The screened door leading to my porch needs to be manually closed. It doesn’t have the necessary spring to enable it to close automatically. The door in the “old House” on Scheiman’s farm had that spring. When you entered or departed the house, the spring made the door slam shut with loud bang. You entered the house into the communal kitchen, so the admonition from all the busy women cooking at their small gas range was to shout, “Hold the door, don’t let it bang !!!” The women knew this would mostly be ignored by a child running in to “The Old House” bathroom. Sometimes the plea would be honored. This kind of communal kitchen was very common in the many bungalow colonies prevalent in the Jewish part of the Catskills. They were known as Kuchaleins ( women cook alone unlike the hotels where a chef did the cooking.) My family spent the two summer months at Scheinman’s for my entire childhood. During my earlier years, we rented a room in the “Old House.” In later years, we rented in “The New House.”
“Hold the door, don’t let it bang!!!” a woman shouted, as I raced in to bring my mother my small pail of scarred and bruised apples that had fallen from the tree in the verdant orchard behind the house.” Momma would soon be cooking apple sauce, or if it was almost the weekend, she would be making her special apple pie. Dad would be enjoy that when he arrives from toiling as a house painter in the hot city.
When dad joins us I will go with him across the road into the mountain where we will find the bushes heavily laden with plump blueberries. We will return with pails filled to the top and bring then to momma. I will remember to hold the door and not let it bang when we hand our large bounty of beautiful berries. Momma in her blue stained apron is ready to turn out her tasty treat of blueberry blintzes, pierogi, pie and jam.
I forgot my towel and I will need it when I come out of the lake. We swam in the lake down the hill. We even sometimes brought soap along to bathe here. Better than the cold shower behind the house. There were toilets in our building, but no bathtubs or showers. “Hold the door, don’t let it slam shut!!!!” one woman shouted.
I need an empty milk bottle for cold pump water. The rusty cast iron pump yields a treasure of ice cold fresh water; no ice cubes necessary. Momma has the empty glass milk bottles in our small cabinet, under our small gas range. “Hold the door!!!! No banging, please!!!”
I knew this was serious trouble when no one shouted their familiar refrain, “Hold the door, don’t let it bang.” Mister Scheinman carried me in his arms from the barn to the kitchen to hand me to my mother. I was cut by the barbed wire stretched across the barn area and was bleeding profusely. Mr. Scheinman had alerted the children to stop frightening the egg laying chickens. This order went largely unheeded; the children continued to go to the barn. My friend Bea held up the barbed wire so I could crawl under and join her at the barn. Unfortunately, she let go too soon, the wire snapped across my cheek and slashed my face from the edge of my lips to almost my ear. My frantic mother dragged me in her arms to the outdoor laundry sinks and ran cold water on the wound while scolding, crying and cursing. No First Aid Kit, no nearby Urgent Care facility, no tetanus shot. The barbed wire slash ultimately left no scar. Healing was aided by my mother’s love and her Yiddish prayers.
The sound of the screened door slamming shut and the repeated refrain, “hold the door, don’t let it bang,” are permanently etched in my memory of sounds from my childhood along with many pleasant summertime scenes at Scheinman’s farm.
Ethyl Haber
October 2021
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