In the summer of my 19th year, I went to work as a cocktail waitress at Grossinger’s in Liberty, New York, in the heart of the Catskill Mountains.  This was in 1972, toward the end of the Borscht Belt’s heyday.  It was the first of two summers I spent there while I was a student at Brandeis University.  Speak of getting an education!

I must say that most of the people I worked with during my tenure at Grossinger’s were like myself – college kids trying to contribute to their educations.  We came for a season or a Christmas break with no intention of having a career in the hospitality industry. But there were a substantial number of shady characters that were hired for a song to work as long as they wanted to – or until they killed somebody. 

Because cocktail waitresses typically worked until four a.m., or until the last booze hound left the bar, we were allowed to stay in a cabin that was close to the main hotel.  Most workers at Grossingers stayed together in a big fire trap out in left field.  But it didn’t seem like a good idea to have a group of teenaged cocktail waitresses gallivanting around in hot pants and stilettos in the middle of the night wandering toward the building where the day workers stayed. I am grateful that we were given that extra layer of protection.

The cabin had five twin beds and one small bathroom.  The beds were within a few inches of each other – so when each of the cocktail waitresses had an overnight guest, it became hard to sleep.

Initially, I was sharing the cabin with three virgins, straight out of parochial schools from places like Dallas and Cape Cod.  And then, there was one fully-grown woman who had a bed in the cabin but left in the middle of the night to join her boyfriend, Rocco, God knows where, and usually with our tips. We never said anything because she was twice our age and wore a wig and had a boyfriend named Rocco – what teenaged girl wouldn’t have been intimidated?

By the time we were two weeks into the summer, all of the virgins had been deflowered by golf pros and pool boys.  I wasn’t a virgin going in – lucky me – but I was far more knowledgeable going out than coming in. 

I ended up dating a guy from Canarsie whose face should have been posted at every planned parenthood clinic in the country – wanted, dead or alive.  The man was the knock-up king of the Borscht Belt.  There was one woman he impregnated four times – and they still couldn’t figure out how to prevent it.  He eventually stopped having sex with her in order to have sex with me.   He was a real stand-up guy that way – and in every way, apparently.  In fact, he was so fertile, I got a false positive pregnancy test from just kissing him!  No, I’m not kidding.

To continue – my boyfriend – who shall remain nameless – worked in the health club and also as a stage manager in the nightclub.  He was built like a Sherman tank, had a wild “Isro” (aka, a “Jewfro – not unlike mine) and occasionally talked like Donald Duck with a Brooklyn accent.  His real voice sounded like something hard being ground in a garbage disposal.  He quacked at my father once – and my father was not impressed (even though he was personally prone to quacking, especially on long road trips – but that’s a whole other story).

Thanks to Nameless and his stage work, I got to meet and dress lots of entertainers, like Shecky Greene and Milton Berle.  While I was there, Jackie Mason spent a whole summer at Grossinger’s performing in “The Last of the Red Hot Lovers.”  I’ll bet he was, too – know what I’m talkin’ about?  He was a real ladies man.

And, while we’re on the subject of entertainers, I once  accidentally dropped a shot of vodka down Vic Damone’s neck (but he wasn’t performing there – he was just a customer in the nightclub).  He was very gracious about it.

At any rate, I enjoyed the variety that Grossinger’s had to offer up and got along quite well with my cabin mates.  None of them made it to the second summer, though.  They were replaced by Jewish girls from places like Richmond and Tel Aviv and these Jewish girls, like myself, weren’t virgins.  In fact, the one from Israel was a particularly hot number with a name like Brandy Alexander (what were you expecting – Sheyna Cohen?) and she was supplementing her tips with a little mild prostitution – and by that I mean allowing the occasional customer to cop a feel for 10 bucks.  So, she made out better than the rest of us. 

Actually, even I made out better in the second summer because Rocco’s girlfriend was no longer around to filch my tips.  I sure hope she didn’t end up floating in the Hudson River.

I very much liked my boss, who was a Greek gentleman who treated all the waitresses with paternal respect.  There was an overseer, though, who was particularly fond of taunting me in front of customers until I called him a “nasty little worm” in the service bar and that kept him away from me for the rest of the summer.

Two of the most memorable characters I met at Grossinger’s were actually Grossinger family members and they both worked in the staff dining room.  One was Sam, the elderly manager, and one was Leo, the waiter.

One day, as I choked down my capon and kasha, Sam entered the dining room and requested attention.  He cleared his throat and said, “If everyone in this room threw their package into the middle of the room, everyone would leap for their own package.”  That made sense to me even at the age of 19 – and even today, for that matter.

Leo was a piece of work.  He was a very heavy man with rubbery lips, a crew cut and tons of sweat.  Every day, he would greet me with, “Good morning, Mrs. Rockefeller.  What would you like to eat?  We’ve got pickle juice, we’ve got sauerkraut juice, we’ve got onion juice.  What is your pleasure?” When I grimaced and shook my head, he grabbed his pad and continued, “Okay, then, Mrs. Rockefeller – back to grim reality.  How about some orange juice?”  That was more like it.

Poor Leo.  I remember the day he went running through the staff dining room with his hands flapping over his head screaming, “Nobody cares if I live or die!  Nobody cares if I live or die!” 

I’m glad the hysteria was short lived because I enjoyed Leo’s morning schpiel about the sauerkraut juice.  And I got a kick out of being called “Mrs. Rockefeller.”

I put in long hours in the Grossinger’s nightclub and cocktail lounge, running up and down a steep flight of steps in the aforementioned stilettos, to and from the service bar, manned by a bartender named Joe.  He looked like the old game show host, Bill Cullen, except with a pompadour. 

Joe loved all the cocktail waitresses but he kept all his alcoholic experiments for me because I was a true lightweight.  He would mix up something a poisonous shade of green and hand it to me to try.  I was so naïve.  Joe liked to see me tipsy because then he could get away with looking at me with hooded eyes and  hissing inane innuendos like “lickety-split” or “wet and wild” while pretending to extract a pubic hair from his teeth.  Nauseating, I admit.  But I actually liked Joe very much.  His tongue may have wiggled but he kept his hands to himself.

We never dreamed of going straight back to the cabin after a 12-hour shift.  Instead we went down to a Chinese place called The Triangle at the crack of dawn and had roast pork. That was one thing you certainly weren’t going to get at an all-Kosher resort.

It was mostly a time of innocence, but bad things occasionally happened.  For example, the virgins of summer had no business in the Borscht Belt.  All three of them ended up with men twice their age who took liberties.  One of the girls, who had fantasies of dying in a fiery car crash, managed to land in the hospital after being raped by one of the golf pros.  That wasn’t the only rape that summer.  There were also a few stabbing incidents.  And somebody got shot – I remember the blood stains on the hotel’s flowery carpet. 

But what an ultimately great life experience it was for me. 

I left the Borscht Belt in 1973 and cocktail waitressed for another couple of summers while I was at Brandeis: once at at a resort in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and once at a mafia joint in Waltham, Massachusetts.

I was lured to the Amish Country by a 34-year-old man who worked there. He was a professional figure skater.   I had met him at the resort when I was 17, en route to visiting my brother at Penn State. I thought he was wonderful.  He even had me dancing on ice.  When he beckoned, I went.

In the Catskills, I was provided with housing.  In the Amish Country, I needed to find my own digs.  That ended up being in a boarding house owned by an old Mennonite lady with a broken arm and a mustache. 

There was one other person living in the house – a very strange young guy who never said a word to me but who danced maniacally to “That’s the Way – Uh Huh Uh Huh – I Like It” every time it came on the radio – and it came on with some great regularity back then.  “Uh huh.”  The guy would be clicking his fingers and clapping his hands and bouncing on the bed – he was a dancing fool when that song came on. Otherwise, nothing.

If my uniform was degrading in the Catskills, it was even worse in Lancaster.  It was a blood-red mini-dress with a wide black belt and matching thigh-high, high-heeled boots.  Every night, I would get decked out in this attire and say “Good night” to my Mennonite landlady who, no doubt, prayed for me fervently.  She liked me, though, because at least I talked to her and didn’t bounce on the bed.

I didn’t stick around Lancaster very long.  Turns out, my friend the figure skater tried to pimp me out to a friend of his one night. I found that very unsavory, so I split and went to work as a typist for the Brandeis Women’s Committee.  Back then, I was such a lame typist, the other women I worked with thought I was mentally challenged.  So, I left and went to work at a real bar in Waltham – the aforementioned mafia joint.

I remember the name of the joint, but I’m going to keep its name to myself because it was mob owned and operated and I don’t want to expose anybody – even now.   Suffice to say, I got my paychecks from a guy who asked me to call him “Godfather” – and I did.

I was 22 and preparing to graduate from college.  The other waitresses were middle-aged townies with lots of kids and drunken husbands.  They smoked Chesterfields and called everybody “Honey.”  I’ll bet they were real thrilled about sharing their tips with me.  I did make good money there and the guy in charge of entertainment used to have the band play Barry Manilow’s, “Mandy” for me; except instead of “Mandy”, they sang “Mindy.” 

It was a very sweet swan song for me because, once I graduated from college, my cocktail waitressing days were over. I was off to face the adult world of mostly fine but occasionally grim reality. 

The Lancaster resort is still around. The mafia joint is likely gone.  Grossinger’s, like the rest of the Borscht Belt, is an apocalyptic ruin.   

Nobody ever offered me sauerkraut juice outside of Grossinger’s.

Thank you, Leo.  I cared. 

And to my boyfriend from Canarsie, I loved you with all my heart.  There’s nothing more beautiful than a Borscht Belt romance.  Thanks for the memories.