In the Catskills: A Century of Jewish Experience in "The Mountains" (20 page)

From the passenger’s perspective, the dream trip was to be picked up last and dropped off first, for the driver it was simply to make it. “Wurtsboro Mountain was always a pain in the ass,” hacker Billy Feigenbaum recalled. “We were always so loaded down with crap that the Checker couldn’t get over five miles an hour.” In the 1950s, hacks, such as Goldy’s Limousine Service, charged ten to twelve dollars for a seat in a ten-passenger stretch Buick.
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Joey Adams describes a hacker as “a symphony in rags, his livery a pair of torn pants, and underwear, shirt and a handkerchief around his neck … [which] soaked up perspiration.” He often smoked “a black stinky cigar.”
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This might be an extreme description, but drivers were a harried lot who worked long hours with uncomfortable people packed into a car with strangers.

Joey Adams also recalls a trip when his mother reserved the backseat of a hack for Joey, his sister Yetta, and herself. “The rest of the car contained an elderly lady and a young man who were squeezed together with the hacker in the front seat. A tubby bleached blond sat on a jump seat with most of her belongings.” The other jump seat was occupied by a bald-headed man “reverently carrying a jar … [of] garlic pickles” that stank up the air.
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Since hacks were most crowded and expensive on the weekend, mothers and their children would often come up during the week with the father following on the weekend. It was not unusual for wives arriving at Richman’s to say, “My husband will pay you on Friday”—and they always did. The most affluent non-car owners would rent an entire hack, and they had a quicker, safer, less crowded, if more expensive trip. Hacks still exist, although today they are usually large vans and they charge thirty-five to forty-five dollars per person. My mother uses one when she needs to go into the city to see her doctor.

If you had your own car, transportation was easier. Many first-time renters would bring a load of household goods up with them when they rented. Others might do the same on Memorial Day weekend. By the mid 1950s, as competition got fiercer, many larger colonies would allow tenants to come up for the long preseason holiday weekend. As people became more affluent and possessions multiplied, many people had trailers put on their cars or had much of their baggage delivered by van. At Richman’s we had several well-to-do tenants who would arrive by car, usually a Cadillac, followed by a truck with their belongings, usually driven by an employee of the family business.

No matter how you traveled, when you arrived you had to unpack. On the “last Sunday in June, … Hector’s Pond Colony, a pocket of ranch-style cottages, was undergoing heavy assault. Suitcases, cartons, bundles of bedding, groceries and assorted necessities [were] flowing feverishly into the clapboard frames.”
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At all colonies, arrival times were frantic as everyone unloaded, often helped by well-tipped handymen. On more than one occasion while working around the place, I was mistaken for a handyman by new guests. I usually helped them, but I had to decline a tip. Old-timers would mostly be embarrassed to ask a “Jewish college boy” to do such menial work. Owners hurried around attempting to resolve last minute crises and making themselves available to receive payment. All of this frenzy would, of course, be repeated in reverse in ten weeks. Once unpacked, summer was ready to begin.

A photo montage in
A Summer World
shows hotel activities and a group of people playing cards at Cutler’s Cottages in South Fallsburg in the 1940s. The caption calls this “the slow track,” but card playing was the single most important daytime activity at most hotels as well as at bungalow colonies.
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During the many times I visited hotels as a kid and a young adult, I was always fascinated by how little the athletic facilities were used. This has probably changed in our fitness-conscious era, but empty swimming pools and mostly empty tennis courts are an indelible memory. On a visit to someone at a hotel or a colony, a sightseeing trip around the place was
de rigeur
. The visitor would see that card playing predominated all, and if a pool had a true function—it was to allow you to play cards next to it.

The hotel goers were truly differentiated from the bungalow people by the everyday chores of life. Hotel goers could avoid doing anything but dressing and eating, both done many times a day.
Kuchaleiners
had to literally “cook for themselves,” but life went on at a more casual pace than in the city. Quarters were smaller and more simply furnished, daily dressing was informal, there was less laundry, and, with husbands gone much of the week, cooking was simpler. At Richman’s, the rhythms of everyday life changed after the halcyon years of the 1940s and 1950s. Our clientele differed, or in most cases, just aged. We went from lively families to retired folks, the week and the weekend melded together, and eventually our clientele literally died away.

A mother’s typical day would begin when the kids woke her up. She made breakfast, cleaned and did other chores, made lunch, fed the kids, and was outside in time for the walk down to the river. When the family came back from the river, it was time to change and get the kids changed (young kids had already been changed before the walk back), shop when Hymie the dairyman came, and then make supper for the family. Meals tended to be simple. Few Jews ate meat at each meal, especially since many kept kosher—and drinking milk (believed to be very important for children) and eating meat at the same meal is not kosher. Breakfasts of cold cereal, canned juice, and milk were very common, as were eggs and toast. Smoked fish—the bagel, cream cheese, and lox feast—was usually a weekend treat. Lunch was often a sandwich—peanut-butter-and-jelly and American-cheese-and-mustard-on-rye were favorites. Tuna fish and canned salmon were often served. A quirky kid, my favorite sandwich was cream cheese, lettuce, and caviar on a seeded roll. As a special treat, we might get spaghetti (overcooked and served with ketchup) or Aunt Jemima pancakes with syrup. All sandwiches were accompanied by milk and cakes or cookies—usually store-bought treats. Yankee Doodles and Oreo cookies were favorites. Dinners featured broiled or fried meat in big portions: hamburgers, steaks, lamb chops, and liver. Potatoes, canned vegetables, and fruits rounded out the meal. In our house, we often ate more elaborately at dinnertime, even during the week, because Grandpa really liked to eat and Grandma was a very obliging cook. She would make traditional dishes throughout the week, but even with Grandma, Friday was the major cooking day.

After dinner, the kids would have their last chance to whoop it up, while mothers cleaned up the kitchens before beginning the nightly ritual of rounding up the kids and putting them down for the night. Bedtime varied with age, and I remember hating going to bed while it was still light outside, as it was in the summer until nine o’clock or so. Mostly, the preteenage group were put down by nine; for older kids, ten to eleven was the usual time.

When the kids were in bed, the women would play cards. They’d meet in various bungalows or in the small kitchens in the Big House where they were within earshot of the children. Gin rummy was very popular in the 1940s and early 1950s—later canasta became all the rage. Occasionally, most of the women would come together in the kitchen of the Big House to play Continental rummy or Michigan rummy. Our women seldom played poker, but it was commonly played at other colonies. All the games were penny ante, and even at that many of the women, including some of our richest, hated to lose “unlimited” amounts of money that might go to a dollar fifty or two dollars if luck was incredibly bad, so they played with twenty-five cents or fifty cents “pie.” After you lost that amount of money in an evening, you could play gratis, and you could still collect winnings.

Children vanished from the scene as our crowd aged, and cards became increasingly important as a time killer. Afternoons were spent playing cards, usually rummy or canasta, and in the evenings, most of the women would gather in our Big House kitchen to play cards or kibitz. Games that whole gangs could play, such as Michigan rummy, were especially valued. Although our place was small, there were always cliques, and in larger places this was even more evident. At Richman’s in later years, one clique centered around our neighbors, the Puttermans and the Yustmans. Both were very affluent and both owned their own small houses. They had friends among our tenants, whom they would invite over to play cards at their houses. Increasingly, when “the 400,” as the rest of the tenants called them derisively, had their card parties, Mother felt obliged to see that the other tenants were happy and so she organized card parties for them—canasta was a favorite here, too.

In larger places with day camps and freer-spending crowds, cards were played more often and for higher stakes. It was not unusual to see games that went on all day and night. Bridge, that normative middle-class pastime, was rare in Sullivan County. I only remember one group of our guests ever playing it. It was played at some of the larger places, but poker and gin rummy were much more common.

Another game, moderately popular at our place but extremely popular at the larger places, was mah-jongg. Played with tiles rather than cards, mah-jongg became a national craze in the 1920s. Considerably more expensive than cards, the sets themselves cost thirty to a hundred dollars or more. The Depression put an end to this national craze, but postwar Jewish women took to the game with a vengeance. A day of major importance came each July when the National Mah-Jongg League issued its annual new card, detailing that year’s permissible “hands” or tile combinations. The click, click of tiles and phrases like “five bam” and “two cracks” filled the air many an afternoon at the large colonies. Mah-jongg was a gambling game. The stakes were usually higher than cards, and there was no “pie.” In the city, my mother played mah-jongg with her group of five. As only four could play each game, one sat out each hand on a rotation basis. That way the game never had to stop for bathroom breaks. The women would meet in each others’ houses on a rotation basis and see who could outdo whom in the preparation of snacks: cakes, pies, and other goodies. Other women, more fanatical about the game, belonged to several groups and could play afternoon and evening. At the larger places, a number of cliques were based on these winter mah-jongg groups whose members rented together and played the game morning, noon, and night. Emulating their mothers, teenage girls often played serious games of mah-jongg as well. Apparently, mah-jongg is still played. After not hearing of Jewish mah-jongg for years, I was mildly surprised to see an advertisement in the Lancaster Jewish Community Center newsletter announcing, “It’s Time to Order Your 1997 Mah-Jongg Card!”
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Mothers at large colonies had the opportunity for “a real vacation,” with freedom to pursue their own interests, especially in the postwar years. Day camps could make the kids disappear all day, laundry services processed their linen and clothes, and cleaning help was also available. Ann Cutler in
Bungalow Nine
complains of being tired from all of her chores. Looking to the future, she tells Jason that hopefully “you can treat me to a full-time maid like the Millers have”:

Summertime help could charge a premium. Even at Richman’s, while most women did their own work, several had cleaning help and a few had full-time maids.

Bingo was another diversion. In the 1940s, bingo was mostly a kids’ game. Five or six kids played, taking turns at calling. By the mid 1950s the adults had started playing, and by the end of the 1950s Richman’s even had a professional cage with balls for number selection. While it was extremely rare to see colony-wide card games of any kind, bingo was always integrated at our place and even “the 400” joined in. At first everyone took turns calling but, little by little, this chore fell to my mother. Bingo, thankfully, was only played once a week, and in later years it was in our garage, which doubled as a casino. By the 1950s, professional callers were common at larger places. Some callers ran the whole operation and owned the equipment. At Richman’s, bingo was played with a fifty-cent pie. It could be considerably more expensive to play at other places where you typically paid for each card used and the game was a profit maker.