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…”

How she was able to do it I don’t know… wonderful mental dexterity I guess. Here it was, the memories of the murder of millions as fresh as your breakfast this morning, when your heritage and ancestry was put on the chopping block… to somehow be able to see beyond the fear was something to marvel at…

And Mommie Soph knew this was America… that she was as close to the promised land as you could get. That she had pride in her traditions was unquestioned; but also she was not troubled by her children’s blending old values with new ones.

We had a small “breakfast room” in our house. It was a distinct room rather than a “nook”; and it was nestled in between our kitchen and dinning room.

It is where we took the majority of our meals. And on early Friday evenings it was reserved for something special. Mommie Soph and my mother would go in there to light the Sabbath candles. To this day I am not entirely sure of the math… how many candles do you light? I believe the tradition is one for yourself, and one for your husband. But for Mommie Soph and my Mother, this number only represented the beginning… a candle also had to be lit for this relative (because no one is lighting one for her, or that one, because her daughter doesn’t know what she is doing) or that person… or the gardner…whoever. I think the numbers of candles lit were fairly constant; but of that I can’t be sure.

But each Friday they would gather near sun down. They would cover their heads, typically with cloth napkins, light the candles, and then slowly circling their hands around the flames, they would bring the spirit to their hearts and cover their eyes with cupped hands. Prayers would be said silently, or occasionally you could detect a soft murmur. From start to finish it probably took no more than 3 – 5 minutes; but when completed there was a cleansing in the air… a look of sadness to their faces, which I always attributed to the sense of loss they felt for those that had departed. And then that melancholy would dissipate, and a feeling of renewal would spread thru the house…”our home is safe”.

This is a tradition that goes back thru 500 generations, still fresh…

And sitting along side the old tradition, the”new” tradition: Santa Claus… or as Mommie Soph’s accent would have it…Sendy Close.

How bizarre. Yet for some (it not many) of my parents’ generation Christmas presents and Santa Claus embodied Americana. That my parents should buy into this was perhaps understandable; but that Mommie Soph should be able to accept the newer tradition was more surprising. She was able to detach the religious core of Christmas and have the joy of the season the swept the country.

No, we did not have a tree… nor was there a sense of religious importance for our family (although we all were to become familiar with this side as we got older… both Paul and Lynn went to Mass with their college & high school friends… and I went to Church with my friends the Rowes)… but Christmas morning we did open presents… and while the wrapping paper had no religious symbols… they were festooned to the nines. And as we opened those presents, Mommie Soph’s eyes beamed. She was so happy for us. I detected not one hint of regret that some how we were violating our sacred traditions.

Food was critical to her… it was an obsession. And quantity was vital. There had to be enough. Of everything. Then some more for later. And while Mommie Soph remained kosher… she had no problem with the fact that we didn’t. She had a duplicate kitchen in our basement, and did her personal food preparation down there. Food prepared for the family would be done upstairs. And while she wouldn’t cook bacon for breakfasts… she would go to the market and buy it for either my mother or Bessie to cook it. Eating was important… and if you didn’t eat seconds you would face a series of probing questions… and you could tell if the answers were satisfying; because if Mommie Soph didn’t like what she heard there would be a sadness that would descend in her expression… and it was unmistakable that you just hurt her feelings.

Not only would she cook non-stop for the house; but she even prepared food for our Bedlington Terriers (Baa Baa and Rocky). There would always be this “stock pot” that would be brewing on the stove. She would throw bones, giblets (horrible looking stuff actually) into the pot, and then add cut carrots, potatoes, celery… some parsley… little bit of this or that… and this ghastly stew would be for the hundts (the dogs)… to us it looked and smelled vile. But it never ceased to amaze me how guests during the day would wander into the kitchen, as Mommie Soph was stirring up the pot, and peer into the pot, “Hmmmmmm, Soph that looks simply mouth watering!” I would run from the room gagging.

While not an exclusive American pastime,  she enjoyed daytime television, Friday Night Fights… and also playing an occasional card game of Bridge. Some of her unique subtlety in the game was lost on me until I started playing Bridge in college. But I do recall a night when she was playing with my Mother (who had a regular Bridge game), Paul and I forget the fourth (maybe Lynn?). Mommie Soph begins the bidding… “I bid a small spade…”

This was immediately followed by some discussion… of the inappropriateness of the bid… its sneaky quality… Years later I was able to piece together her craft. Convention has it that once you add the points in your hand (13 for an opening bid) you could open with a 5 card major suit (spades or hearts) or a 4 card minor suit (clubs or diamonds)… by bidding a small spade, Mommie Soph was telling her partner that she either had less than 13 points in her hand, or that she only had 4 spades.

A no-no in the game… but pure Mommie Soph, who only suffered a light chastisement.

And if food were the mortar of her existence, then her love of the family was its soul.