A rambling intro before we get to the ham salad so gloriously pictured here, but rest assured we will get to it…
It may strike some as strange that a teenage boy would want to spend his Saturday evening with a quartet of fifty-something women playing a card game nicknamed ‘Dimes’ (which seems, from all minor research I’ve done on the subject, to be a sort of Texas Rummy) but it was absolutely fitting for my high school years. I was, and I remain, way more ‘Harold & Maude’ than ‘Dirty Dancing’.
If you’re gonna play the game, boy
You gotta learn to play it right…
During my junior year, my dear friend Ann was my lifeline. Amid a sea of depression and anxiety and just getting through the age of 16, she was my misfit-partner-in-crime. With a mohawk-like swath of blond locks that she hair-sprayed dangerously high into spiky formations, a wardrobe of black and silver, and a die-hard love of Guns ‘n Roses and any other head-banging band that came with a frightening front-man, she was a formidable force. Underneath all the eyeliner and armor, however, she was a kind and sensitive soul, a non-proclaimed ‘straight-edge’ gal who wanted nothing to do with drinking or smoking or drugs of any kind, and who got straight A’s because she was smart as hell, especially when it came to math. The juxtaposition of her brazen appearance and everything that was going on underneath it was something to which I could immediately relate. We started hanging out on the weekends, roaming the mall or the Southside of Amsterdam, doing much of nothing and loving every minute of it. Our wanderings were harmless, when one considered the other antics of kids our age, but outwardly you would have thought we were up to no good, and all things insidious. I loved that – it lended us a protection that we both needed when kids were especially looking to hurt those who were different.
Every gambler knows
That the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away
And knowin’ what to keep
‘Cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser
And the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep…
It was Ann who introduced me to the card games that her mom Ginny played every week (the woman who purchased Madonna’s ‘Sex’ book for me) – along with Ginny’s friend Janice, an Aunt called Barb, and their friend Julie (whose mother Funzie cooked and hung out amiably in the background). I think the first time we played it was at some graduation party at Ann’s house – we were sitting at a picnic table and someone was passing around a bottle of Rumpleminze – Ann and I passed, but we took part in a quick make-shift card game. They called the game ‘Dimes’ because that’s what we bet on each hand. High rollers we were not. That day we only played a few hands, but Ann said they played every Saturday, and soon enough I had ingratiated myself into attending with Ann and our friend Jessica (whose Mom was Janice).
This was a secret world to which I instantly thrilled at being a part – even if I was on the periphery with the other kids. As a burgeoning gay boy, I knew how to make the middle-aged ladies laugh against their better judgment. I could push my comments to the edge of tasteful and they would try to balk before they gave in to their laughter at my absurdity. We provided joy for each other at a time when I don’t think there was much joy in our weekday world.
I found an appreciate audience for my outfits and hats and nonsense, and they had an appreciative mouth who was happily willing to devour any and all foodstuffs they had on hand. Julie’s mother Funzie loved me for how much I loved her food – a hungry boy appeals to many a mother’s heart. There would always be some delicious selection of dinner leftovers culled and curated by this group of Southside Amsterdam Italians, and often the simple crowning jewel for my easily-awed palette was a basic bowl of ham salad served on a cracker or small bun.
Our food break came in between the two card games, and I soon came to understand that the cards were merely the catalyst for being together and sharing food and finding a way to make this miserable world a little more bearable. While others my age were getting their kicks and distractions fumbling about with sex and liquor and drugs, I found my fun at these card games, bisected by a hefty serving of ham salad and some sweet treat to finish it all off. It’s always been amusing to think of the yarns and rumors that people spun of what Ann and I were up to on our weekends. Pulling back the wizard’s curtain on that would always be one of life’s delicious surprises to people expecting some wild and wayward youth.
Thus it was that most of my Saturday nights passed through the end of my high school years. I’d return to the card games when home from college too, and reconnecting with these ladies – my own quartet of surrogate golden girl mothers – was a safe touchstone when real darkness and demons worked their wretched way with me. No matter what was going on with us – and soon it would be health scares and loss and the awfulness that is the unstoppable onward march of time – we could return to the crowded kitchen table, deal out the cards, and settle into a couple of hours of not worrying, highlighted by a little mid-game feast, and bits of gossip and song snippets. The simple secret of life right there – getting through it together with good friends and good food and the complete lack of pretense and pretend. When you find your tribe, everything falls into place, if only for a Saturday night.
Most of those ladies who saved my life are gone now, but their memory lives on – in my mind, in their children’s hearts, in this silly little blog post. Whenever Andy cooks a ham, I’ll ask that he make a batch of ham salad with the leftovers, and every time I’m brought back to those card games, and those wonderful women, and the haven we once provided for each other.
And when he finished speakin’
He turned back toward the window
Crushed out his cigarette
And faded off to sleep
And somewhere in the darkness
The gambler he broke even
But in his final words
I found an ace that I could keep…
