Ben Bernstein: [00:00:00] This episode of rambling on the river is presented 

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Speaker 3: You're listening to the Ramblin on the River podcast presented by BB Riverboats. The Bernstein family has been a predominant name in Cincinnati's hospitality landscape since the 1960s, and this podcast will be a collection of the stories, tales, and experiences from their entrepreneurial endeavors.[00:01:00] 

restaurant and excursion boat business. Join as they take you on a journey through the family's history in their own unique style. Now, here are your hosts, Ben, Terri and Alan Bernstein.

Ben Bernstein: And we're back. We're here. You got your microphone set? I'm sorry. 

Alan Bernstein: You know the whole thing just fell apart. 

Ben Bernstein: Welcome back to the Ramblin on the River podcast. We're very excited, very happy that you have found your way back to the show. My name is Ben Bernstein. I'm joined by my sister Terri. I think the order is my father Alan, who complains every single episode.

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com. 

So we just wrapped up an episode, kind of a hodgepodge of stories of a couple of very famous stories, actually, from our past, from your past, from your father's past this week, we are going to go back to the very beginning.

1969, 1969, man landed on the moon, man landed on the moon. Absolutely. Ben and I were trying to, to figure out your dates. We were going through your notes. I was, we were going through your notes and I didn't think it was 19. Did you graduate high school when you were 16? 

Alan Bernstein: I told you came back.

I understand. And I graduated. Even though I had not attended 

Ben Bernstein: school here, that doesn't have anything to do with your [00:03:00] age. So I guess each year was not a year's time. You would have had to have been a young. They gave me 

Alan Bernstein: the diploma. I understand. Okay, and then I went to the Delta Queen.

For that summer, yeah. That was. For 

Ben Bernstein: that summer. That was 1970. 70. Yeah. Let's see. So this is 1969. Exactly, here's where we go. No, wait a minute. Man landed on the moon in 1969. That's right. You will, you in August, I was on the Delta queen in 1970. Yes. How are you? I don't know. 

Alan Bernstein: Now you 

Terri Bernstein: didn't go the cat. Well, maybe 

Alan Bernstein: first let's see.

Could you have gone 

Terri Bernstein: before the summer? I came 

Alan Bernstein: home from Ecuador in 1969. It was the early 1969 like so maybe that summer he 

Terri Bernstein: went and then he went back to school and then it 

Ben Bernstein: validates his, the story I've been [00:04:00] selling the high 

Alan Bernstein: school graduation for that. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: I'm just, maybe it's 68. No. Yeah. Well, maybe, maybe it's the early six late 68, early 69.

I don't know. Or maybe I screwed up. Are you positive 

Ben Bernstein: that you watched the man land on the moon? Oh, absolutely. In the 

Alan Bernstein: Catskill Mountains with my, yeah, absolutely. That is 100 percent accurate. Now, these dates may be all flip flopped. I don't know. The man 

Ben Bernstein: landed on the moon in 1969. I 

Alan Bernstein: watched that. 

Ben Bernstein: I know maybe you graduated high school and you were 16 years old.

Well, maybe you went, I was not one of those sparks. Oh, 

Alan Bernstein: well, we can keep arguing. Maybe 

Terri Bernstein: we'll talk to your siblings and see, well, you know what? 

Alan Bernstein: I think maybe Linda and Mark will remember, but much. Well, it's the year 

Terri Bernstein: that Linda and Mark got 

Alan Bernstein: married that summer. That, that is [00:05:00] true. I had to come back from the Catskills.

I had to return from the Catskills to Cincinnati, specifically for the wedding. Hmm. Which was at the end of August 1969. This is one hell of a show preview. Gather around 

Speaker 6: everybody, it's story time! On Ramblin on the 

Ben Bernstein: River! On Ramblin on the River! On Ramblin on the River! Very, very good.

So if you couldn't guess we're always confused. My father spent a summer, which summer is 

Terri Bernstein: 1969.

Ben Bernstein: Now the real question is, but I'm thinking my whole childhood was a scam because maybe you didn't go on the Delta queen. Maybe it was later on. Maybe. No, I've been telling everybody high school graduation for it. I did can't figure it. I 

Alan Bernstein: absolutely skipped my ceremony I'll [00:06:00] give you a pass.

It was 54. You know what? 

Terri Bernstein: I don't remember what I did yesterday. 

Alan Bernstein: Maybe I did go to school here in Cincinnati more than I thought. in 1969. . That's what I'm saying. 

Terri Bernstein: Maybe you did part of the year here. Did. 

Alan Bernstein: Maybe, 

Ben Bernstein: just to clarify, I think the very first episode, I wanted everybody to know that this is probably gonna be.

Sixty ish percent accurate. All right. Who cares about the date? 

Alan Bernstein: So let's 

Terri Bernstein: this 

Alan Bernstein: show is about 1969. Yeah, we know it's 1969 in 

Ben Bernstein: this show. 

Alan Bernstein: Yes. So you went to the 

Catskill 

Ben Bernstein: mountain. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, let me explain how that happened. My older sister, Linda. She won't like that, but my sister, Linda.

Who is five years older than I am. Met Mark Peroff at law school in [00:07:00] Cincinnati. He went to the University of Cincinnati's law school. Linda has a master's degree in speech and hearing, and they met, I'm not sure how, but maybe Linda could come on the podcast and tell us how she met.

Mark used to go when he was younger he and his brother used to go to the Catskill mountains every summer to work. You made very good money there. It was fun to do it was sort of like going to camp 

Terri Bernstein: and mark was a new yorker he 

Alan Bernstein: mark Well, he was a virgin. Yeah, he was he was from the East Coast.

Let's put it that way. Yeah He is the one that told me about the Catskill Mountains he said Alan you would probably enjoy that and so He researched and Linda helped him, you know, find a place we went up on the first weekend of memorial day. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Around Memorial day. Back then it was private. Well, 

Speaker 7: I 

Alan Bernstein: might've been a little earlier than [00:08:00] that in, in back then, but anyway, I think it'd be late. And so Mark said, why don't we go up and get you a job in the Catskill mountains? Bussing tables. I was only 17 years old 16 17. I might have been 16 He 

Terri Bernstein: has no you might 

Alan Bernstein: not want to date 

Ben Bernstein: yourself because 

Alan Bernstein: all of this could be completely inaccurate, but go on Well, I, when we say inaccurate, we'll put it to you this way, is 50.

There might be embellishments, but most of it is accurate. The substance is all, is all good. It's all there. It's all there. The details might be outta whack. Absolutely. But that's sort of my personality. I could tell you that I'm 56 years old when I'm indeed. How old am I? Seventy Nineteen fifty two.

Nineteen fifty two. So 

Ben Bernstein: You're seventy two years old. Seventy two years old. Yeah. This was fifty five years ago, so But I sort of feel like I'm twenty two sometimes. You look it. Ha ha ha ha ha 

Alan Bernstein: ha. Big old hunk of man over there. Well I'm a chick magnet, Ben. You are a chick magnet. 

Ben Bernstein: [00:09:00] Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: The pool girls love me at the the 

Ben Bernstein: day.

Alan Bernstein: The pool girls absolutely love me when I come down for the day. 

Ben Bernstein: I'm sure you're a star. Oh man, 

Alan Bernstein: man. 

Ben Bernstein: In the Covington elite. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Anyway, So I went up to the Catskill Mountains and the first job that I got was at the vegetarian. Wait a minute. Let's stop there. Yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: Let's talk about the Catskill Mountains.

Why don't you 

Ben Bernstein: set up what was the Catskill Mountains? 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, okay. 

Ben Bernstein: The Catskill Mountains. Where were you 

Alan Bernstein: going to work? The Catskill Mountains is in Upper State New York. Beautiful area of New York. About two hours from downtown Manhattan and the Catskills is made up. It's a series of mountains and, and beautiful scenery. And in South Fallsburg, New York was the employment agency. And they sort of put all these young people. to different hotels. So it was a vacation place for downtown [00:10:00] Manhattan apartment or condo or house owners.

And they went up into the country, they had a camp kind of they had swimming and horseback riding and dance lessons. They had all kinds of things it was a resort. You did what you sort of wanted to do. The pool was always a busy place. And what would happen on the weekend when they came up, the husband would go home Sunday afternoon or evening after dinner.

We drive back to Manhattan and the family, the kids and the wife would stay up at the resort. And this went on for the eight weeks of summer. and this was predominantly all Jewish. You did not have to be Jewish or you were not. There were, there were non Jewish people up there, but it was predominantly a Jewish hang out or whatever you want to call it.

Retreat, that's a better word. And there were many hotels the Concord and Grossinger's [00:11:00] were the two big hotel chains. They had the real big names, Jerry Lewis and, and Jackie Gleason. The other hotels had little theaters, but they were little, they were smaller and they did not have.

Those huge names that, you know, it was and many celebrities. And actually I didn't know this, but I think Jerry Seinfeld started in his name on the recent I I'm not sure. Jerry 

Terri Bernstein: Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Cesar, Jim Rivers, Jackie Mason, Jerry Lewis. 

Alan Bernstein: Those were all staples up there. All of them. And they would come for the summer also, you know, that's where they all got their start.

That's where they got their start or their fame 

Ben Bernstein: or whatever. So would they be a part of production? Would they be learning? I mean, 

Alan Bernstein: yeah, they were a headliners, you know, the tonight brought them up. This week we have Jerry Seinfeld, who's a, an up and coming star 

They would advertise that. And that's how people would want to book their week or two weeks [00:12:00] or whatever. So weren't there camps too, for the kids? Yeah, they had all kinds of things. It was really more for the kids than anything else. 

You know, this was the country. This was horses and, and green and all kinds of stuff. So that's what it was all about. It was really and it was only a couple hours by drive. So it was really pretty darn convenient. And many of the hotels a lot of the hotels were kosher. Some of them were more strict kosher than others.

It just sort of dependent. And for those of you that don't know, the kosher tradition is that you don't mix dairy and meat. So breakfast and lunch were dairy items. So you could not get a roast beef sandwich at lunchtime. On the other side of that, you couldn't get a dairy product for dinner, like eggs, eggs didn't come because I have eggs all the time for dinner or butter for your bread or butter for [00:13:00] your bread.

Yeah. There's other, or a glass of milk a glass of milk. That's another good one. That didn't happen. 

Terri Bernstein: So no sour cream on your potato? 

Alan Bernstein: Mm, I don't think so. That's a long time to remember . But I remember I was yelled at 'cause I wanted butter. I didn't want butter. The customer wanted butter.

And so I went back and I ate butter and, and oh my God, we know about her at dinner time. Oh man. So that's really what the Catskill Mountains was all about. 

Ben Bernstein: If you're having trouble picturing what the Catskill Mountains are, think 

Speaker 7: of 

Alan Bernstein: I was the dance instructor. You were the dirty dancing instructor.

I was Johnny, what was it, Johnny, Whatever is Patrick Swayze, but well, yeah, that's his real name was Johnny. Yeah, his name was Johnny. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Anyway, I was not Johnny III did I did [00:14:00] dance with some people, but not the way Johnny did. They

I think it's the other way, man. I think I had the time of my life, not their life. 

Terri Bernstein: When I was asking dad, any stories he said. There are no stories that I can tell 

Alan Bernstein: on the podcast. Not on a public podcast. We're all family here. No, I know we are. But I don't want to hear that. Terri says, I just don't think I want to hear that.

So what did you do? What was your job? Oh, my job was a busboy. I got hired as a busboy. And we got a percentage of the waiters gratuities. And I don't think there were tax on tips back then either. Or then. I don't know. I can't remember. Dad's on the subject because the president election.

Well, now wait a minute. Both of them are talking about it. So I was a bus [00:15:00] boy. I had to clean silver. Now we used real silver. And if anybody has used real silver, you know that it is a pain and you have to wash and then you have to polish and then your fingers turn green usually with the polish.

Just like if you were polishing brass. Yeah. Well, actually, I think it's worse on silver, but brass does that too. So all the hand washing was done by hand. That's hand washing and we had to polish and everything had to be pretty much pristine.

And all of our work was checked by either the maitre d or the owner or some supervisors. Cause the hotel was very specific about how they wanted the How they wanted it placed where it got placed. It was pretty fancy. I don't know I 

Terri Bernstein: wasn't totally paying attention [00:16:00] again. Oh my lord every episode get off your phone Did we talk about the vegetarian hotel?

No 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, that was my first job. Yeah, I know, you didn't We 

Terri Bernstein: skipped the beginning. Well, 

Alan Bernstein: no. Okay, my first job He doesn't even know what year it is. How do we know where 

Ben Bernstein: the beginning is? 

Alan Bernstein: No, my first job was at the Vegetarian Hotel. I worked there Friday and Saturday. It was called the Vegetarian Hotel.

It's literally called the Vegetarian Hotel. Did you have to 

Ben Bernstein: be a vegetarian to stay there? 

Alan Bernstein: Yes, because that's all they served. Well, you didn't have to be a vegetarian, but you better like vegetables. Do you have it? Is it there? We have a picture of the vegetarian hotel. Hopefully the people listening will And I'm telling you, that is very much like what the Catskill Mountains is all about.

That picture. There's all kinds of pictures. We're going to post that. So I went up and I only stayed at the vegetarian hotel two days, worked there. And then I moved to Gilbert's in South Fallsburg, New York. 

Terri Bernstein: Why did you leave?

Because you're [00:17:00] a meat eater? I wasn't 

Alan Bernstein: hot on the vegetarian thing. He wanted some meat. I needed some meat and potatoes. But Gilbert's was a very nice hotel. They did a nice job. They were sort of a medium sized. They were way smaller than Grossinger's and Concord, but they were bigger than most of the little smaller hotels that you saw there and I stayed at Gilbert's till the very end. Gilbert's had an ice skating rink. They had a big pool. They had a shuffleboard and horses and all kinds of stuff. And they had a dormitory just like. Those of you that are thinking of Dirty Dancing on TV or the movie very similar to that.

 the dormitories were off, they were out of the, the site of the main property, but they were on the property. And so you would at the end of your shift, you would walk to your bungalow. And there were, I don't know, three or four bunks in each little bungalow. Y'all shared the bathroom and the living room.

It was very much [00:18:00] like Dirty Dancing a lot of interaction between the crew members dating and, and sleeping and all that kind of arrangement. So I sort of grew up in my teenage years mostly in Ecuador. That was a, A good sexual experience and then the Catskill mountains and that was a good sexual experience.

So I, I, I, you know, I, I, I may be the father of many more kids up in New York. 

Speaker 7: I 

Alan Bernstein: don't know. Okay. Anyway And it was a very interesting place to work. Of course, almost everybody was a New York city resident. They were all involved in New York city problems and politics and all that kind of stuff.

And working up there, I remember the man on the moon because it was a very specific time up there. We were in [00:19:00] a competition. Our residents. The challenged another hotel residents like in an Olympic competition. So they had like swimming. What was your 

Ben Bernstein: event? 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, no, no, no. It wasn't me.

It was the guests. Oh, yeah. It wasn't for the crew members. It was not, you know, the crew members were not revered out there 

Ben Bernstein: and coach 

Alan Bernstein: or anything. Well, I think we rooted I don't think we could. You were just staff 

Ben Bernstein: though. You 

Alan Bernstein: were not, you were not 

Ben Bernstein: looked highly. No, no, we were not. 

Alan Bernstein: Stay out 

Ben Bernstein: of the way.

Alan Bernstein: And you know what? We weren't treated badly, but we weren't treated good either. I'm sure 

Terri Bernstein: during the week they were treated better. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, we treated ourselves a little bit better during the week. The men were gone. The men were gone. And 

Terri Bernstein: the women were kind of running rampant around. Actually, 

Alan Bernstein: it was the women that chased the boys.

It wasn't the other way around. We didn't chase the women. Sorry, go on. We weren't chasing customers. The customers chased us. And of course I [00:20:00] was a chick magnet back then. You still are. I still am. The pool girls back then liked me too. And I see, I'm still popular with the pool girls here. 

Ben Bernstein: You have said pool girls every episode.

I know. And you've mentioned mom once. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, it isn't meant for that. No, that's mom did tell me that one. She 

Ben Bernstein: goes, 

Alan Bernstein: you have not mentioned my name. 

Ben Bernstein: I know. Then we did a whole episode. And now I don't think, I don't think you plan on mentioning her again. Well. That's not true. I pull girls.

Alan Bernstein: Well, they are, they love me. I, what am I supposed to say? I think you love them a little more and they love you. Well, maybe, I don't know. Anyway the man on the moon was over that competition that we had. It was, it was a pretty, that's why I remember the man on the moon. 

Terri Bernstein: Did you watch it on [00:21:00] tv? I did, 

Alan Bernstein: I did.

Did they 

Terri Bernstein: have TVs in the hotel? 

Alan Bernstein: They were black and white. They did have TVs. There wasn't, there weren't color TVs yet, were they? I, in 1969 it, there were close there. It was close. I do believe maybe in the early seventies, colored TV came into beam. It might be in the sixties. 

Terri Bernstein: I don't know, but I think 

Ben Bernstein: 1954 color TV, the invention of color.

That doesn't mean they were selling them. Yeah. Well, no, that doesn't mean they were rampant. 

Terri Bernstein: My entire life. We had color TV other than in the kitchen. 

Ben Bernstein: Wow. In 1950,

a color TV costs 1, 295. Think about how much that's. I bet you that's. $15,000 an hour. Oh, more 20,000, maybe more. Yeah. Now they're damn near disposal. And now 

Alan Bernstein: [00:22:00] what? They're $150 for like a 

Ben Bernstein: 70 inch TV . 

Alan Bernstein: It's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, it is. Do you know what else happened in 1969 up in the Catskill Mountains?

Do we want to know? Sure, you do. And I'm surprised you, you both don't know. Is this like an American historical event? Absolutely. It is the American historical 

Terri Bernstein: event 

Alan Bernstein: of the century. 1969. When was 

Terri Bernstein: Kennedy shot? No. 

Ben Bernstein: No. Kennedy was shot earlier than that. But that was in Dallas, not in the Catskill Mountains.

That's right. This was in the Catskill 

Speaker 6: Mountains. 

Ben Bernstein: What happened in the Catskill Mountains? 

Alan Bernstein: Woodstein! Woodstein! Did 

Terri Bernstein: you go? Did 

Alan Bernstein: you go? No, I was coming home that was in the late August. And Linda and Mark were getting married. So I was on my way home. I mean, we were a part of the, [00:23:00] when you're in the Catskill mountains, you were a part of Woodstock, but didn't go to the farm.

I did not close. Was it pretty close? It was very close. South Fallsburg sort of was in the middle of the mountain range, and I think that's why it was so popular and they had little shops and places to eat and South Fallsburg had a lot going on back then. 

Terri Bernstein: When I was Googling, it was talking about how they're trying to make a comeback on Catskill Mountains. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, I it's a beautiful, beautiful area of the country. Not much farther upstate is of course Lake George and that's a very beautiful part. Upstate New York to how long were you there?

Eight weeks, eight weeks, eight weeks. Actually probably seven because I came home the last week for the wedding. So I left a little bit early. So you lived in a dorm for two days or is that, that was at the vegetarian, that was at the vegetarian hotel. And then I moved over to [00:24:00] Gilbert's. We stayed in the dorm for about a week and a half.

And then we a bunch of guys we went out and rented a bungalow, not far from Gilbert's. It wasn't like off property. Yeah. Off property. Off property. Did you have a car? No. I either hitchhiked or one of the guys gave me a ride It was almost walkable. I didn't walk it, but , it was down the main road to get the guilders.

Did you get 

Terri Bernstein: picked up by guests going to the hotel? Oh, sure. 

Alan Bernstein: Up there you got picked up. You put your finger out and you got picked up. But that's a hijack. It was Woodstock. . Well, no, that's at the end, but hi. Not, not hijacking. It was 

Terri Bernstein: hitching. 

Alan Bernstein: Hitching, yeah. Hitch. You said it right the first time.

I, I know. I it was very common. Very, very, very. So 

Terri Bernstein: we had a bungalow and 

Alan Bernstein: there was about six of us that rented the bungalow. It started with a couple guys, you ended up with six, and you ended up 

Ben Bernstein: with a lot more. 

Alan Bernstein: Twelve females by the end of our lease or [00:25:00] rent or whatever it was.

Terri Bernstein: Is that two girls for every guy? Well, 

Alan Bernstein: Those are the stories that you don't want to hear. You can count 

Ben Bernstein: that way. Sometimes. I bet a chick magnet probably had more than two. Well, 

Alan Bernstein: I told you we are not telling Catskill Mountain. I never said I didn't want to hear it. Terri said that. I do not want to hear it.

 It's something you don't want to tell your children. 

Ben Bernstein: This is why he looks so highly upon the Catskill Mountains. 

Terri Bernstein: Maybe. 

Alan Bernstein: No, it was a great time. I gotta tell you, it was a great time. I went there as a boy and I came home a man. Well, I would say that more about Ecuador, probably the Delta Queen in Ecuador, than I can about the Catskill Mountains.

It was a very interesting summer. I met a ton of people up there. I don't think I have any connections back from New York, but I was very happy. I went, I made some money and Linda and Mark [00:26:00] were very happy that I got to experience it.

It's a different kind of a life. You have to understand that not a lot of people get to experience things like that. And I got to do the Delta queen as a kid. I got to do the Catskill mountains as a. teenager. I was in Ecuador for most of my upbringing years. 

Terri Bernstein: I'm thinking I had a very sheltered life.

Well, it was his 

Alan Bernstein: fault. 

Terri Bernstein: It wasn't our fault. He wouldn't let us go anywhere. Oh, 

Ben Bernstein: I knew not to let us go anywhere. He didn't know 

Terri Bernstein: where the hell we were. So, you worked in the dining room. You were 

Ben Bernstein: a bus boy. You were 

Terri Bernstein: a bus boy. Yep. 

Ben Bernstein: And then 

Terri Bernstein: what 

Ben Bernstein: you did more than just was a busboy. 

Alan Bernstein: I did get to work.

Now you gotta remember, I'm not sure that I wasn't 16. Instead. I said that I was 17 and I lied. I just simply said I was 18. No one ever challenged it. No one ever asked for my driver's license. Nobody ever asked for any kind of proof of that. And so if you were [00:27:00] 18 in New York state, you could sell.

Liquor at a bar. That was the law. 

Terri Bernstein: Is this where you got all your bartending 

Alan Bernstein: skills? And in, in the on the weekends, in the Catskills, all the hotels had a late night show. And when you think of a late night, 

Terri Bernstein: did they have a regular show first dinner and then they would do 

Alan Bernstein: dinner and an entertaining show.

You would leave 

Terri Bernstein: the dining room 

Alan Bernstein: and the husband and wife and the kids would, it was sometimes why the kids would sometimes leave because they weren't interested in this, 

Terri Bernstein: but you would go to the dining room then leave and go to a Place where the show yeah But 

Alan Bernstein: I couldn't make the show that first show because I had to clean the dining room So all the busboys had to clean the dine a lot of waiters went to the first show and then we would come Back at the late show and help serve so that the waiters Could go home and go to bed because they had to get up at 5 in the morning to serve breakfast.[00:28:00] 

So The late show was often a adult show. So 

Ben Bernstein: did you only work in one meal? Did you only do dinner? Three meals a day. Oh, you did. Every day. So you were up at 530 for breakfast. Every day. Gotcha. Every day. That's what I figured it would be. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. Now, if we worked the late show, we were allowed to be I think an hour late for breakfast.

It was something like that. You couldn't work all night. It go to bed at five and get there at six. You just couldn't do that. But we did a lot. I saw a lot of times we did do that. And then the late show is more of an adult oriented show. And I don't want to make it sound like I was involved in nudity all this time and all this stuff, but it sort of happened that way.

Terri Bernstein: So on Friday night they had one show. 

Alan Bernstein: Yes. Saturday night was the late show. And that was usually a kind of a strip tease kind of thing. A [00:29:00] lot of wives already had gone to bed. And so there were a lot of men generally at the late show. 

Terri Bernstein: Did they keep the women out of the show? No. 

Alan Bernstein: No.

Women were more than happy to be invited. To sit down and watch the show and a lot of them did it wasn't a contact sport It wasn't a strip club No, no, it was just 

Terri Bernstein: a strip team. 

Alan Bernstein: It was just a Take their clothes off the entertainers 

Terri Bernstein: And did 

Alan Bernstein: many of them were very pretty.

And 

Terri Bernstein: did all of the different resorts have this going on? Or I 

Alan Bernstein: think so. I think it was pretty prominent on the late show that it was more of an adult oriented show. And, and like I said, it wasn't not for women. They wanted to come and watch. You know, at three o'clock in the morning, they all went back to their room and went to bed.

We had to clean up and [00:30:00] so we had that. So you were a 

Terri Bernstein: bartender 

Alan Bernstein: then? I did both. I did bartending and I did serving. So it just depended on each week. So you were 

Terri Bernstein: the hot cocktail server. 

Alan Bernstein: The hot. Yeah, you didn't wear any shirt. No, no, no. It wasn't. You just walked around in a cummerbund?

It wasn't.

And some cufflinks. No. The New York area supported the Catskills very, very actively. And I think that Terri, it'd be interesting to see if they do make a comeback because it is a really, a particularly beautiful part of New York. Most people think in New York, it's New York City.

Now a lot of people have no idea about Lake George, New York, and the Catskills up in New York, the Adirondacks up in New York. There's a lot of great places and things to see once you get out [00:31:00] of New York City. I don't think I would want to live there, but when I worked there for a summer, it was an excellent place to work. 

Terri Bernstein: Did they stay open all year long?

Alan Bernstein: I think all the summer resorts would close in the fall.

Although Gilbert's had a nice skating rink, which was sort of unusual. 

Terri Bernstein: Wasn't it indoor? 

Alan Bernstein: Oh yeah. All indoor. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. So what does that have to do with the winter or the, well, 

Alan Bernstein: I mean, you don't normally ice skate in the summer. Yeah. I skate in the winter. 

Terri Bernstein: I mean, that's why it's indoor. So you can do it any time of the year.

Alan Bernstein: Oh, well. They were smarter than I was, but New York the mountains get a lot of snow. I mean it's a winter vacation as well. I think only the big guys stayed open in the winter. Most of the little places that you have in those pictures and you'll post them online, you'll see most of them closed for the winter.

Terri Bernstein: Those resorts look very large. 

Alan Bernstein: They are very large. 

Terri Bernstein: How do you maintain that with only being open [00:32:00] a few months out of the year? 

Alan Bernstein: Well, I think the people that owned it or the people that paid people to manage the hotel did all that.

I don't think the owners did it unless they were a small owner operator. 

Terri Bernstein: I'm just saying, how did they afford that? I mean, you only have a few months out of the whole year. It 

Alan Bernstein: was busy. I mean, it was a sellout every summer. There were no rooms ever. I don't ever remember seeing a room available at a hotel resort.

Most of them were sold in advance. I don't think it was cheap. In fact, I know it wasn't cheap. When I say cheap back then, it was probably 50 a night. That was probably very expensive. I don't know Terri. They made money on all of their things. You know, you had to pay the horseback ride and you had to pay you know, to do this and do that, and you had to go to the shows.

You had to buy liquor and beer and wine and all the other things. So I think there was plenty of money [00:33:00] making opportunities. It was just how the hotel sort of managed it and. I will tell you, it taught me a couple of things that I think are important.

One I learned that it is very, very important to be nice to people, all the people, it doesn't matter who they are, whether they're nasty to you or not, and a lot of these patrons were not kind to the staff, we were basically under the level of the customer. And they wanted us to know that.

Kind of 

Terri Bernstein: brash anyway. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, they wanted us to know that and they made a point every time they could that, we don't mingle with the hell, you know, that kind of stuff, some of them were very rude, but again, what it taught me is even those people. If you smile at them, you win them over.

if you can smile through somebody saying something terrible to you I can tell you it goes a long way. And [00:34:00] really as a takeaway from the Catskill Mountains I learned that and I learned that be nice to everybody is a very important trait. I think that the country right now could use that kind of attitude.

Boy, we need to be nice to people. Even the world, we don't, the world, the country, the, yeah. Maybe the world and yeah. And that it's something that should be important to everybody. And you know, you, you say what you want, but I got exposed to people I don't think I ever would've been exposed to if I hadn't done the Catskill Mountains.

And I really don't know. Who all those customers were, but I'm going to guess attorneys, accountants the Donald Trump's of the world kind of people that want an experience like that. It was not a run of the mill place. It was not a middle class resort.

No, it was not. And again, I think the takeaway there. Was that you be nice to everybody. It doesn't matter who [00:35:00] they are. And it would pay off. It really did. you would make more money, even if you smiled and you didn't agree with what they were saying and all that stuff. We were a group of just kids trying to make some money for the summer.

We weren't terrible. I mean, we weren't bad kids. I don't know about Mark's experience up in the Catskill. His brother was a Catskill alumni. I've met some others that were Catskill alumni members of the hotel industry up there. Well, I feel like going to watch Dirty Dancing.

Terri Bernstein: Yeah, me too. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, that movie tells a lot about what goes on up in the Catskill area. When was that movie made? Oh boy. 1980. That's, oh, no. Earlier than that. No, 

Speaker 6: it is 

Terri Bernstein: based on the Catskill Mountains, but it is definitely not filmed they used a place in Virginia. Right. But it's based on the time and, 

Alan Bernstein: The whole base of the show it was very real for the Catskill Mountains.

The gist of 

Terri Bernstein: the screenwriter Eleanor Bernstein [00:36:00] Vacation at 

Alan Bernstein: your aunt. 

Terri Bernstein: Am I in my famous? Gross singers as a child and spoke about how closely dirty dancing mimicked the real experience 

Alan Bernstein: I would second that motion. 

Ben Bernstein: Off to our favorite part of the day. Oh boy. 

Speaker 3: Now it is time for Ramblin on the Rivers.

Word of the Day.

Ben Bernstein: Schnoz.

Terri Bernstein: There's no, 

Ben Bernstein: no intro. Schnoz. 

Terri Bernstein: Well, I thought since we were talking about a very predominantly Jewish topic. 

But schnaz really is a 

Alan Bernstein: What's the origin of schnaz? 

Terri Bernstein: Well, I mean there's I 

Alan Bernstein: would say it's nasal. 

Terri Bernstein: It's German and it's Yiddish depending on what word you claim it came [00:37:00] from.

Alan Bernstein: Well, I think Terri is right. The fact that we were in the Catskill mountains and I mean, Jimmy Durante made schnauz famous. It wasn't shock. Gee, who is shock? Gee, 

Ben Bernstein: Digital underground. Humpty dance. Humpty dance. Oh no. 

Terri Bernstein: But schnauz, another word for schnauz is a Jewish nose is what it says.

Yeah. It's slang for the term. A nose, especially a large nose. I can't, the, the lisp is driving me crazy. Yeah, 

Alan Bernstein: sorry. Nose.

Sponsor Message: Oh, God. 

Terri Bernstein: It originated between 1935 and 1940. 

Alan Bernstein: Wow. No, seriously, I think Jimmy Durante his nose was very large. Who's Jimmy Durante? This guy. He's a comedian. 

Terri Bernstein: Jimmy Schnazzola. 

Alan Bernstein: Do we have [00:38:00] a picture of Jimmy Durante? 

Terri Bernstein: Schnozzolas is the plural noun. 

Alan Bernstein: Do we have a picture of Jimmy Durante?

Terri Bernstein: I will post it and the link to his. We should 

Alan Bernstein: and anybody who does not know Jimmy Durante he was a very famous comedian and I, actually I think he did talk a lot about Jewish people and make fun of them and, No, the nose and whatever but I like schnoz as a nickname. I mean just Always 

Terri Bernstein: talked about schnoz because you and Ben both have large schnozes.

Oh my god. 

Ben Bernstein: I mean we I'm so self conscious about my nose. Well, and Ben's is much bigger than mine. Whatever. That thing's a mountain. Oh, what? Oh, you're Mount Everest. It's a ski slope. But anyway, 

Alan Bernstein: is there any more about schnoz? Yeah, I 

Terri Bernstein: thought it was funny in the How do you 

Alan Bernstein: spell it? Oh, I got [00:39:00] it. Schnoz. S W N What?

S W N No, you gotta go S C H S C H N O O O O Z N O O O 

Terri Bernstein: O Z Z, yeah, 

Alan Bernstein: that's Oh no, a couple Z's on schnoz Oh my goodness 

Terri Bernstein: Actually, the noun schnoz has two Z's 

Ben Bernstein: Oh, really? Say schnaz again, Tare. Schnaz. The 

Terri Bernstein: plural noun is schnaz. 

Ben Bernstein: Schnaz. 

Terri Bernstein: I can't get this retainer out fast enough. Oh, I 

Speaker 6: love this. This is great.

Anyway, I thought 

Terri Bernstein: the funny thing is, is the online dictionary, the sentence that it uses, is a person's nose. My damn schnaz is busted. I'm dead. It's the sentence that it gave us from the dictionary. 

Alan Bernstein: [00:40:00] Well, I think we have to apologize to anybody who thinks this is offensive. It's not meant to be offensive to anybody.

I'm sure it's not offensive to anybody. We 

Terri Bernstein: have used the word schnauz my 

Alan Bernstein: entire life. I just want to say if anybody's you know, a little bit. Offended or whatever. There's no intention. We're trying to have a good time and making people man. Yeah we're just trying to Have fun and carry on so that's enough.

Speaker 9: All right Welcome to as the paddle wheel turns our look at pertinent current events happening right now in the world

Ben Bernstein: I know today's topic really grinds your gears Mine both of you. Oh, 

Terri Bernstein: yeah 

Ben Bernstein: What today you don't watch the family guy, you don't watch I 

Terri Bernstein: do. 

Ben Bernstein: That really grinds my gears. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. Dad has no idea. 

Alan Bernstein: No, no. [00:41:00] If there's any gear grinding going on, I'm gonna be involved.

Ben Bernstein: Anyways, why don't you set it all up there? This is your show. 

Terri Bernstein: Okay. We're talking about C service for a license 

Ben Bernstein: service. 

Terri Bernstein: All right. I'm done talking dad. It's all to you. Okay. All 

Ben Bernstein: right. See time for Mariners. 

Terri Bernstein: Yes. 

Ben Bernstein: See time for Mariners is the qualified hours that you have to put in, in order to be eligible to get a document or a license in 

Alan Bernstein: order to get.

You get a permission to sit for your test to get your document. 

Ben Bernstein: Correct. Now. One of the steps you have to check off before getting accepted to test. 

Alan Bernstein: And when I did it back in the early eighties it was pretty simple. You signed an affidavit with your time on it. They, Coast Guard would go over it, approve it.

They would verify it if they needed to, or they would check on the everything the coast guard does is by [00:42:00] an official number. And mariners have numbers, boats have numbers. A lot of things are verified by official numbers. So in order to qualify to sit just to take your exam, now, you still have to pass all the exams.

You need three hundred and sixty five eight hour days. I think it's three hundred and sixty. Oh, okay. Close enough. All right. Three hundred and sixty eight hour days. Which is what, about 1, 500 hours? Is that what it turns? No. What is it? Nowhere. Three hundred and sixty times eight. That would be two.

Twenty six, twenty seven hundred. Twenty seven hundred hours. To qualify to take your exam. Now, if you put it in a year context, that's Twenty eighty. Twenty eighty. So, in a year, if you could work every day of the year, eight hours a day, you would qualify in one year. 

Ben Bernstein: Right. [00:43:00] Okay. Which is not 

Alan Bernstein: It doesn't, that's, that doesn't happen.

It's probably three, four years, maybe five for somebody that wants to do it as just a hobby or whatever. So Mariners that are intent on getting hours, they concentrate on that and they write it down and log it in and they present their hours and that's the way it's done.

Now, what we didn't know many years later, we have several people today that want to get hours. licenses and want to move up in their position. And they have come to us and we said, well, do you have the time? And they would say, yeah, I have this time and this many hours. And so you submit that and if the coast guard approves it, they approve 

in our case we had a couple of guys who gave us ours. We sent it in. And after they were approved to sit for their license, they [00:44:00] came back and said, no, that's not an accurate. 

Terri Bernstein: I think they even tested. 

Alan Bernstein: They did test. They did. And pass. They rescinded it. Then they rescinded it. And Terri and I went on a crusade to say that this is not fair.

Really in the airline industry, every hour you spend in flight, every minute, every minute is counted as time. And in the mariner world, that is not the case which we learned a year ago, maybe or two years ago now we've been fighting this for a while. And we are working hard for the problem is the 

Terri Bernstein: work a minimum of four hours in a day, where our lunch cruise is only a two hour cruise.

So if somebody only works a lunch cruise, None of those hours count 

Alan Bernstein: would count if you said yes, I worked today at BB riverboats and it was only a two hour day or 

Speaker 8: three hour day, 

Alan Bernstein: two or three hour day, you would not get credit. You lose 

Speaker 8: all those hours. 

Alan Bernstein: So [00:45:00] we think that that's unfair. And that it ought to be something that that idea 

Terri Bernstein: was I know that the regulation is very old.

But I don't understand what does it matter whether they work Four hours or one hour in a day 

Alan Bernstein: because most mariners don't work in a situation like we have in the real mariner world You work days or weeks or months at a time. Out at 

Terri Bernstein: sea they do, but I mean, our whole industry is the same as we are.

Alan Bernstein: Yes, but you don't know how they schedule. Maybe they schedule a whole day for a mariner and not a one hour cruise or a two hour cruise. Which we normally 

Terri Bernstein: do, but when it slows down, we only have a lunch cruise or we only have a dinner cruise. 

Alan Bernstein: That's right. And it 

Terri Bernstein: is not fair to the mariner.

That they lose all those hours. 

Alan Bernstein: I agree with you. And I think that hours is a much better way. [00:46:00] But I'm reminded by a lot of ex Coast Guard guys that it is always been this way. It has been me that thought otherwise, not them that think we're screwed up. They think. We are screwed up because it has always been done that way whether that's right wrong or indifferent I don't like it because Every hour you're on the water or you're behind the wheel or you're in charge of a vessel or people or whatever Should count as time for you.

Terri Bernstein: Sure. You should add up all your hours It shouldn't matter whether it was in one day five days. Absolutely 

Alan Bernstein: And I think that's a reasonable way to do it. Do they do it that way? No. And I think that's our cause and, Well, I 

Terri Bernstein: think , in one of our cases, one of our employees, they had more hours that we had to throw away.

That's 

Alan Bernstein: correct. 

Terri Bernstein: Than they had hours that 

Alan Bernstein: [00:47:00] they could keep. And when we explained that to the National Maritime Center in West Virginia, they changed their mind. They actually said, you're right. this explanation does not make sense because we threw away more operating hours by throwing them away than giving him credit.

Terri Bernstein: And he has been here for 30 years, 30 years, and they took away. 

Alan Bernstein: And they have rescinded that now, I mean, so now there's a rescind of a rescind. He 

Terri Bernstein: didn't have enough hours after 30 years of working here. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: That he couldn't have a license. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. Now he's in the engineering department. That's a little bit different than a deck officer.

But even a captain, if he works one hour, he should get credit for an hour. It doesn't matter who you are. I think 

Terri Bernstein: it's crazy. Yeah. it finally really hit home when I saw all this stuff and I thought it was crazy. 

Alan Bernstein: And we have done a lot to help them understand those problems, but 

Terri Bernstein: it's something that needs to be fought.

Alan Bernstein: It does. And you and I [00:48:00] are in a good position politically to make changes like that. You're on a national committee for merchant mariner personnel. You have an excellent opportunity. To get some influence. Ben's 

Terri Bernstein: on the board of directors of the Passeng. The Ben is 

Alan Bernstein: on the board of directors of the passenger vessel industry.

And I, I think really you guys can take a cause like this, which is a non-regulatory kind of a thing. It's not a regulation. It's the way they calculate it. It's that you have to have the hours to do it, but they don't regulate how they calculate that.

You could calculate it many different ways. Well, then how did they come up with? Well, because they came up with days. That's the way they came up with. How did they come up with a day? It is very clear how it's done. Yeah, the regulation is pretty clear. 

Ben Bernstein: Which is why it's a regulatory issue. No, In order to get this changed, you would 

Alan Bernstein: need to change the regulation, correct?

I am not sure of that. I think it could be a policy that [00:49:00] changes the way they do that and that is not a regulatory item. 

Ben Bernstein: All right, next episode, we will be bringing back an old guest. Yes. You heard him on the 1982 World's Fair episode. Are those your scary sounds? Yeah. We're going to bring back. That's the best scary sound. We're going to bring back Allen Rizzo.

We're going to talk about the USS Nightmare. You, I love when you talk that way. I can't believe it's. It's going to be Halloween season. Me neither. In fact, I think I saw, there is something Halloween. No, I was. Wait a minute. Yeah, I was in Kroger. They're starting to put out Halloween stuff. Yeah. Somebody said they're putting out Halloween 

Speaker 8: stuff out for a while.

Ben Bernstein: And there's freaking pumpkin spice stuff showing up everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be 

Alan Bernstein: chilly soon. I can't wait. You know, my buddy. My buddy that I've never met and don't know, he's my buddy, sends me pumpkin bread. Who? What? 

Speaker 7: Yeah, he does. 

Alan Bernstein: My buddy. It's a guy I've never met, [00:50:00] he only, only on the telephone, he's called me 20 times, his name is Mel, I do know his last name, I can't think of it right now.

Mel sends me homemade pumpkin bread. 

Terri Bernstein: In a loaf. Zucchini bread. Is it pumpkin? No, 

Alan Bernstein: it's pumpkin bread. And I got, I got one in the mail at the very beginning when we were just meeting. He, he called Is he one of 

Ben Bernstein: your peeps? Well, one of your biggest fans in your work, Bodard? 

Alan Bernstein: You know, well, I, I'm not sure, but he, he found me.

Some random 

Terri Bernstein: person sent him bread and he ate it. 

Alan Bernstein: And Mel sends me a personal note every time he sends me bread and I hang the personal note up on my board and I have, I think six or seven of them now. And the first one he sent me [00:51:00] said, quote, God made you special. That was number one. Nailed that one.

That was his first one. And I get one. I wait every time the pumpkin bread arrives for the note. 

Mel is a dear friend now, dear friend. And we are I've never seen him. Never met him. But yeah, hi Mel. I'll tell you to, to listen to this one.

you'll appreciate it . So pumpkin bread and pumpkin spice is in right now. Yes, it is. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: the USS nightmare and the embarkation of a brand new opportunity for BB Riverboats, I guess for lack of a better term. It took a lot of convincing to get you to finally do it.

He is right. . So anyways, that's what you have to look forward to. We thank you for listening to us, and we'll see you again next week.[00:52:00] 

Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to The Rambling on the River podcast presented by BB Riverboats. Stay tuned for the next episode of our podcast, and remember to, like, subscribe, and follow us on all your favorite podcast platforms.

Ben Bernstein: The previous episode was brought to you by BB Riverboats. 

Speaker 10: The moments that await just around the river's bend are what we look forward to each day. Watching high school sweethearts tie the knot or watching them celebrate 50 wonderful years together. A group of old friends reuniting for one more adventure or young minds embarking on their first.

At BB Riverboats, we believe a cruise on the mighty Ohio is where lifelong memories are made. And that once you experience it, you'll want to share it [00:53:00] with others time and time again. Plan your group event at BBRiverboats. com. Journey Aboard.