Curse of the Lottery Lifted, Cultural Literacy, Kutsher's Revisited

I checked my lottery tickets Tuesday. Won $2 on Mega Ball which I promptly parlayed into a Power Ball ticket for Wednesday night. Hey, you never know, and the next Power Ball prize is a cool $152 million. 

Even better, new research has lifted the veil of doom and gloom previously thought to have engulfed jackpot winners.  According to an article in Tuesday’s NY Times, the “curse” of the lottery has been debunked. Winners no more are assumed to end up “divorced, depressed destitute or dead,” in the short term, at least (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/science/how-to-win-the-lottery-happily.html?ref=science&_r=0).

Several studies found the stress levels of winners declined over two years while positive feelings increased. 

All I can say is, come on 4, 5, 35, 43, 49 and PB 35!

Uh, Oh, I’ve been exposed. Outed. No, not in a sexual orientation way, but rather in the context of cultural literacy. 

“Faking cultural literacy” was an article in the Sunday Review section of The Times. The subhead suggested “social media lets us pretend to know something about everything,” to which I’d say that my more than casual knowledge of grammar tells me that “social media” is a plural (media is the plural form of medium), so the correct verb would be “let” not “lets.” Tsk, Tsk, NY Times copy editor (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/opinion/sunday/faking-cultural-literacy.html?partner=rss&emc=rss).

But seriously, I’m a typical reporter at heart, a jack of all trades, master of none. Which means I’m glib and opinionated. But am I knowledgeable? Am I intelligent, or merely informed (note I wrote informed, not well-informed)?

My aversion to traditional-learning began during my teenage years. I hardly ever read an assigned book in high school. Like the author of the essay, I found Cliff Notes or the Hollywood version of the classics more than adequate to slide through classes. My feel for American history derived more from movies such as Drums Along the Mohawk, Allegheny Uprising and The Last of the Mohicans than any textbook. Still, I scored a 98% on the American History Regents, highest in my grade (I maintain I should have earned a 100% but the teacher took off two points because he did not know one of the facts I included in my essay. He dismissed the proof I showed him, saying I should be content with a 98.)

Seven years later, as a novice newspaper reporter, I found being the silent observer an inscrutable way of not revealing my intelligence level. Any subject I was not familiar with I would casually inquire of another journalist. I recall at my first Board of Selectmen’s meeting in Seymour, Conn., being stumped when the discussion turned to “mill rates.” Journalism school had never touched on mill rates, which turned out to be the basis of all local taxation in the Nutmeg State, as a kindly, grandmotherly reporter from The Ansonia Sentinel enlightened me. We might have been competitors but we were part of the same “family” of scribes.

 I can’t say I am more culturally attuned these days. Whenever I watch shows like Entertainment Tonight or Fashion Police I am in the dark about most of the celebs profiled. Good thing my iPhone is at hand to google whatever or whoever confounds me so I can pretend to know what I’m talking about. 

Borscht-Belted, Again: Wednesday morning I heard a WCBS Sports Radio commentary by Boomer Esiason about the pending demolition of Kutsher’s, the Catskills resort. Kutsher’s attracted professional ball players to hobnob with its mostly Jewish clientele. Wilt Chamberlain worked there as a bellboy before becoming a professional basketball player.

I never stayed at Kutsher’s but I did accompany my parents to many of the other Catskills hotels. Gilda, on the other hand, never experienced the Catskills. She was intent on doing so when our children were young and not home. For an encore report on our visit to Kutsher’s, read on:

In 1988, when our son, Dan, was 9, he went to sleepaway camp for the first time for eight weeks. With the assistance of a neighbor who agreed to watch the then 6-1/2 year old Ellie, Gilda planned a romantic weekend getaway for us. Having never experienced a Catskills resort when growing up, Gilda craved the experience. She had seen an article in The Times describing a renovation of Kutsher’s in Monticello. She made a reservation and sent a $50 deposit.

Now, I had accompanied my parents to many Catskills hotels when growing up. They were generally pleasant, but by 1988 I had been exposed to, shall we say, a more refined world. I traveled across the country for my job, staying in many first class hotels and resorts. Gilda had often shared the resort trips with me as they centered around conferences where the presence of a spouse was a definite advantage in meeting and mingling with sources. Despite Kutsher’s renovations as described in The Times, I was less than enthusiastic about trekking off to the Catskills. Having just mastered riding a bicycle at age 39 (a subject of a future blog), I was happy to learn Kutsher’s had it own bike trail around its lake and provided bikes free of charge.

The fateful weekend in early July came. I admit I did not muster much enthusiasm. Gilda was rightfully upset with my attitude. As we pulled onto the hotel driveway, the same canopy depicted in the picture in last Friday’s paper appeared. It was not the equal to the Del Coronado outside San Diego. Or the Boca Raton Country Club. Or the Arizona Biltmore, the Scottsdale Princess or the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, all hotels Gilda and I, often with our children, had enjoyed. I sensed her trepidation as we entered the small registration desk just inside the front door.

She wanted to see the room before we officially checked in. The registration clerk asked why. Just to be sure. We didn’t want a room with double beds. Reluctantly she agreed to show us the room. As we walked across the lobby, I detected a strange odor. It reminded me of a used kitty litter box. I suggested perhaps the carpet was mildewed and was immediately rebuffed. It was new flooring, I was told. New or old, I said, the carpet smelled.

I glanced out the picture window and saw the “lake” with the bike path surrounding it. It appeared to be about a half acre in size. Yes, bikes were available, but they couldn’t be ridden anywhere off the paved path around the lake. So much for any biking expedition.

We arrived at our room and stepped into the 1950s. It had separate beds; the carpeting was a long shag of deep orange. We demanded a different room. Reluctantly Kutsher’s agreed. We asked to see it. Again the clerk was less than enthusiastic. The second room had a single bed and decent carpeting. But its only window was higher than six feet from the ground. Standing on the bed I could see out the window. If I craned my neck I could see part of the pool. But most visible was the building next door. Had I wanted to see a building when I looked out the window, I told the clerk, I would have stayed in Brooklyn.

Gilda was now convinced Kutsher’s was not going to be part of our weekend escape. We were prepared to forfeit the $50 deposit, but amazingly Kutsher’s refunded it. We weren’t ready to return home, so we decided to check out the Concord in Kiamesha Lake. Before registering, however, we opted to scope out the hotel. It seemed acceptable until we came upon a yoga class in progress. How can I say this delicately? The yoga instructor could be a contestant on the show,The Biggest Loser. No way, Gilda said, was she staying in a hotel that disrespected its clientele with such an instructor.

Disappointed, we headed homeward till I remembered about the Inn at Lake Waramaug in Litchfield County, Conn. It’s a beautiful setting, with individual cottages. No TVs. No phones. Just the opportunity to commune with nature. That is, unless it’s pouring rain, which started to fall right after we arrived and kept coming down well into Saturday morning, by which time we decided that White Plains wasn’t too bad a place to spend a romantic weekend by ourselves, with Ellie down the street playing with Issa and her mother, Angeles.

Repurposing Stories on Passover and Kutsher's

I don’t know if NBC News and ABC News do this, but CBS News is a practitioner of “repurposed copy”. In other words, stories done for the daily evening news often find their way onto CBS Sunday Morning or some other news broadcast. It’s all part of the new dynamic of trying to fill airtime devoted to news, which seems to be expanding, with staffs that seems to be constantly contracting. Nothing wrong with that, especially since we repurposed all the time on Chain Store Age, using material from our Web site in the monthly magazine. More to the immediate point, I’m about to repurpose two posts from my first year of blogging, posts chosen because of their link to current events. The first commemorates preparations for Passover which begins tonight. The second also comes from that first year and is reprinted because of the death of Helen Kutsher, matriach of the Catskills resort Kutsher’s Country Club.

Gilda and I figured out this morning it is 25 years since she began cooking and hosting the annual Passover seder for some two dozen family and friends. Back on April 2, 2010, I paid tribute to my mother’s yeoman prior work for this most Jewish of all holidays:

Passover Wonders

How did she do it?

How did my mother, who worked full-time with my father in his business, manage to cook and store food for 20 to 30 people for our annual Passover seders when all she had was an old oven and stovetop and a small International Harvester refrigerator-freezer?

It’s always baffled my brother, sister and me, especially when I see the preparations Gilda makes each year for our seder of equivalent size, the food she cooks in advance and stores in our two fridges with their freezers and our stand-alone freezer.

Our mother no doubt bartered space in neighbors’ kitchens in exchange for portions of gefilte fish and matzah ball soup. I’d be in charge of delivering the goods each year, not one of my favorite chores as I was rather possessive of her handiwork. Her gefilte fish was an exquisite blend of pike, carp and whitefish she personally bought from the fish monger’s truck at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Avenue W, a block and a half from our home in Brooklyn. Simply put, her gefilte fish was to die for.

My sister Lee loved her matzah balls (I was more partial to the kreplach she made for Rosh Hashanah). Each matzah ball was exceptionally soft and fluffy. So it was more than surprising when one year everyone almost broke their teeth, literally almost broke their teeth, on her matzah balls. Without telling anyone, she had hidden a blanched almond inside each sphere. Her unsuspecting family and guests assumed their knedlach would easily melt inside their mouths. The crunch and resistance we all felt made everyone uneasy. Too embarrassed to say anything, we wondered if she had somehow mixed chicken bones into the matzah ball batter. When she finally noticed everyone avoiding finishing their knedlach, she volunteered that she had hidden a “surprise” inside each matzah ball. Enlightened and relieved, we gobbled up the rest, and thereafter joked about it at all subsequent seders.

Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1950s and 1960s, we lived in an attached two-story row house. Before I turned 13, we’d hold the seder in the basement. Tables would be arranged in a U-shape. Our immediate family, aunts, uncles and first cousins totaled 18. On top of that came mostly people related to our father by kinship or friendship, swelling our numbers to 25 or more, as many as 40 one year. Uncle Willy, who ran a dry goods store on First Avenue in the East Village in Manhattan, always brought us new clothing for the holiday.

In the 1960s, after the seder moved upstairs, my brother Bernie and I were tasked with rearranging furniture to accommodate a long table run down the center of the living room. We moved the couch and chairs into the dinette. Our father presided at one end. Willy sat a few seats down. Our mother sat at the far end, gossiping with her three sisters. In between, the nine cousins, two more uncles and assorted guests, most of whom could not read Hebrew, and even if they could they would find it hard to follow the melody Dad and Uncle Willy brought with them from Galicia. But that didn’t stop our father from plowing ahead in Hebrew, expecting participation from his Hebrew school-trained children and at least silent devotion from everyone else. He didn’t skip a word in the haggadah. It was an excruciatingly long service, broken up by the not-so-occasional remonstrance from Dad to be quiet. When the noise overwhelmed him, he’d threaten not to continue, which made us all the more fidgety and anxious to get to the midpoint of the haggadah so we could eat.

Food. It always came back to the food. No matter how long the service, no matter how many at the table, the seder hinged on the quality and quantity of the food. Mom piled on the food. Each year she’d make a crown roast, until she traded that signature dish in for rack of lamb. Same meat, different presentation. Almost 25 years ago, it became too much of a burden for her to prepare the seder. We knew it was time to transfer the torch, er, spatula, to the next generation, to Gilda, when there wasn’t enough meat to adequately serve everyone. Because there were no leftovers, Mom thought she had ordered “just enough.” It was one of the first signs she was failing to appreciate reality.

Over the years, the cast-in-stone liturgy of our haggadah has changed as we graduated from the Maxwell House version Dad used to a text assembled by Bernie, then me and now our daughter Ellie. The themes of liberation, equality, emancipation, egalitarianism remain constant, updated to reflect current humanitarian concerns. Constant, too, has been the function of the meal, a celebration of plenty, a symbol our generation are not slaves in Egypt, or shtetl dwellers in eastern Europe, or refugees squeezed into Lower East Side tenements.

I witness how exhausted Gilda is after preparing the seder meal, how taxing it is for her to do this while working full-time, how physical it is even with all the modern day cooking conveniences. And I wonder how our mother was able to do it all. It was, no doubt, another miracle of Biblical proportions.

********************************

Helen Kutsher was proud of her resort, not the least for being the last of the “grande dame” hotels that transformed the Catskill Mountains surrounding Monticello, NY, into a Borscht Belt of oversized, cholesterol-filled meals and nightclub acts featuring mostly Jewish singers and comedians including Alan King, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé. The heyday of Kutsher’s, Grossinger’s, The Concord, Brown’s et al was the 1950s and 1960s. All but Kutsher’s have closed. As a youngster, I tagged along with my parents to many of these hotels. Gilda never experienced the Catskills. Here’s what happened 25 years ago when she suggested we spend a romantic weekend at Kutsher’s:

Borscht-Belted

In 1988, when our son, Dan, was 9, he went to sleepaway camp for the first time for eight weeks. With the assistance of a neighbor who agreed to watch the then 6-1/2 year old Ellie, Gilda planned a romantic weekend getaway for us. Having never experienced a Catskills resort when growing up, Gilda craved the experience. She had seen an article in The NY Times describing a renovation of Kutsher’s in Monticello. She made a reservation and sent a $50 deposit.

Now, I had accompanied my parents to many Catskills hotels when growing up. They were generally pleasant, but by 1988 I had been exposed to, shall we say, a more refined world. I traveled across the country for my job, staying in many first class hotels and resorts. Gilda had often shared the resort trips with me as they centered around conferences where the presence of a spouse was a definite advantage in meeting and mingling with sources. Despite Kutsher’s renovations as described in The Times, I was less than enthusiastic about trekking off to the Catskills. Having just mastered riding a bicycle at age 39 (a subject of a future blog), I was happy to learn Kutsher’s had it own bike trail around its lake and provided bikes free of charge.

The fateful weekend in early July came. I admit I did not muster much enthusiasm. Gilda was rightfully upset with my attitude. As we pulled onto the hotel driveway, the same canopy depicted in the picture in last Friday’s paper appeared. It was not the equal to the Del Coronado outside San Diego. Or the Boca Raton Country Club. Or the Arizona Biltmore, the Scottsdale Princess or the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, all hotels Gilda and I, often with our children, had enjoyed. I sensed her trepidation as we entered the small registration desk just inside the front door.

She wanted to see the room before we officially checked in. The registration clerk asked why. Just to be sure. We didn’t want a room with double beds. Reluctantly she agreed to show us the room. As we walked across the lobby, I detected a strange odor. It reminded me of a used kitty litter box. I suggested perhaps the carpet was mildewed and was immediately rebuffed. It was new flooring, I was told. New or old, I said, the carpet smelled.

I glanced out the picture window and saw the “lake” with the bike path surrounding it. It appeared to be about a half acre in size. Yes, bikes were available, but they couldn’t be ridden anywhere off the paved path around the lake. So much for any biking expedition.

We arrived at our room and stepped into the 1950s. It had separate beds; the carpeting was a long shag of deep orange. We demanded a different room. Reluctantly Kutsher’s agreed. We asked to see it. Again the clerk was less than enthusiastic. The second room had a single bed and decent carpeting. But its only window was higher than six feet from the ground. Standing on the bed I could see out the window. If I craned my neck I could see part of the pool. But most visible was the building next door. Had I wanted to see a building when I looked out the window, I told the clerk, I would have stayed in Brooklyn.

Gilda was now convinced Kutsher’s was not going to be part of our weekend escape. We were prepared to forfeit the $50 deposit, but amazingly Kutsher’s refunded it. We weren’t ready to return home, so we decided to check out the Concord in Kiamesha Lake. Before registering, however, we opted to scope out the hotel. It seemed acceptable until we came upon a yoga class in progress. How can I say this delicately? The yoga instructor could be a contestant on the show,The Biggest Loser. No way, Gilda said, was she staying in a hotel that disrespected its clientele with such an instructor.

Disappointed, we headed homeward till I remembered about the Inn at Lake Waramaug in Litchfield County, Conn. It’s a beautiful setting, with individual cottages. No TVs. No phones. Just the opportunity to commune with nature. That is, unless it’s pouring rain, which started to fall right after we arrived and kept coming down well into Saturday morning, by which time we decided that White Plains wasn’t too bad a place to spend a romantic weekend by ourselves, with Ellie down the street playing with Issa and her mother, Angeles.

Borscht-Belted

Sometimes, a picture can sucker you into reading an article you otherwise would have passed. Case in point: Last Friday’s Weekend Arts section of the NY Times showed a young couple standing in front of Kutsher’s, artwork for an article on a rock concert the two were staging at the legendary Catskills resort (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/arts/music/03parties.html?scp=1&sq=kutsher%27s%20sisario%20september%203&st=cse).

Ordinarily, I avoid reading about rock concerts. But the picture drew me in. Like me, the young man in the photo is lean and bearded. He is 38, a year younger than I was when I was first sucker-punched by a Times photo of Kutsher’s. Let me explain:

In 1988, when our son, Dan, was 9, he went to sleepaway camp for the first time for eight weeks. With the assistance of a neighbor who agreed to watch the then 6-1/2 year old Ellie, Gilda planned a romantic weekend getaway for us. Having never experienced a Catskills resort when growing up, Gilda craved the experience. She had seen an article in The Times describing a renovation of Kutsher’s in Monticello. She made a reservation and sent a $50 deposit.

Now, I had accompanied my parents to many Catskills hotels when growing up. They were generally pleasant, but by 1988 I had been exposed to, shall we say, a more refined world. I traveled across the country for my job, staying in many first class hotels and resorts. Gilda had often shared the resort trips with me as they centered around conferences where the presence of a spouse was a definite advantage in meeting and mingling with sources. Despite Kutsher’s renovations as described in The Times, I was less than enthusiastic about trekking off to the Catskills. Having just mastered riding a bicycle at age 39 (a subject of a future blog), I was happy to learn Kutsher’s had it own bike trail around its lake and provided bikes free of charge.

The fateful weekend in early July came. I admit I did not muster much enthusiasm. Gilda was rightfully upset with my attitude. As we pulled onto the hotel driveway, the same canopy depicted in the picture in last Friday’s paper appeared. It was not the equal to the Del Coronado outside San Diego. Or the Boca Raton Country Club. Or the Arizona Biltmore, the Scottsdale Princess or the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach, all hotels Gilda and I, often with our children, had enjoyed. I sensed her trepidation as we entered the small registration desk just inside the front door.

She wanted to see the room before we officially checked in. The registration clerk asked why. Just to be sure. We didn’t want a room with double beds. Reluctantly she agreed to show us the room. As we walked across the lobby, I detected a strange odor. It reminded me of a used kitty litter box. I suggested perhaps the carpet was mildewed and was immediately rebuffed. It was new flooring, I was told. New or old, I said, the carpet smelled.

I glanced out the picture window and saw the “lake” with the bike path surrounding it. It appeared to be about a half acre in size. Yes, bikes were available, but they couldn’t be ridden anywhere off the paved path around the lake. So much for any biking expedition.

We arrived at our room and stepped into the 1950s. It had separate beds; the carpeting was a long shag of deep orange. We demanded a different room. Reluctantly Kutsher’s agreed. We asked to see it. Again the clerk was less than enthusiastic. The second room had a single bed and decent carpeting. But its only window was higher than six feet from the ground. Standing on the bed I could see out the window. If I craned my neck I could see part of the pool. But most visible was the building next door. Had I wanted to see a building when I looked out the window, I told the clerk, I would have stayed in Brooklyn.

Gilda was now convinced Kutsher’s was not going to be part of our weekend escape. We were prepared to forfeit the $50 deposit, but amazingly Kutsher’s refunded it. We weren’t ready to return home, so we decided to check out the Concord in Kiamesha Lake. Before registering, however, we opted to scope out the hotel. It seemed acceptable until we came upon a yoga class in progress. How can I say this delicately? The yoga instructor could be a contestant on the show, The Biggest Loser. No way, Gilda said, was she staying in a hotel that disrespected its clientele with such an instructor.

Disappointed, we headed homeward till I remembered about the Inn at Lake Waramaug in Litchfield County, Conn. It’s a beautiful setting, with individual cottages. No TVs. No phones. Just the opportunity to commune with nature. That is, unless it’s pouring rain, which started to fall right after we arrived and kept coming down well into Saturday morning, by which time we decided that White Plains wasn’t too bad a place to spend a romantic weekend by ourselves, with Ellie down the street playing with Issa and her mother, Angeles.