Jewish Post, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 July 1972 — Page 12

THE JEWISH POST AND OPINION

Friday, July 14, 1972

visiting with rhoda hauptman

I enjoy a good game of chess as well as the next fellow, but I just cannot imagine going all the way to Iceland to play. Bobby Fischer, whose match with the Russian expert, Spassky has been on and off and on and off for the past few days, was reluctant to travel the distance at first. However, one gathers that it is not only opera singers who can make like prima donnas. Fm not trying to denigrate the game of chess . . . only an occasional player. When we were young, our parents and particularly my mother’s brothers played the game with zeal. There was a permanent chess table in our living room (as a matter of fact, there still is, in mine) and no one was allowed to move the men about on the board unless it had been newly set up. Most of the tournaments, chez nous, were characterized more by heat than by light. The moves were rarely spectacular but there was a marvelous running comment before each play and from both sides of the table. My mother and my Uncle Victor used to begin a game each Sunday morning. With pauses for food and for first-aid, the same game could terminate on Thursday evening. v The opening formalities went something like this: “A move is a move!”, my mother would warn. “You’re darned right —- a move is a move.” “And a man touched is a man played?” “Absolutely!” . . THIS WAS THE SIGNAL for my grandmother to pull up a chair arid join in. Grandma was a pessimist by nature, assisted by years of sad experience. This had prepared her for her role of umpire for the match. Besides the mediation, she did a little kibbitzing on the side. Since she was a poor player, neither side minded her suggestions to the other, except that once in a while Grandma came up with a really brilliant move. That’s when the umpire needed a defense attorney. I began to notice, when I was quite young, that in my house at least, the better the player, the less he leaned on verbal intimidation. My Uncle Maurice, the family champion, enjoyed a reputation as a whiz in Allentown, Pa., where he practised dentistry in the hours when he was not competing in tournaments. Uncle Maurice never threatened. He never set “table rules.” He let you change your mind and take back a move, even after he had begun to move HIS man. And with all of these concessions, he almost always won! HE USED TO SAY that all you have to do is to remember that it’s only a game, a mental gymnastic. “There is a logical sequence to every move,” he’d say. I’d like to ask him how it is, if all you need is brains, that a six-year-old can beat his grandmother, four times out of six? To me, the crowning insult is to hear that grandson, to whom I taught the MOVES, for heaven’s sake, say, “I wouldn’t move the knight, if I were you, Grandmother. If you do, I can checkmate you in three, maybe four moves. See, I’ll show you.” All of these thoughts about four generations of chess players have come to mind because of a meeting of two chess players in Reykjavik, Iceland. It’s the same game that I have been trying to master for over half a century, although Fischer and Spassky, if they get to it, will probably play the game a wee bit better than did even my Uncle Maurice. The stakes in Iceland were high and they have already been doubled. My mother and my Uncle Victor played for 25 cents a game, which they carefully recorded in a notebook but never actually paid out. WHAT IS DIFFERENT is that at our house you were not permitted te be a poor sport. It was unacceptable behavior to pout if you lost or to gloat if you won. It was a game, after all, to see how well you were able to manipulate your little army of chessmen and whether you were six or seventy-six, you tried to act like a pro. It’d be nice if a couple of pros in Iceland would act like amateurs, right now, though, wouldn’t it?

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The Womans Viewpoint One For Women's Lib

Helen

By HELEN COHEN I felt “Equal pay for equal work” was about the only thing were agreed ^ : upon in this day of Women’s Lib re-

volt.

I’d like to add another area of feminine agree-

ment.

Surely w e

would stand up for. one another if a divorced father insists, as some do, that he has as much right to custody of his child

as its mother.

I SEE RED at just the thought. Unless the mother doesn’t want her child or has been proven really unfit as a parent, no one has a right to take a child away from its mother. No one. So he’s the father. She is the one who put her life on the line. And I speak from eight pregnancies worth o f ex-

perience.

Whose body, his or hers, becomes grotesquely misshapen? Who suffers from so-called “morning sickness?” (Mine turned out to “24 hour nausea” day after day for weeks each time. And I had a neighbor who spent her entire pregnancy nauseated.) WHO GETS MORE uncomfortable as the months progress, with various very real aches and pains, including, for me, back pains and leg cramps? Who, heavy with child, finds the sweltering summer months unbearable? Who yearns for the time to be over already (how the months drag) and yet recoils in horror at the thought of what unknown trouble and pain may come with the onset of labor? (During almost every one of my pregnancies, I read or heard of the death of another pregnant woman. Once, a young neighbor, just across the street, died of a hemorrhage following delivery. Again, another neighbor, I was told, had decided to have one more child (even though she was getting along in years because none of her children believed in Santa Claus anymore. She died while carrying her new baby, as a result of toxemia, blood poison-

ing.)

WITH SUCH graphic evidence, I could hardly be sneered at if I spent each pregnancy anxiously aware that my life too could end on the delivery table. Those pushing for legal abortion are quite happy to emphasize, you notice, that just about as many women die in childbirth as on the abortion table. And who pays a visit to the labor room for their baby? Just lying in that section of the hospital staring up at the ceiling can be a nightmare, including listening to other women screaming out in fear and pain. One scared young voice, I recall, kept up a plaintive wail, over and over, “Mother, help me. Mother, I need you.” Veteran of several stays in the labor room by then, I still silently joined in her plea. (You notice it wasn’t husband or father or even Heavenly Father we turned to for strength.) I • * I t. U : - ' .

I ALSO REMEMBER one un- extra pounds accumulated dursympathetic nurse (she happen- ing those nine months. My long ed to be a nun) telling my struggle with the scales dates doctor, who had just walked back to my first pregnancy, in, that my pain threshold was And finally, it has been high (she meant I was doing mama, not papa, who had the a lot of unnecessary crying out vvork and responsibility of raisfor nothing). Alter a quick look, i ng the child - the feeding, he rushed me post-haste into bathing, caring for, loving, the delivery room. I had been training, teaching, crying out for something - intense pain. The baby was well , . HAS TO BE a travesty on its way to being born. ^ ^ 01 a ^ lvorcin S father to be able to step in and say Another memory that stays he has an equal right to custody with me was the birth of our of the child. Women’s Lib: here fifth child. He was big (10 is something really worth fightpounds, and I’m only about 5 ing for. feet lall.) After being anesthesized I came to — think- Wh y’ u n ,?, e T r . the . Clp “ ing gratefully that it must all ^mstances, did I have a large be over, only to be taken aback ^ mil y ? * nn 2 mg .“f at the doctor’s voice saying, t he wa f ld and u raismg them to “Don’t bear down, Mrs. Cohen/’ ^ r a I continue to He was going to have to make ^hewe, is the most constructive an incision to enlarge the open- creative thing a woman can do. ing. My baby’s head was too Everything in life has its price big to get through. My ordeal and Producing a human was not yet over. bem S hl g h - 1 piously v/as willing to pay that price. is I m not willing to remain silent when a woman, having EVEN NURSING ONE’S made that necessary payment, baby, while fulfilling and exalt- has to stand by helplessly while ing, may not always be al- her ex-husband takes her child together pleasant. With several away from her. of our children, there was some w , „ j ^ discomfort And with one, the ^ Ma f l0 " . Br f ndo u and Car T . pain was so bad, that after £ rant ’ for 1 "^ nce > ha ^ e P 0 "?' days of hoping things would im- 5 prove, I had to give up nursing t d<)es, ) * S ran ^ them the £ er right to deprive an ex-wife of her only beloved off-spring. Another point: many women can trace the loss of their Helen Cohen can be reached youthful, trim figure to the at 7984 Lieber Road, Indian?tretching of their muscles and apolis, Ind. 46260.

Just Between Us Ex-Princess And Prince

Helen

By HELEN MINTZ A refrigerator with only yoghurt and cottage cheese left in-

t a c t. Shoes a b a n d oned each step of the way. Soda deliver ies stepped up to twice a week. Food bills soaring faster than a 747 jet. The TV, phone and hi-fi com-

peting for equal time. The sun reflector in constant use. Five years worth of “love comics” being read, re-read and traded. Having to rise at the unreasonable hour of 11:30 a.m. Rushing home at three for those endless soap operas. ME not getting my fair share of OUR family car. Exhaustion setting in when it’s time to do the dishes. All adds up to one basic conclusion. My girl child is home from college. It’s going to be a long

summer.

WHERE WAS IT written that I was destined to give birth to a “princess.” Sure, my mother must have known she had one too, but once married, no one told my husband. You know he actually expected me to iron his underwear, match up his socks, and peel the onion in his martini. I tried at first to please but was excused from the ironing. Spray starching h i s shorts caused resentment and a rash. Matching socks was not part of

my college curriculum. Peeling an onion for his martini, OK, but first I would make such a production out of donning my rubber gloves, you’d think I was going into surgery. When I said “scalpel, please” he let me off the hook. After testing each others mettle, the “prince” I married, and the “princess” he married, settled down and decided to raise a few mere “mortals.” We thought we were doing just fine until a few years ago when they turned teenagers. We didn’t reckon with those stubborn genes. How well we remember our parents saying “wait until you have children. They should be just like you!” A Jewish prophecy that’s been handed down through the generations. IF YOU HAVE a “prince” and “princess” in your household, take heart, take a tranquilizer, take a vacation. They have a lot of company. With a little luck they’ll find each other and voila, they’re off your hands. It may be a long hot summer, and a long cold winter, but there’s always spring to make a wedding. Then you can go visit them in their castle, maybe bring along a little stuffed chicken, but never interfere in their affairs of state. That way you’ll always be greeted like royalty. As an ex-prince and princess, wouldn’t it be nice for a change! Helen Mintz can be reached at 3408 Frederick St., Oceanside, N.Y. 11572.