NOT JUST POKER

I remember the place actually being called [Lake] Mohegan Country Club. It was located on Lake Mohegan, NY, about fifty  miles from New York City. Ironically, since the early 1970’s, “Lake Mohegan” ceased to exist and the nomenclature is no longer used. The area, the lake, community–one and the same–is now “Mohegan Lake.” During the late 19th century and early 20th century, the area developed into a famous resort community.  (One could hardly call  Mohegan Country Club “a famous resort community.” As a matter of fact, in all honesty, one could hardly call it a country club.)

Lured by convenient train travel (a few hours), New York City apartment dwellers came to Lake Mohegan to breathe country air and relax at a picturesque lake.  Nine or ten resorts operated for sixty-plus years. They offered lodging and top-name entertainment. (I never saw any of this so-called, top-name entertainment.)Most of these resorts had their personalized water-fronts and swimming-cribs.  They provided safe harbors for swimming and boating.  One of the more popular resorts was the Mohegan Country Club and Bungalow Colony, located on Route 6.  The Lakeside and Villas condominiums now occupy the space.

By the time I arrived in the summer of 1954,  the Mohegan Country Club and Bungalow Colony must have been a shell of itself.  It was like a cast-off of the Catskills. Nearby this area in Yorktown, NY,  not too far from Peekskill, was a much fancier community, Lake Mahopac. Mahopac had the reputaion of being “upscale.” In that respect, one would have to label Lake Mohegan Country Club as down-trodden. Yet, this summer of 1954 proved to be a remarkable summer for me–not because of the area, the work, or even the all-night poker games, but because I met someone who eventually changed my life.

In good consciousness, I cannot relate all the facts of how I came to the area that summer.  I can say, I started the summer as a counselor for waiters at a summer camp somewhere near Bear Mountain. Having been a camp waiter a few summers before at a summer camp, Brookside, in Great Barrington, MA, qualified me for the position. I was working at this camp in or near Bear Mountain and enjoying the challenges and responsibility of the job. Not so, however, for the young lady with whom l went there. She had taken the job as counselor for the youngest girls at the camp. As she put it, she was not going to change diapers for spoiled brats all summer.  I can’t vouch for the diapers or any of her complaints.  I can say that she convinced me to quit my job (shame on me), because she was not up to the task.

Off we went in my forest green, 1953, Pontiac Chieftain. She called a friend of hers who had rented a house for the summer in Yorktown Heights. She moved in with that family as their au pair for the summer. There I was–no job, no place to stay, my mother not knowing where I was. I knew nothing of the area around Yorktown. Knowing I needed both a place to stay and a job, I started to drive. I decided that my best bet was to find a job at a hotel–intending to both work and live there.  I traveled from hotel to hotel around Lake Mahopac and Lake Mohegan.  At each place I would ask for the kitchen manager, or restaurant manager, or hotel manager. I would plead my case for summer employment, fudging my waiter experience. After turn-down after turn-down, I lucked out. My persistence finally paid off.

With its lake, its pool, its tennis courts, its rec hall, and such, Mohegan Country Club and Bungalow Colony had all the amenities middle-class, vacationing New Yonkers craved. ( I do not believe there was a golf course affiliated with this country club.) Some of the families stayed the entire summer.  Some families visited for only a few weeks. Like at so many of these summer resorts, it was usually the wife and children who would spend Mondays through Fridays vacationing.  The husbands (dads) would usually join them for the weekend. (I’ll get back to weekends–when waiting tables was more than just a chore, but a challenge.)

As I recall, the diningroom was owned separately from the resort. The gentleman who ran the diningroom  and who hired me must have always been under a lot of pressure.  Being inexperienced with the inner workings of the restaurant business, I just saw him as cranky and bossy. From constantly having to walk in and out of the walk-in refrigerator and in and out of the hot kitchen and then into another temperature zone in the diningroom, per se, I remember seeming to have a cold most of the  summer.

Back to being hired: I was told I had to start that day.  They were short-handed.   Why?   I don’t remember. I was instructed to go to an army-navy store  (There were many around then, selling discontinued and copy-cat military gear and low-end clothing.) in Peekskill and purchase black pants (chinos) and at least one white shirt.  I needed black shoes, as well, but had them with me.  There was no training.  I served dinner that night.

I moved into a room in the adjoining lodge. I am not sure if  Doc (Not wanting to use his actual name, I’ll call him Doc.) was there before me, or whether he arrived after me.  I’m not even sure with whom I bunked.  There was a few other waiters.  I do not recall how many. There were a few busboys as well. Doc was one of the busboys.  He was no more a busboy than I was a waiter. Doc grew up in Brooklyn.  I believe he went to Erasmus High School.  His hard-working mother sent him off to college at Wake Forest, where he achieved as a pre-med major and from where he graduated. Doc wanted to attend medical school.  He applied to Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest and was accepted. However, he was considered too young to attend and was told that he would have to wait a year.

He decided that this hiatus in his education was the perfect excuse to see the world.  He joined, of all things, the Norwegian Merchant Marines. I assume that any Norwegian he learned, he learned on the job. Because he had to get back to attend medical school in September of that year, he jumped ship (Perhaps,  in Argentina, but I am not sure.) and made his way back to New York. My good fortune, he took employment at the same place at which I was working.

Doc and I became best of friends. We had a running joke about the time I introduced him as my busboy. The work was both  time consuming and demanding–setting-up and serving  three meals a day. Once in a while, we were given time off for one lunch meal a week. Every so often, we managed to get an entire day off.  Mostly, we worked seven days a week, three meals a day. The worst days were always weekends.   That is when the husbands (dads) would arrive. Their wives and children were spending the summers, while they, just the weekends. Maybe they just resented that their time was so limited or maybe they just felt that  a whole week’s worth of food was due them on the two days they were there. These guys were ultra-demanding. The diningroom owner, who must have been losing his shirt in this summer venture, took the attitude of “give-him, give-him.”  Those words became his mantra. How Doc and I would laugh.  Sunday dinners were always special. Steak was on the menu. When any of the husbands would demand more steak, the owner would shout at us “give-him, give-him.” Of course, we would eventually run out of steak, so we couldn’t always “give-him, give-him.” On those days when we ran out of steak, we waiters took a lot of grief. Most of the guests tipped at the end of each week, usually on Sundays. We waiters were never happy when we had to tell these demanding husbands that we were out of steak.

I remember one incident in particular. One of the families at one of my tables arrived for Sunday dinner after we had depleted our steak supply. The father seemed upset but then, in a polite tone of voice, asked if we had chicken.  Happy to report that we did, I went into the kitchen and returned with a broiled, half-chicken with vegetables and potatoes. “I just want the drum stick,” he shouted, “just the drum stick.” I showed him that the drum stick was there.  He then asked if I knew why he wanted the drum stick. I did not venture a guess. I finished serving his family and went back into the kitchen. Into the kitchen he walked, drum stick in hand. He proceeded to tell me that he wanted the drum stick so that he could tell me to shove it up my ass and get him the steak that was due him. 

Being that all my prior waiting experience was as a camper-waiter, I had no experience with waiting on grownups and catering to their whims. Campers were easy to handle.  I was older than most of them. If need be, they could always be kept in line by a counselor. These weekend-dads were something else entirely.

Doc and I worked well as a team. More importantly, we became best of friends. We socialized then and continued to socialize  for years to come, through various marriages for both of us. Doc eventually became an internist and is now a prominent cardiologist in New York on Long Island.  If it were not for Doc, I would never have gotten out of the food industry. Many years after working at Lake Mohegan, I was working as a store manager for a small supermarket chain, Food Pagent, in New York City, when I received a call from Doc, who I had not seen for a while. He informed me about a job opportunity. His neighbor owned a successful appliance-TV-stereo business, called Brands Mart,  in Long Island City. In chatting with his neighbor, Doc learned that Brands Mart had just lost three key employees, who were setting-out on their own to compete with Brands Mart. Doc told his neighbor that he had a friend, who was not in the appliance-TV business, but he was sure he could run anything. I was soon interviewed. Voila! The start of my new career! Were it not for Doc, I’d probably still be slicing roast beef or bagging groceries on busy supermarket days.

There are countless stories that Doc and I could relate about Lake Mohegan. There was this one guy who slept with a tin can next to his bed so that he would not have to get up at night to pee. The story is really funnier than it reads because of the manner in which he accomplished his feat. How any of us fellow workers were ever able to put in a solid day of work amazes me still. Many nights we played Poker until dawn and then all went directly to work. These mornings we formed a motley crew of disheveled cooks, dishwashers, busboys, and waiters. Some nights Doc would go to sleep at a reasonable hour and cover for me at my waiting station while I grabbed a few minutes of shut-eye. On those nights, I would stay up all night and play Poker, and Doc and I would share any winnings or losses.  The only game I recall playing was Seven-Stud.  Each of us had our own table rules from home games in which we played. At first, there were many disputes.  Finally, we agreed upon our own set of guidelines. Winning or losing fifty bucks was a good or bad night.

The end of that summer sent Doc off to medical school and me back to Rutgers. Indeed, it is not so much the job at Lake Mohegan I recall.  I hardly remember whether I won or lost at Poker. What I think of most–and fondly so–is Doc.

Epilogue: I have not spoken to Doc in more than twenty-five years.  Through the internet, I have located him. Just today, February 12, 2010, I called the only number I could find for him. Bravo! We spoke and plan to meet.