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Jewish memories
One lake with three beaches

By Sheila Orysiek 

SAN DIEGO—I’ve always been fond of picnics and love to go to Lake Murray in San Diego and sit in the shade of a tree enjoying the breeze from off the water.  As I look out across the water, I see another lake…another time….

The lake was in New Jersey and had three beach areas separated by an invisible barrier for three different groups of citizens.  While there were no written rules, nevertheless Jews went to one area, white Christians to another, and blacks to a third.  Today it is hard to imagine this happening in America, but that’s the way it was when I was a child.  No one contested it, and to a certain extent it was comforting to be amongst those who shared a common background, ate the same food, spoke in English heavily laced with Yiddish and Yiddishisms – and all the hot dogs were kosher.

In the late 1940’s my father’s extended family numbered around 75 people, all descendents or married to descendents of Great Grandmother Bella and honoring her name formed the Bella Family Circle. Members attended monthly meetings, the Annual Passover Seder and the Annual Family Picnic, plus other events.

Not everyone at that time had a car, so the transportationally deprived climbed into the back of my Grandfather’s venerable (barely working) flat bed truck.  For the occasion he reinstalled the wooden slats – like a fence - around the bed of the truck to keep kids and food from spilling out.  This was well before child safety seats, seat belts or safety inspections for vehicles.  It was even before turn signals were common equipment. What the truck lacked in grace it made up in courage and grinding gears.

We must have looked like a tribe fresh from having crossed the Red Sea as we descended upon the beach, staked out our territory (who could argue with such numbers?) ready for a day of relaxation. 

The “relaxation” had actually started at home with the anxiety of choosing a bathing suit.  Probably nothing is as emblematic of the contrast from that time to this as the swimsuit.  Then, it was to uncover as little as possible, while now it is to uncover as much as possible.  The men simply put on swim trunks, however, for the Aunts; it was more problematic.  Extra pleats, folds, tucks and skirts were added for “style,” but the real intent was to hide as much as possible.  The younger people looked better in their swimsuits, but heaven help them if they showed it.

We came in two colors:  snowy white left over from a Philadelphia winter or the burnt toasted skin of the greatly tanned.  Being tan was considered a sign of “health” and the darker the “healthier.”  But that wasn’t really the reason some tanned themselves to a dark umber.  It screamed: “I have time to lie around in the sun.”  Translated into:  “I have outside help to clean my house,” which was the salient point of the deeply tanned.

As a group we were initially fairly sedate – intent on “relaxation.”  However, the Bella Family Circle couldn’t maintain that facade – it was boring.  When my Grandfather got bored he woke up the world.  Never having had a music lesson in his life, he could play the piano or accordion with both skill and zest.  For obvious reasons, the piano stayed home while the accordion made the trip to the lake.  He began humming, doodling on the accordion, got others to hum and finally broke out into song.  He had a fine voice and an excellent sense of music

Soon everyone was singing as he stood in front conducting and dividing us up to sing in parts.  He is the only person I know who could conduct and play the accordion at the same time. At first other family groups looked askance in our direction, but our merriment was infectious.  Many looked as if they would like to sneak in as an extra cousin.  We might not have noticed.

In previous years we had brought food to share, but when it became a bit competitive we decided that each family unit would bring their own.  This lasted for about five minutes as children hurried from table to table; the food always looked better on someone else’s table. 

We weren’t very much into BBQ and no one brought steaks, but Uncle Benny brought a huge iron skillet and made fried matzoh: his prize recipe.  Passover was sufficiently in the past that matzoh had regained its allure.  It didn’t seem strange to eat fried matzoh on a picnic – why not?  We never had any alcoholic beverages – we didn’t need to; the Bella Family Circle was perfectly capable of “relaxation” without it. 

This brings me to the kugul wars. Every female relative had her own “perfect” recipe.  The big division was between noodles or rice as a base.  Advocates were entrenched: a noodle kugul lover simply couldn’t understand a rice kugul lover.  With regular raisins or golden raisins was another bone of contention.  Lemon rind or orange rind – a matter for a skirmish which lead to a battle over adding apples or not.  However, the real war was how to pronounce it:  kugul versus keegul.   My mother was an unrepentant “keegul-er” and she held her ground with every possible version of rolling eyes and lifted eyebrows a face could produce.    She recounted her entire ancestry clear back to Manna in the desert – and declared the tribes had all pronounced it “keegul.”

I thought the trick was to try several kuguls/keeguls and then make an informed decision.  I was soon disabused of this traitorous contemplation.  The only true keegul was with rice, apples, regular raisins and lots of cinnamon – my mother’s. 

After eating, floating about in huge inflated truck tire inner tubes, singing, and more eating of keeguls/kuguls – as evening drew on, it was time for real “relaxation” – dancing.  We formed a circle, linked arms and hora-ed the hours away (Grandfather could dance and play the accordion at the same time).  Then, we broke up the circle and snaked in and out around the tables and on down the beach and back again.  When someone got tired, a little more kugul/keegul fixed him/her right up and ready to dance again.  The other people on the beach were either long gone, or tired just from watching us “relax.”  But, there were times they joined in and it was then we enjoyed having our own “gentleman’s agreement” beach.  Strangers though these others be, they were Jewish sisters and brothers.

When Grandfather and the Uncles decided it was time to stop relaxing, we piled back into the cars and the flatbed truck.  People sat down, leaning upon one another, children quickly falling asleep.  However, Grandfather was not quite done and he was driving.  When the people in the back of the truck looked a wee bit too comfortable, he found a convenient pot hole, the bigger the better, and hit it with deadly aim.  That shivered the timbers of the wooden flat bed truck and stirred up the sleepers and kept him smiling as he drove.

However, what goes around comes around and by the time the truck was going through downtown Philadelphia, and just in front of the Academy of Music (Philadelphia’s very famous and most prestigious opera house) a front tire gave out – flatter than a bad E note.  At that time there were few gas stations in downtown Philly, and it was Sunday night when none would have been open in any case.

Grandfather was not easily defeated.  Everyone was evacuated from the truck bed and lined up on the curb of Broad Street, one of Philly’s busiest downtown streets as he and other handy male cousins lifted the tire off the truck. A sixteen year old cousin was given instructions to get on the subway/elevated train, told where to get off, told where a friend lived who could fix the tire, given a dime for the train and a dollar for the friend.  My cousin walked off down the street rolling the big truck tire in front of him and down into the subway station.  I can imagine him sitting on the train with the huge truck tire in front of his knees.

We sat on the flat bed of the jacked up truck, our feet dangling over the edge, children fast asleep. True to his reputation, Grandfather had had a flat tire in the perfect place.  We could sit and watch all the wealthy patrons of the opera – the Blue Bloods of Philadelphia’s Main Line Society - leave the Academy of Music in their gowns and jewels and get into their chauffeured limousines, while we waited for Cousin Bernie to come back with the tire.  In the meantime we snacked on rice/noodle – kugul/keegul – and relaxed.