http:\/\/www.mhopus.org\/<\/a>).\u00c2\u00a0 While we waited for his buddy to emerge from Mid-Vail, I asked him where he grew up.<\/p>\nNew Haven!<\/p>\n
What did your father do for a living?<\/p>\n
Well, first he owned dry cleaning establishments.<\/p>\n
I wanted to phone my dad right then.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the king of Jewish Geography.\u00c2\u00a0 He knew every retail establishment from Greenwich to Westerly, Rhode Island.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a link, I was sure.<\/p>\n
But my dad’s been gone for eighteen years.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, no one even used hand-held cell phones when he died.\u00c2\u00a0 So I continued to get Andy’s history, from public school to Penn to…Jack Binion.<\/p>\n
Jack Binion??\u00c2\u00a0 Like in Binion’s Horseshoe?\u00c2\u00a0 Like in the World Series of Poker?<\/p>\n
Yup.<\/p>\n
Jack’s seventy three years old.\u00c2\u00a0 And he lives to ski.\u00c2\u00a0 Has eighty five days so far this year.\u00c2\u00a0 Lines up when the lift opens with his instructor, he can afford it, why ski solo, and usually skis till the lifts close.\u00c2\u00a0 What a character.\u00c2\u00a0 I told him I hoped to ski as well as he did when I reached his age.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean it’s hard as a rock and about as vertical as a steeple, and Jack’s carving it up.\u00c2\u00a0 Amazing.<\/p>\n
But when it got close to one, the debate arose, should we take one more run?\u00c2\u00a0 They told their buddy Ron they’d meet him at the Game Creek Club.\u00c2\u00a0 I lobbied for another descent, it was just too good.\u00c2\u00a0 And after mumbling that he hated to be late, Jack and his posse followed us down.<\/p>\n
But I felt awful when it appeared we couldn’t get in, that we’d squandered the window.\u00c2\u00a0 But, eventually it all worked out.\u00c2\u00a0 They found a few extra chairs and we sat down.<\/p>\n
Whereupon I found out that Ron went to Camp Laurelwood.\u00c2\u00a0 Where I spent not only the best summers of my youth, but my entire life.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s waxing rhapsodic about Cutler’s, and Jerry Greenberg.\u00c2\u00a0 We were united through music.<\/p>\n
And Jack and Ron were united through Vegas.\u00c2\u00a0 Ron used to run Wynn’s empire.<\/p>\n
And all I’m thinking is I wish my dad was here.\u00c2\u00a0 I could see the shiteating grin on his face.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d tell this tale for years.\u00c2\u00a0 Of lunch in the private club with the Vegas heavyweights.<\/p>\n
Then it was time to partake.\u00c2\u00a0 We got up, and sauntered through the dining room to the buffet.<\/p>\n
It being congested with our party, I started by investigating the desserts.\u00c2\u00a0 The blueberry cobbler.\u00c2\u00a0 The chocolate treats.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought of my father at bar mitzvahs, at weddings…\u00c2\u00a0 He was the king of the buffet.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d hit it first, come back with a cornucopia of food on his plate, describing all the delicacies to be devoured.<\/p>\n
My father loved to eat.\u00c2\u00a0 And his wallet knew no limits if it was a good meal.\u00c2\u00a0 He’d voice his mantra…\u00c2\u00a0 We might not live in the fanciest house, we might not have a Cadillac (although he eventually bought a Mercedes and took extreme pride in it), but our lives were pretty good.\u00c2\u00a0 It was about family.\u00c2\u00a0 And experiences.\u00c2\u00a0 Vacations and dinners.<\/p>\n
Finally, the congestion eased up, I picked up a plate and started down the line.<\/p>\n
Vegetables, all kinds of salad fixings.\u00c2\u00a0 And then…<\/p>\n
Smoked fish.<\/p>\n
Lox.<\/p>\n
And pickled herring.<\/p>\n
If only he were here!\u00c2\u00a0 If only I could call him up and tell him!\u00c2\u00a0 He’d be proud of me, he’d relish the retelling.<\/p>\n
I thought of phoning my mother.\u00c2\u00a0 Or my sisters.<\/p>\n
But I felt it was best to tell you.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt you’d get it.\u00c2\u00a0 How your father dies before you’ve found your place in the world, and long after he’s gone, you yearn to reach out and tell him, "Daddy, LOOK!"<\/p>\n
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Every Sunday morning my father went to Sam’s. Well, first it was Max’s, then he and his partner had a fight and it became Sam’s.\u00c2\u00a0 What I remember most is the pickle barrel, with half sours that you can’t buy anymore, no one puts in that amount of TLC.\u00c2\u00a0 And the chive cheese. Made by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Ir","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2756,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2755\/revisions\/2756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}