys from heaving them at one another.

I remember little from those days. A vague outline of the school, the interior of the room itself; but most significantly, that huge tree, fall days and running around the yard amongst the gravel and the horse chestnuts, hand and knees scraped.

I think my mother told me that it was lack of an adequate play area that convinced my parents that I had to go to a different school. And since Hopkins didn’t begin ’til the 7th grade… a school would have to be found for 4, 5 & 6.

I was accepted to Hamden Hall (along with Steven Hardy and Duncan Moffitt); but I had to be tutored in math that summer before entering. It turned out that in addition to lacking “gym facilities”, Gaylor’s was not particularly good at instructing in the “3 Rs”.

I guess it is convenient for me to think that my less than sterling academic career had its genesis at Gaylor’s… and being distracted by the sounds of mashing horse chestnuts under foot.

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Scene From Two Weddings

Posted on August 13, 2002 by Jim

Alan said this, “I have attended a wedding… I have been a groomsman at a wedding… I have been a groom at a wedding… and now I have been the father of a bride at a wedding…”

And I could not help but think that there had to be an additional table set… perhaps just off to the side. Mommie Soph would have been there, silently walking around the table making sure that my father had enough food to eat. My mother was there, too, as was Sadie Cadan, Alan’s mother. Yes, they were all there that night… stars twinkling over the Sound.

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It’s funny how things change in size in our memory. That grandfather’s clock that appeared so enormous when we were young is now a more human-like dimension.

And my memory had told me that the scope of the Christina Room was much grander, and the N.C. Wyeth that hung over the hearth was bigger still. But that did not dim the joy that I felt to return to that dinning room in the Hotel Du Pont. I stayed at the Hotel about 8 times a year. And the Staff knew my favorite table. The room had wonderful art work… all the Wyeths… N.C., Andrew & Jamie… plus a couple of Charlie Colombo’s (also part of the “Brandywine Heritage”)… and my table, a deuce was along a wall, and was next to a wonderful Andrew Wyeth. The room had richly carved dark wood walls and a high ceiling (also with ornate decorations). Comfortable chairs made this a place natural to linger after dinner.

Nothing gave me more satisfaction than treating Jim Coleman to dinner there. We would talk the night away. My second adult friend and me. Jim lost his life to Lou Gehrig’s Disease a half a dozen years ago. Oh… the pride he would have felt watching his grandson get married this past Saturday.

And when I walked out onto the patio of the Wilmington Country Club on Saturday night to get some fresh air… I looked skyward… I am sure I saw an extra star casting its light in our direction…

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What are you looking for?

Posted on July 31, 2002 by Jim

At Grapes, Holt is in charge of all special request orders…”don’t ship ’til the 23rd of Jibroo”… “send one case a month to me on the first Monday after a full moon”… that sort of thing. And in that capacity he has turned our part of the “bullpen” into a mini-cellar. If we take that in combination with the fact that we already use some of this area as a staging location for the wines that we will take to a wine tasting, the result is our part of the room takes on the appearance of the hold of the Mayflower (we are only missing the rats). Last night at the close of business, Barbara, who works at Holt’s desk in the evening, was rummaging about the cartons (or perhaps she was trying to re-gain her balance from an accidental trip) and I asked her, “What are you looking for? Your ring?”

My father’s mother, Lena taught me how to play Rummy. She was called “Bubbie Lena”… Bubbie meaning granny in Yiddish. I have also seen this word transliterated as “bubbeh”, “bubbe” & “bubie”. She also taught me another card game “Casino”.

But it was my father who really taught me how to play Gin Rummy… and of course once you started to play seriously it instantly became just “gin”. And somehow when I played cards with my father I pictured myself with an eyeshade, garters holding back my sleeve cuffs, a watch fob in my vest & a cigarette dangling from my mouth. Perhaps one too many cowboy movies?

He taught me the “mannerisms” of the game… how you scratched your card on the table before discarding it indicating that you weren’t sure if your opponent needed the card. Or the ultimate… if you needed the six of clubs to complete a four card run of four, five, six & seven (and it was the only card that could have given you gin)… you were entitled to slide the six into its appropriate spot in your hand with an elbow. It was the gin equivalent of “hanging on the rim” or doing a “sack dance”.

Dad taught me the intricacies of the game… whether to go for runs, or whether to collect the same cards, and of course the most critical skill was when to “knock”. This latter ploy would drive my kids nuts when I would subsequently teach them the game, as time and time again I would “knock” before they would have a chance to go “gin”.

My father had taught me well. “Knocking” is actually a defensive maneuver… if you have little or no chance of going “gin” than knocking for a few points was far better than taking a 20+ point hit from your opponent going gin.

Also good defensive play requires that you watch the cards your opponent picks up off the discard pile.

And naturally the “discard pile” itself is of key interest. The pile is rarely in a neat stack… rather you can get a glimpse of the cards that lay beneath. So let’s say that you have a five and seven of hearts, and need a six of hearts to complete a three card run. Didn’t the six of hearts already go by? Or was that the six of diamonds?

Well… the instinct is to try and deftly move the discard pile around a bit hoping to see the card in question somewhere in the pile. But looking through the discard pile is a no-no.

And as I am doing this one time, my father looks at me and says, “Jimmy, what are you looking for? Your ring?”

I have never gone looking through the discard pile since…

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Mommie Soph, Part IV

Posted on June 14, 2002 by Jim

I think it was shortly after Lynn started at Western College for Women, that my Dad got a small apartment in Tudor City over by the U.N. He had been commuting to and from New Haven since 1947 (in addition to traveling on the road for both J. Press and Chipp), and I guess he thought it was time to “reclaim” a few 3 hour blocks per day. And my Mom would usually go in a couple of days a week, and up to 4 days during the fall as well.

This was possible because Mommie Sophie and Bessie were there to take care of the house & me. Mommie Soph would drive me to school and get me from point “A” to point “B”. Bessie in those days played a far less vocal role in the household operations (although years later… particularly in my father’s declining years… she was completely in charge).

Mommie Soph remained a force in our lives even as she herself went into a decline. You could see it in how all of our acquaintances responded to her… Paul’s & Lynn’s friends and my friends, too. She was a real character… her accent, her convoluted syntax; but always the gracious host… and this I didn’t realize ’til years later… she knew how to keep quiet. Maybe it was because she felt uncomfortable if conversations moved to areas that she had little understanding of… maybe she was inherently shy.

But sometimes I think that before there was a Yogi Berra, there was Sophie Fleischner… that combination of savy, earthy wisdom that is articulated in unconventional sentence structure.

And perhaps the first sign that we were growing up was when we moved from being embarrassed by her “sound”, to being amused & finally to being proud.

I am sorry that Ellen only got to know her after she peaked… and I feel “cheated” that my kids never got to know her at all. She loved babies, and she knew of 6 great-grand children. She knew that the kids were the future, and for her the future was bright… even while she was lying in bed with life draining from her.

My Dad told me that when you lose your second parent you instantly become an orphan… at whatever age. He also referred to the process of losing a parent as “the maturing of the matured”. And so it was with my mother, who watched her mother die in our house… and then would (in combination with other family issues) never regain her full stability… After Mommie Soph died, my mother would spend the late winter/early spring in Florida… no longer able to be at home for Passover… so strong the link between that Holiday and Mommie Soph. The absence hurt too much.

On April 15, 1983 both Ellen and my father were in Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dad was in to have his prostate checked out (because of his weight, and other medical risks… a procedure that would have been done as a same day deal, turned into an overnight)… and Ellen to give birth.

And so it comes full circle… Shaina Catherine Winston comes into the world (Jewish name Shaina Clara). Two weeks later my Dad died.

Lives are added, and lives are subtracted…

The period of mourning for Jews immediately after death is called shiva. People come and visit… stories are told, there are smiles, there are tears… there is a vacancy in our lives.

“So Eve… Jimmy and Ellen have a new baby, what did they name her?”

“They named her Shaina for Mamma…”

“Mazel Tov… but what did they name her?”

Yes… the friends were thrown for a loop. We had chosen a name that would be both her “English” name and her “Jewish” name…

And when I look at Shaina today, a young woman with a perfect combination of grit and loving heart, I think of Mommie Soph and how wonderful life is…

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