As memories of this past summer begin to fade and leaves begin to fall, we all get that feeling of nostalgia for summers past. My fellow Metro North commuter Barry Scheer and I recently discussed a movie we had seen that brings back a flood of memories from summers in the Catskills, “A Walk on the Moon.” Set in the backdrop of the Woodstock festival of 1969 at a bungalow camp in the Sullivan County, the movie depicts family life in the camp during the summer including the weekly visit of vendors. The visits would be announced over the camp’s PA system. There was an odd assortment of traveling mobile vendors who would set up their tables around their panel trucks and station wagons. The collection had such characters as the bathing suit guy, the sweater guy, the T-shirt guy. “Shimmy the Pickle King” was known for his garlic sour pickles. The “Chow-Chow Cup” man served a savory chicken chow mein in a formed and fried crisp noodle cup that you ate when the chow mein was finished. And then there was “Ruby the Knish Man”.

Ruby Oshinsky was a self-made man who, with his wife “Mom,” would sell the knishes she made on streets throughout Brooklyn for most of the year. During the summer, he would make the rounds of the various family summer camps in our area. It was really exciting seeing my friend Barry’s face light up like a kid when he told me this story and his memories of Ruby.

“My experience with Ruby dates to the early ‘60s. After my first eight summers in Rock Hill, I spent my next five summers from 1960 to 1964 in Sadownick’s Bungalow Colony on Old Liberty Road in Monticello, NY one mile down the road toward Kutschers, one mile from Kaplan’s Deli. I spent all summer there. Friday nights were special because that was when my father came up after working in the city all week. I would immediately greet him and go through his suitcase to see what treats he brought up for me: maybe a Pensy Pinky handball, an Almond Joy bar or a Milky Way.

“On Saturday the men (dads) would have an inter-colony softball game. It was around that time, maybe one in the afternoon, that Ruby would pull into the long driveway and set up to sell knishes. He used a bullhorn to announce his presence. ‘Knissssshhhes, get your mom’s Metracal knishes. You won’t gain a pound, ladies,’ (Metracal was a weight-loss powder of the day). ‘Buy a lot—my wife wants to go to Florida!’ Ruby would say.

“The kids would run from the softball field where they were watching their dads play to get their knishes. Moms would meet them to pay. The dads would take a Knish break, but if it was a crucial point in the game, we would get extra knishes in a brown paper bag, the little bit of grease beginning to color the bag with an oily slick. A quick shake of kosher salt with grains like little crystals and that hot, floppy round and flat treat of mashed potatoes, onions, pepper and a golden crust would at once satisfy, warm your belly (even on a hot summer day) and reinforce our common bond of the Jews from NYC, escaping the hot urban jungle but craving our cultural delicacies.”

Suffice it to say Barry has vivid memories of summers gone by, as do many of us. It seems that the older we get the sweeter these memories grow. Ruby has a website set up where many people have posted their memories of him; he was quite the guy. As one person writes, “Instead of manna from heaven, please ask the Lord, rain down knishes… potato, please!”