What's a Bobashela?

WHAT'S A BOBASHELA?    MEMORIES OF TRENTON HIGH SCHOOL

Last year, my son and I went to Trenton High School to interview the varsity basketball coach, Gary Grant, for a video that we produced for the Colonial Valley Conference end of year basketball banquet.  We interviewed most of the coaches from the conference about their remembrances of Jjm Valvano, the late basketball coach from North Carolina State, who passed away 18 years ago from bone cancer.  It was my first time in the building.  

According to Wikipedia, "Trenton Central High School (TCHS) opened on January 4, 1932 and was formally dedicated on January 18 amid a crowd of five thousand. Hailed as “an ornament to the city” and “one of the show places of Trenton,” TCHS was one of the largest and most expensive high schools built in the country. The Chambers Street façade stretches broadly for almost 1,000 feet (300 m), nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall. The cost of the building, including land and furniture, totaled $3.3 million."  

Through the years, I had followed the ongoing debate of whether to renovate or rebuild the Grande Dame.  So, the first time I entered the gymnasium, I took in everything.  I thought back to how majestic that gym must have been when the school opened.  It struck me as more of a college gym, with the benches built on concrete, instead of the more modern folding stands.  I thought of all of the great athletes that have played in that gym.  What I didn't see were the collapsing ceilings and the general disrepair.  Then, last week in the Trenton Times there were pictures of the crumbling track and the criticisms of the current city administration's renovation priorities.

Last spring Arthur Finkle sent me  a photo of the second graduating class of TCHS at Mt. Vernon.  It's a wonderful picture and I've re-posted it below.  Arthur's uncle, Maurice was a member of the class of 1933. 

A few weeks ago, Art sent along 5 more images from that yearbook.  I was a little stumped when I saw the cover.  After all, what's a Bobashela?  An Internet search yielded the chart below, the genealogy of a racehorse that was born in 1925.  

Then I found an entry from the Trenton Historical Society, which cleared everything up.   The TCHS yearbook has been called Bobashela and has been published since at least 1918.  Trentonia at the Trenton Public Library has an extensive collection of the Yearbooks but is still missing a number of the years.  If you click on the link above, you'll see which ones they are missing.  Apparently Millsaps College in Mississippi also calls their yearbook Bobashela, as does a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Decatur (GA?)  Any other background on how the yearbook got its name would be appreciated.

The pictures that Art sent are from the 1933 Bobashela.  Arthur's uncle Maurice (above) recently passed away.   I needed a little clarification and asked him whether he was also related to Anita Finkle, who is pictured on the same page.  Art replied, "My Finkle family was (at one time) was  enormous).  Anita was a member of another Finkle family  (nice folks but unrelated). Much smaller family.  Art also was kind enough to add to the TJP with his recollections of his days at Trenton High School.   

 Trenton High: Recollections

by:  Arthur Finkle

Trenton Central High School was one of the best times of my life. The variety of activities and the variegation of the student body were there for the picking. I graduated in 1959. ALL of my first cousins (David Popkin, Joel Popkin, Bernard Levy, Marilyn Hayfer, Florence and Leatrice Klatzkin graduated Trenton High) as well as my Aunts and Uncles.
My classes were the “X” classes (now Advanced Standing) in which we had about 30 students, half of whom were Jewish.
The Jewish student body was close. Although most were form Jr. 3, there were those from Jr. 1, 2 and 5 to my knowledge. He kept ourselves together in outside organizations like AZA, the YMHA, HSTY and USY. We also attended Tallis and Tfillin Club sponsored by AZA.
My activities included the Band, the Orchestra, Choir, Chorus, Rock ‘n Roll group (‘The Off keys’), the Forum Club. I belonged to the Red Band one year and the Black Band for two years for famous Sports Night. My main interest was the Debating Team with Mentor Saul Rossein. We went all over w Jersey and came in second for the state Championship.
I remember participating in the last Operetta, “Show Boat ‘ as well as in the school plays.
I remember Christian Herter coming down the aisle with a heavy cane before he spoke to the assembly. (Trenton High taught approximately  3,000 students. Lawrence High School was not built until 1965)
Friends then and today remain Al Downing, Frankie Aaronson, Dorothy Fizer, Eddie Berkelhammer (recently passed), Albie Stark, Mark Nath, Ellen (Mann) Somerstein , Russ Petranto, Larry Trachtenberg,  Bruce Lubitz, Stan Saperstein, Terry Rosenfeld, Larry Siegel.   Half of these students went to Cadwalader School.
Later in life at a 60th birthday party for the leader of the Red Band, I got to know Mateo Giammario, our great orchestral conductor. He taught to appreciate one the genius’ the 20th century – Aaron Copeland.
Trenton High prepared me for the social and intellectual life that I have experienced.

Editors notes:   Last week, I mentioned that the bench that the Saperstein Brothers were sitting on in the entry from October 24th was inscribed with a plaque commemorating the 50th anniversary of Albert and Anne Hirsch.  Well, this week I received an e-mail from Robin Hirsch, who lives in Los Angeles.  Her Aunt, Estelle Bogad, told her about the blog and Robin reports that Albert and Anne were her grandparents.

"Would love to know more.  I have many memories of Trenton.  My parents are both buried at Greenwood Cemetery and  we visit about once a year when we are East."

We'll see what we can do, Robin.  Tell us about some of those Trenton memories.  




Ed

A Memory of Ben Olinsky

Ten years ago, I had no idea what a blog was.  If I had, I'm sure I would have published this at the time.   This Monday morning, October 31, 2011, I was cleaning up in my office and came upon a CD on which I had archived old documents from a computer that had long ago been recycled.  I had been on the lookout for years for a copy of a story that I had written in November of 2001.  It was on this disc.   If there was a point when the groundwork had been laid for putting together the Trenton Jewish Project, this was probably the it.  I've done just a little editing, changing some present tense sentences to past tense and updating the information about my kids.  But 99% of what you about to read was written a decade ago.

It was a sad time, for 9/11 had happened just two months earlier and there was much uncertainty.   The weather was changing.  Another winter was approaching and with it, an inevitable case of Seasonal Affect Disorder.  I had also just gotten some very bad news.  Someone who I had met only once, but made a lasting impression on me had just passed away.

A MEMORY OF BEN OLINSKY

                                                             By Ed Alpern

     If life is a game, then the measure of your accomplishments should be able to be totaled up shortly after your death.  The final buzzer sounds and the score is up there on the big board for all to see.  The tally includes all the people who you touch along the way and the impact that you have on them and your community.  This is the story of a man who won big.  He gave and touched and he deserves to be remembered.

     I didn’t meet Ben Olinsky until he was 82 years old.  By then, he was having trouble walking.  I only met him once.  We spoke for a little over an hour.  Almost a year to the day later, I attended his funeral.

     I first became aware of Benjamin C. Olinsky while doing a community service project at the Jewish Community Center of the Delaware Valley.  Both of my sons had attended Ring Nursery School at the Center and my oldest, age 8 at the time, was intensely proud of the 12 trophies he earned through the sports programs that were run year round.  After years of walking past yellowing and faded photos stapled to a bulletin board, I decided that these pictures needed to be preserved.  There were 226 of them.  They spanned the decades, beginning in the 19-teens with activities from the Trenton YMHA (Young Man’s Hebrew Association) and ending in the 80’s.  Most were black and white, many were ripped, almost all had neatly typed captions with names of people who had played basketball, wrestled, swam, played baseball, organized dances, supported soldiers, taught children how to play sports and be good sports.  It was a collection that demanded attention.

     As I removed the staples and faithfully made piles for the different decades to which the photographs belonged, I couldn’t help but wonder who these people were.  One face kept staring back at me.  I first noticed it in a 1933 picture of a basketball team.  There, in the center of the back row, was a handsome, skinny man, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a very faint smile.  “Wait a minute,” I said to myself.  “I’ve seen that face before.”  

I rifled back through the 1930’s pile, then the 40’s pile.  The skinny kid had put on some muscle and before I got to the end of the 1940’s, it was clear that Ben Olinsky was some kind of a gym rat. He must have lived at the Y. 

     At the top of the 1950’s pile I started seeing pictures of Ben Olinsky, not as a player, but as a coach.

And then I came upon a photo from 1955, there was a picture of five women who were members of the Dance Committee.  On the far right, the caption identified a Muriel Olinsky.  She didn’t look like a sister, but maybe a wife.  

Muriel Olinsky on the far left.

 It turns out that in the late 1940’s a woman named Muriel came to Rider College.  She played basketball and found her way down to the Y.  The athletic director of the Y at the time, a Scotty Mosovich, worked with Muriel on her free throws and happened to introduce Muriel to the gym rat.  An 82-year old Ben Olinsky described it as “the worst decision that Scotty ever made.”  The mating ritual was far from typical, but what else could you expect.  Ben challenged Muriel to a free throw shooting contest.  She won.  “I beat him at his game and he had to marry me,” remembers Muriel.  The match lasted 54 years.

     The 1950’s pile also provided me a more personal link to this mystery man, Mr. Olinsky.  From 1954, there was a picture of a an adult handing a basketball to a couple of boys who looked to be 7 or 8 years old.  The caption said one of the two kids was named Tal Brody.  

 It was a name that I knew from my teenage years.  I went to Israel in 1973 for six weeks with the summer camp I attended.  We went to the opening ceremonies of the Maccabiah games (The Jewish Olympics).  At my aunt’s apartment in Jerusalem, four of my friends and I watched as this same Tal Brody led the Israeli team to a spirited win over the United States team in the gold medal game.  Now, I held in my hand another picture.  One that made this public service project even more compelling.  Tal Brody, who grew up in Trenton, became a star at Trenton High, was an All-American at the University of Illinois, played on the U.S., then Israeli national teams, was a member of the ill-fated 1972 Israeli Olympic games and later became a national hero in Israel, and Ben Olinsky had crossed paths.    The photo brought a flood of my own memories of that summer of 1973.  We played many a basketball game that ended with one of us hitting a jumper from beyond the three point line (ABA rules, back then) as time ran out and another of us screaming…”Tal Brody at the buzzer…it’s good!!!”

By the bottom of the 1950’s pile, my man Ben was the guy giving out the trophies to the kids.

  He had started a program called the Biddy League, and he was now its president.  The Biddy League was the place where hundreds of kids, starting at the ripe age of 7, got their first chance to learn about and play the game of basketball.  One of the rules of the Biddy League was that everyone played at least a half.  When I finally met Ben in November of 2000, that rule was one of the facts he made sure to tell me. “Everybody got to play at least a half.  Whether they were good or bad.”  Tears actually started to well up in the eyes of this strong man who could swear like a sailor (he was one—Navy 1940’s) when he told me, “That was what I was the proudest of, I felt noches (yiddish for pride) when I saw the kids learning how to play.”  Tal Brody was one of those kids.  By the time I met Ben, Brody was a middle-aged insurance executive.  The man who is still considered Israel’s Mr. Basketball has lived a charmed life because of basketball.  I found Tal Brody's telephone number and interviewed him in 2000.   Brody told me, “I started playing basketball at the Y in the Biddy League, that was really where I got my start.” 

     Brody isn’t the only one with fond memories of the man and the program.  To this day, many of them still keep in touch with each other, sharing a link they forged as kids on the basketball court.  One was a weatherman in Israel and another a stock analyst for Robertson Stephens in San Francisco.  There’s a lawyer in Lawrenceville and a Rabbi in Jerusalem.   In fact, there are hundreds of people whose lives were touched by Ben Olinksy.  And I guess that’s the point.  Even though you won’t read about someone like Ben Olinsky in the pages of People Magazine or see his story on a TV magazine show, he was a man who gave of his time and volunteered so that future generations would have a positive experience and a love of sports.  So, I really wasn’t surprised on that bright and sunny day in November 2001 when the chapel at the funeral home was packed and more than 100 people came to say goodbye to Ben.

     I didn’t meet Ben Olinsky until he was 82 years old.  In November 2000, we sat and talked with a video camera rolling for a little more than an hour.  In the middle of the interview, a client called and I had to rush off to a meeting. We didn’t get a chance to talk again.  Almost a year to the day later, I ran into his wife at the local supermarket.  I asked how Ben was doing. “He was hanging in,” Muriel said, but knee problems were hobbling him physically and Alzheimer's was robbing him of his mental agility.  I promised to get her a copy of the interview.   It would be ready on the following Monday when Muriel would be at the Golden Age meeting at the JCC.  My wife dropped in to give her the tape as promised.  Muriel wasn’t there.  One of her best friends informed my wife that Ben had passed away on Sunday, four days after I ran into Muriel. 

     Ben Olinsky was 83 at the end of regulation.  I met him almost a year to the day before he died.  The seats were full at his funeral.  There might as well have been a big scoreboard at the end of the chapel where the rabbi spoke.  His friends and at least one acquaintance had come to celebrate a life that was a lopsided victory.


A side note---Last week, I included a color picture of the Saperstein brothers sitting on a bench.  One of our readers, Mary Lou Byer recognized the setting instantly as Ahavath Israel.  Not only that, but Mary Lou knew that the bench had made the trek from Ewing to Lawrenceville when Ahavath and Adath merged earlier this year.  Well, a little bit of detective work uncovered the wherabouts of that bench and a matching one.  In the synagogue offices at Adath, the benches have a home.   The benches are inscribed with a plaque commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Albert & Anne Hirsch.   Case solved.