Sukkos Remembered

Sukkos brings back many memories growing up. The most pronounced memory is not having our own sukkah. As I mentioned in my Yom Kippur post I grew up in "concrete city"...a 13 story Co-op building in Queens, NY, surrounded by many other 13 story Co-op buildings and many blocks of 6 story city housing apt buildings. No place to build a Sukkah. So Sukkos was an adventure. We would eat, along with 4-5 other frum families (the only frum families) from the shul. My mother A"H was an expert in making meals that didn't need to be kept warm. One of my favorite Sukkos side dishes is cranberry sauce, mixed with mandarin oranges, and canned grapefruit slices (drained of liquid, of course).

We used to shlep our food down 4 flights of steps and over to the shul in one of those "N.Y. wagons" - the kind all the old ladies walk up and down the streets of NY with. There was a comaraderie among the families and in some ways it was fun. The second night of Sukkos there was always a "Simchas Beis Hashoevah" where all the congregants came. It didn't matter if you were frum or not, whether it was a workday or not (Yom tov not withstanding, they worked the next day). It was great as a teenager as we always stood outside the sukkah socializing.

I remember many sukkos in college when my good friend DZ came to spend Sukkos with us, as she had even less, growing up in a nonobservant home in the boondocks of L.I. I'll never forget the shock which registered on DH's face when he came for Sukkos when we were engaged - and how we spent Sukkos. There was real mesiras nefesh to eat in a Sukkah. Much different than his mom's sukkah where she passed the food into the sukkah from a window in the kitchen.
Once married, and in a house our first sukkah was a 6'x7' canvas job which went on our grass. Not very comfortable, nor very conducive to sitting in for many hours. I remember the first year in our house when my parents A"H came for Yom Tov. It rained the entire week. We ate in the Sukkah, maybe once.

I remember visiting a neighbor's sukkah that year. It was decorated beautifully with all the childrens' artwork and projects. Since DD was only a year old when we moved, I cried...when will we ever have a decorated sukkah? Needless to say, over the years we had DD#1 and DD#2's beautiful decorations + grandchildrens' decorations.

When we moved into the present house I said, Now I want a real sukkah. So we sat down with DD's blocks and cardboard, and basically I designed it. We hired DS, a friend's son who helped DH build it (or the other way around, DH helped DS build it). It had 2 windows. It had a door. It was a pleasure just sitting in it.

We entertained many in this beautiful Sukkah. I remember having a "singles" meal many years ago. B"H I think all of those singles are married with many children of their own (some grandchildren even). One Sukkos evening we heard an alarm go off. It seemed in the distance. We had some of our "bochrim" over that night. Well, we didn't check where it was and all of a sudden, a policeman sticks his head at the window. It was OUR alarm. He checked through the whole house. Unfortunately, he left EVERY light on in the entire house. We had to sleep with all the lights all of Yom Tov.

We are at a different stage now. After 25 or so years of shlepping the heavy heavy boards DH said, we are not putting up a sukkah. How many boys helped DH put up our Sukkah! There were many over the years, including for the last 13 years our dear SIL's. Now they have their own to put up, so we will share theirs. It's not the same and I miss it. I hope the BB family, in whose home our beautiful wooden sukkah now resides will have many wonderful memories in it.
Chag Sameach to all.