Passover in the Catskills

My parents are off to spend the holiday in the last Catskill Resort Kutshers. Part of me wishes I was there to see old friends and remember the Concord. Kutschers is up the road and the Concord is just a heap of rubble.

I remember how special the dinning room was made up on that day and the Seder. I am only kicking myself because it never occurred to me to take pictures  Maybe its better because I miss those days and years of hope.

I think of the Obama world my daughter will inherit when I am gone. College used to be affordable to almost anyone who had a dream. Now those dreams are gone thanks to a lousy economy and never ending tuition rises. Your fat cat radicals created a future where endless debt for worthless paper is now the norm.

Yet I remember the couple of hundred I made while working those meals meant a down payment on a some of my classes.

I will perform Catskills style humor at work with the good cases. It is my way of remembering those lost days. I was thinking back on my life which is nearing an end in the next twenty or so years. We changed many things but not for the better. The world of my parents was like the last waltz. Couples stayed together and raised kids and remained together no matter what.

In the end my twilight will not include trips to a hotel to spend a moment together. My last moments will be in a foreign jungle raising rubber plants and wandering into the possibilities. For all the talk of feminism it really meant many would marry their careers and work for a retirement of nothing.

The good news for the rest of you is that although we can't ever recreate the Catskills you can recreate
the food. I hate to admit this but for those of you who can't find a Bens Deli if your Costco offers Meal Mart pick it up. The items are really close in substance to the fare at a Catskills resort.

I remember showing my daughter the Majesty of what a hotel dinning room table looked like. I sat the home for Thanksgiving in Hotel style. For her it was like being a little princess and it was pure magic.
For me it was memories of a lost world of which I am likely among the last to recall as guest and worker. Glimpses of that world take place in odd locales like making Cherry Lime Rickeys in a place where children have never seen such silliness. Telling stories of long passed entertainers like asking a strange cook to make my pancakes for a guest and not recognizing it was comedian Dom Deluise who just filled the order.

We can make better technologies and items, but I miss the magic and promise of simpler times.