The Sheltered Islander #445

At My Mother's Table

by Sally Flynn

I've always wanted to learn to play Mah Jongg. Yes, it ends with two "gs,"a Mah Jonggian herself told me so. I'm taking Mah Jongg in my Adult Education class with four other gorgeous gals. The dark, elegant, Island beauty, Ms. Stephanie Z., is our instructor. It's a very complicated game when you first begin. Ms Z. is wonderfully patient and, despite all temptation, she hasn't hit me with a tile holding bar yet!

One of my classmates said, "I suppose we'll see this in Dan's Papers." Like I don't have anything more thrilling to write about. I just found out who is selling local honey (I swear by it as an allergy cure), there's a big fight between two ospreys going on at one of the nests on Ram Island Drive, I've got two tomatoes getting ripe on the window sill and two more feral cats have appeared at my house, making a total of four for me to feed. On Shelter Island, this qualifies as a highly adventurous life!

Ms. Z. says she has wonderful childhood memories of her terrific Jewish mother and friends playing Mah-Jongg, the clack of the tiles, the chatter and patter among the women. The cheesecakes, the many pots of coffee. She learned a lot about life just being around it.

Ms Z. could've learned a lot at my mother's table too. I have lots of memories of the women in my family talking at the table. There was always somebody who was pregnant, somebody who just had a baby and somebody who was safe for another month. By the time I was ten, I had a complete working knowledge of gynecology and obstetrics. I could have assisted in any childbirth emergency. I actually know why you get a kettle of hot water going at the first sign of labour -- not many people can say that.

I also studied advanced graphology. I learned how to forge checks in a man's own handwriting, not only to write the check itself, but to enter the check in his checkbook so he thinks he wrote it -- a very valuable marital skill. I learned how to sew and mend. I can turn a skirt into a blouse, then rip it into patches and lastly, into a quilt. Cooking -- I learned twenty six recipes for tuna casserole to stretch one little can of tuna into dinner for eight or more.

Deductive logic -- I learned how to find men who were late coming home by calling all the bars in a straight line between home and their job.

We played cards sometimes, Gin Rummy mostly. In our house, there was a left-handed clock on the wall, a joke gift given to one of the lefties in our brood. I learned to tell time on that clock, with all the numbers switched and the hands that ran counterclockwise and I've been screwed up ever since. Unless a clock, or watch, has numbers, I can't tell ten to two from ten after ten.

Father Daum was a common visitor in our home. Whenever he was coming, I had to run to Garbarino's store for an Entenmann's Crumb Cake. Once I got it back, it was my job to keep everyone from opening it and picking off the crumbs -- especially my Uncle Jack. He was a stealth picker. You wouldn't even see him near the cake, but when he left the kitchen, there was white powder on his shirt and, somewhere, a sad and crumbless crumb cake.

My Uncle Jack was a Special Forces paratrooper. Once, he asked my Gram if he could have some friends stay for a few days. He brought his whole platoon. Twenty men slept everywhere in my Grandparents' three bedroom home, including the one who climbed in bed with Grammie. She woke to find him snoring next to her. My grandfather woke them for Mass that Sunday by playing a '78 recording he had of Stars and Stripes Forever at full volume on his RCA victrola at 6 a.m. The invasion of the paratroopers remains one of our best family stories, told and retold with laughter at many family tables.

No other setting or educational pursuit in my life has given me more practical knowledge than being around my mother's kitchen table. I know my daughter felt the same way. I remember once, when she was about eight, she was at the table with myself and other females in the family. She announced she knew what sex was and it was clear she was going to share the secret. I held my breath, my mind racing -- what did I say? What had she heard? Then she promptly announced, "Mom says good sex gets good jewelry." That's my girl.