Paul Weinstein is my cousin. How far removed not too sure, but part of the Sirner families on my father’s side. He is either a couple of weeks older or younger than I and I do not recall which. When we were teenagers we spent time together including his going with the Reizners to Stony Lake in West Michigan and plenty of time when I would go from Michigan to Chicago. He lived on Kingston Street on the South Side only about a block away from Sarah Reizner, my paternal grandmother.
I had two lovely and intelligent grandmothers. Sharika (Mom’s side) was Hungarian and a remarkable cook and baker among many other remarkable talents. Sarah was tough, loving, Kosher (for real, see story about “chicken cookies”), rather tall and a famously bad cook. I recall standing on Kingston Street with Paul in front of Bubbie’s apartment building beckoning him to join me for lunch. He correctly stated, “She is your grandmother, but she is only my great aunt” effectively and decisively declining any obligation to suffer her cooking.
I would go to Chicago from Michigan several times a year. When I was merely 10 or 11, I would actually take the New York Central train from Albion to Union Station alone where Bubbie would meet me on the platform. Kind of unbelievable these days, but it worked back then. Later when I could drive Mom’s old Chevy, trips to the city maxed at as many as six weeks combined per year. I probably knew the city and how to get around better than some of my relatives who, though they lived there, rarely went to all the pockets that I would visit. (See episode of the minor car crash, again with Bubbie alone). Often I would hang with Paul.
So, when we were teenagers Paul and I would go Downtown, eat at the Little Corporal on Wacker Drive and do other downtown stuff. To travel to and from 75th Street we would occasionally take the Illinois Central, (“IC”) commuter. Also, as teenagers we would “try” smoking cigarettes. I further recall when visiting Aunt Gloria’s sneaking a cigarette from a box of them they kept on a coffee table and hanging in the cold dark back yard steps of their townhouse having a puff.
So, on one of those trips downtown, Paul and I were having a non-inhaled “cool” time smoking and took the IC back to Southside. This time Paul at least made it up to Bubbie’s hallway, (I don’t remember what floor she lived on, but the apartment had a heavy, walnut-like door upon which we knocked for entry that day.) So, envision two fat 15 year old boys standing haplessly in the hall when she opened the door.
Sarah as mentioned was a tall person. She towered over the two of us and immediately – and rather angrily – announced, “You’ve been SMOKING”. Long before learning any advocacy as an attorney, I weakly replied, “ No, Grandma, we took the IC and were in the smoking car……” The response was immediate and decisive. Sarah decreed, “Don’t you ever LIE to your Grandmother!” while seizing me by the ear, dragging me into the apartment and literally slamming that heavy door in Paul’s face.
Not much actually happened about the incident after that point, but I definitely learned plenty.
First, never lie to your grandmother. She is totally hip to your trip. Second, one has to account whether they stink when they are lying about not stinking. I don’t know if that ceased my experimentation with smoking, but probably not. Third, grand respect for a grand lady that was already pretty high.
RR
11/25/2020