In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" by Phil Brown Page A
Authors: Phil Brown
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direction.
She became a gambler, a regular shark at the neighborhood tables. During the day she worked in a stationery store off Nostrand Avenue—calendars, magazines, fancy pens, newspapers, especially the Forward . She knew them all. But at night, off to a neighborhood game for gin rummy or seven-card poker.
For three weeks each year, during the Christmas season running through the first part of January—the peak time for snowbirds—she would take Adam out of school, board a Greyhound bus, and head down to Florida. It was a long bus ride—almost two days. Adam would sleep for most of the time, or stare down at the pages of a book, or color in a large white pad that Rosa had picked up for him at the stationery store. He never complained about the trip. It was all part of his mother’s therapy—he knew it, even then.
Rosa passed the time by staring out the window. She loved the long journey south, chasing the warm weather, anticipating the tropics, breezing through all those unfamiliar towns. “What is this Fayetteville, and Jacksonville? Where are we now?” The motion of the bus rocked her gently, but her eyes never closed as she struggled with all those solicitations posted along the highway. Her lips moved slowly, and then the billboard was gone, already well behind her.
But when the bus reached Miami, Rosa stepped on the warm asphalt on Flagler Street and was immediately reminded of why she had come. There was the dog track on First Street on Miami Beach. And jai alai in Miami. The hotels along Collins Avenue were filled with “pigeons,” as she called them—a phrase picked up from late-night movies, the source of much of her English.
“Now you stay in this room until I get back,” she said, her son lying in bed in his pajamas, shadows from the black-and-white TV flickering off the window. Jackie Gleason droned in the background. “If you need anything, I’ll be at the Caribbean Hotel, down the street. I’ll come back with lots of money tonight. We’ll be rich like Rockefellers. Tomorrow, I’ll buy you a stuffed alligator in the souvenir store downstairs, maybe even a painted coconut. Now go to sleep.”
In the country, during the summer, the games were fewer, and the stakes lower. But there was bingo, the calling of the numbers—B23, A14, G9—which serenaded her through each night.
At the top of a road littered with pinecones the forest came to a halt. There was a light that led down to a barn, a long trailerlike edifice where the whole colony gathered for bingo. Once inside, Rosa purchased eight cards.
“You play so many cards, Mrs. Posner,” the man at the concession observed. “How do you keep up with all of them?”
“I brought my little helper,” she replied.
The room was filled mostly with people from the colony, but there were a few, like Rosa and Adam, who traveled from neighboring villages, playing bingo wherever it could be found. Each colony offered a game a week. For some, that was more than enough.
“You’ll play these two, Adam, and I’ll play the rest.”
They took their seats at a long wooden table with an adjoining bench, and set the cards out in front of them.
“Oh, I like these,” Rosa said, uncorking a Magic Marker that had a round sponge for a head. “You see, you just push the marker down on the card like this. Watch me, you don’t want to mark the wrong number.”
A giant cage filled with wooden balls readied itself for the caller’s rumbling spin.
“Our first prize is the bagel slicer,” the caller said. “To win you got to have an L in any direction.” He let go of the crank. The balls came to a crackling halt. He then opened the cage and released the first of the night’s numbers.
“B seven!”
“We got one,” Adam said, patting the card with his marker, his small face alternately glowing and serious. “We live in bungalow seven—that’s why they called it.”
Rosa smiled down at her son but remained earnest in her own vigil. As
She became a gambler, a regular shark at the neighborhood tables. During the day she worked in a stationery store off Nostrand Avenue—calendars, magazines, fancy pens, newspapers, especially the Forward . She knew them all. But at night, off to a neighborhood game for gin rummy or seven-card poker.
For three weeks each year, during the Christmas season running through the first part of January—the peak time for snowbirds—she would take Adam out of school, board a Greyhound bus, and head down to Florida. It was a long bus ride—almost two days. Adam would sleep for most of the time, or stare down at the pages of a book, or color in a large white pad that Rosa had picked up for him at the stationery store. He never complained about the trip. It was all part of his mother’s therapy—he knew it, even then.
Rosa passed the time by staring out the window. She loved the long journey south, chasing the warm weather, anticipating the tropics, breezing through all those unfamiliar towns. “What is this Fayetteville, and Jacksonville? Where are we now?” The motion of the bus rocked her gently, but her eyes never closed as she struggled with all those solicitations posted along the highway. Her lips moved slowly, and then the billboard was gone, already well behind her.
But when the bus reached Miami, Rosa stepped on the warm asphalt on Flagler Street and was immediately reminded of why she had come. There was the dog track on First Street on Miami Beach. And jai alai in Miami. The hotels along Collins Avenue were filled with “pigeons,” as she called them—a phrase picked up from late-night movies, the source of much of her English.
“Now you stay in this room until I get back,” she said, her son lying in bed in his pajamas, shadows from the black-and-white TV flickering off the window. Jackie Gleason droned in the background. “If you need anything, I’ll be at the Caribbean Hotel, down the street. I’ll come back with lots of money tonight. We’ll be rich like Rockefellers. Tomorrow, I’ll buy you a stuffed alligator in the souvenir store downstairs, maybe even a painted coconut. Now go to sleep.”
In the country, during the summer, the games were fewer, and the stakes lower. But there was bingo, the calling of the numbers—B23, A14, G9—which serenaded her through each night.
At the top of a road littered with pinecones the forest came to a halt. There was a light that led down to a barn, a long trailerlike edifice where the whole colony gathered for bingo. Once inside, Rosa purchased eight cards.
“You play so many cards, Mrs. Posner,” the man at the concession observed. “How do you keep up with all of them?”
“I brought my little helper,” she replied.
The room was filled mostly with people from the colony, but there were a few, like Rosa and Adam, who traveled from neighboring villages, playing bingo wherever it could be found. Each colony offered a game a week. For some, that was more than enough.
“You’ll play these two, Adam, and I’ll play the rest.”
They took their seats at a long wooden table with an adjoining bench, and set the cards out in front of them.
“Oh, I like these,” Rosa said, uncorking a Magic Marker that had a round sponge for a head. “You see, you just push the marker down on the card like this. Watch me, you don’t want to mark the wrong number.”
A giant cage filled with wooden balls readied itself for the caller’s rumbling spin.
“Our first prize is the bagel slicer,” the caller said. “To win you got to have an L in any direction.” He let go of the crank. The balls came to a crackling halt. He then opened the cage and released the first of the night’s numbers.
“B seven!”
“We got one,” Adam said, patting the card with his marker, his small face alternately glowing and serious. “We live in bungalow seven—that’s why they called it.”
Rosa smiled down at her son but remained earnest in her own vigil. As
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