The Ash Creek Papers

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…

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…

The entrance to Hopkins sits on a hill above our old home on Alston Ave. To get to the school you would have to go up a rather long, steep and snaking driveway to where the academic buildings were clustered on yet another hill. And to get to the playing fields one had to go up another elevation to a “plateau” where the fields existed, side by side. It was an area that had been cleared of the forest… a forest that had probably been there since the last ice age.

To a six year old, the fields looked like the Russian Steppe. And one of my first memories as a child was being on that field, on a grey Saturday morning to watch Hopkins play football against Kingswood. I was too young to know what was going on, or really to follow the path of #19.

But Paul was there… one of the tri-captains on the team, and its star halfback.

The field was not fancy. I don’t recall bleachers; but it’s possible that there was minimal seating. And I probably kept myself busy during the first half running around and “messing about”, as my parents stood and watched the play on the field.

At half time the team retreated to the far corner of the clearing (the locker room was too far away?) where they took off their helmets and sat about as the coaches began to assess the play from the first half. And almost immediately Mommie Soph appeared bearing a gigantic tray heaped with oranges cut into quarters. She walked gingerly thru the scattered bodies of sweat besmeared boys offering them reviving sweet and sticky oranges.

To all the boys, Mommie Soph’s appearance had been a welcomed and accustomed sight. That day, not only was Paul Winston my big brother; but Mommie Soph was my grandmother!

Mommie Soph participated in our lives. She kept a watchful eye over us. And sometimes it could be a bit annoying. Lynn would come home from a date, and waiting at the front door, light on, removed corset under arm, stockings rolled down, a cup in her hand (with her false teeth), welcoming Lynn back to the safety the home. The only thing missing was Bobby Short playing piano on the front lawn Isn’t it Romantic? It mortified Lynn.

Ten years later I suffered a similar embarrassment. I had brought Ellen back to the house (perhaps after going to a movie?) and we had staked out our den… put on the tube, hit the lights and proceeded to make out on the couch. And completely unbeknownst to me Mommie Soph had stationed herself on the couch in the adjacent living room. But after a bit I heard a voice ask not so quietly, “Jimmy… when are you going to take her home?”

How she behaved with Paul’s dates I haven’t a clue. But she did watch us, and my guess is she put her two cents in with my parents as to what should be what.

She was always there for help. As mentioned, she help set her sister’s husbands in businesses. And significantly when my Dad started Chipp in 1947, it was Mommie Soph that staked him to $10,000 (ironically, my Dad’s partner was staked to his share by his wife… but they were still short 10K. Mommie Soph offered to make up the difference; but my Dad refused because he was worried that if Chipp proved a failure he would have stripped Mommie Soph of her life’s savings. So, a third partner was brought in for the money — and the money alone… that guy never worked a day in his life after 1948… and I was still paying him off long after my Dad had passed on).

And she was always providing for little things around the house.

After she retired from the meat business all of her chopping blocks were brought into our basement which she transformed into a butchers corner. I think I must have been 15 years old before I realized that the super markets offered already ground meat for sale! And every day she would drive to the market, for example and buy 3 kaiser rolls, a quarter pound of sweet munchie cheese & a bag of pecan sandies. Without fail, every day she would go to the store to make a purchase of some type. And at one point my Dad would suggest to her, “Ma… why don’t you buy a dozen rolls and only shop once a week?”

And later I could see that my Dad had missed the point entirely. Shopping for food… shopping for the home… shopping for us, was a way for Mommie Soph to demonstrate her love. More than that, it gave her a sense of value, of being valuable and needed. To deny this would be to strip her of her esteem.

Daily she would get in her car and drive to do an errand… and perhaps she stayed behind the wheel past her years; but as one would suspect she was very, very reluctant to give up her independence. And yes, at the end there were days when she would drive off in her car, get lost and disoriented in a city that had been her home for 70 years… only to have a police car lead her home… and invariably my mother was told…”You know Mrs. Winston, maybe it would be a better idea if your mother didn’t drive alone anymore… oh by the way, my mother used to buy meat from your mother…”