Mahjong Ladies

 It is so funny to me how my life has come full circle. A VERY strong childhood memory is my mother Sunny hosting mahjong games -- every few weeks. She played with a group of women, one Greek, the rest Jewish, and I LOVED that there were cookies and Sarah Lee cake, which I was allowed to sample, but HATED the intense cloud of cigarette smoke which made it all the way to my bedroom -- 2 flights up our split level from the playroom where the games were hosted.

I recall Kay (the Greek lady) and Arlene, and Bea, and Berneice, and a few others. They would sit around Sunny's table, 4 players and one waiting, in their Marge Simpson-style hairdos, and talk happily about their husbands and we kids. 

When Sunny moved to Delray, she found 2 other regular games, but by then none of the 60 somethings wanted to host -- they met at either the "main" clubhouse, or the smaller one nearer to my Mom's Kings Point section, the "Isle of Capri," which was so named because there were canals around it. Years later, when Wifey and I visited the actual Isle of Capri in Southern Italy, I learned it was just a tad more picturesque than the 70s cell block style architecture of Kings Point.

But anyway, turns out that younger generations of women are now HEAVILY into the game, too, and over the past year Wifey has begun weekly hosting the game. I joke that depending on my level of Oedipal thought, I'm either slightly aroused, or slightly revolted. Nah -- not revolted at all -- none of this generation smoke, and occasionally I can get one or more of them to accept a cocktail, which means I can pour myself one or two, and thereby get by my self prohibition of not drinking alone.

One of the regulars, our friend Lili, is out of action for awhile, on account of she and Jeff are up in New Haven, where they bought a townhouse to be closer to their eldest daughter, and one granddaughter and another on the way in a few weeks. New Haven tends to be bleak -- and in the late Fall and Winter more so, but the grandkids are the draw -- Lili is gone until next year, so she can help with the baby.

So last night our neighbor Laura joined the party -- her husband Will is a crazy Cane like I am -- his family owns the bookstore across from campus, where I spent a LOT of money from '79-'86, a fact I always remind Will of as we pass on our walks -- and he always says "Thanks -- it helped to buy our house here!"

Another newer addition is Roberta, who used to drive Will to Gables High in the early 80s. She's divorced long ago, with 2 kids living in Brooklyn who have become orthodox. After the game, she and Wifey talked for a long time outside, and I joined them, and it was lovely -- Roberta is delightful.

They mentioned how Laura, like Wifey, wants badly to move out of her huge house, and Will, like me, LOVES it here -- he may be the only neighbor who walks more than I do. I asked where Laura wants to go, since they'll stay in Miami, and the response was "She doesn't know, but somewhere smaller and easier to take care of!"

A ha! Just as I suspected -- another case of the divergence of older men and women. It seems to me, once in the 60s, men want no life changes, and women crave SOMETHING -- they can't even identify it, but it's there.

This happened to my parents in 1978 -- my Dad was happy as a clam on LI, I was going off soon to college, but my Mom was restless. And so they decamped to the Delray condo, and my Dad loathed it. He loved South Florida, but always saw himself living in what is now Aventura -- he had a business friend who lived at a place called Admiral's Port, which is right next to what is now Williams Island, where Paul and Patricia live.

No dice. My Mom and her sisters decided it was time to go back to the future -- when they all lived close by in post WW II Bronx. So my Uncle Marty and Muriel, Lorraine and Abe, and Dorothy and Arthur all moved to Kings Point. The youngest, Florence, was the po relation, and couldn't afford to leave Rockland County.

Within a few years, all but my parents moved to nicer places than Kings Point, which, to this day, is the ugliest condo development I have ever seen -- essentially huge parking lots with the buildings in the middle, with small strips of lawn separating them. 

But to my Mom, it was heaven -- she stayed there a total of  33 years -- 30 after my Dad died.

Likewise, Wifey wants a change -- not sure what -- but SOME change. Not happening -- at least for me. 40 minutes is close enough to our beloved Ds, and I too love it here. Long suffering Wifey will reluctantly endure.

And so the games will continue. And as I welcome the mahjong ladies, each time I'm taken back half a century in my mind.