Bubbe's Place: Stories

Visits to Stroudsburg

When I was in High School occasionally I would go to Stroudsburg with some girlfriends to enjoy a long weekend with Aunt Yetta and Uncle Max. We would take the bus up Route 611 from Philadelphia. Aunt Yetta would decide where we would spend the day and Uncle Max did the driving. Then we’d come back to the house to a delicious dinner. After dinner we would settle down to serious pinochle tournaments. Those were the days before T.V. or computers when families spent evenings talking and playing games together.

Years went by. I became a licensed driver but in Stroudsburg Uncle Max still drove me everywhere. One day we were coming back to the house, when suddenly we heard sirens and saw that a fire engine was behind us.

I screamed, “Uncle Max, pull to the side!”

He shrugged, “I was here first.” Max wouldn’t move from the center of the road. The fire engine passed us by driving across people’s front lawns.

Later, when the fire was out, a policeman brought Uncle Max a ticket and a lecture. From that day on, when I visited Stroudsburg, I insisted that I was the designated driver.