Decades prior to her only son presenting her with grandchildren, Rose Murray was eminently prepared for a grandparent’s duties, having joyously served as surrogate grandma to several generations of bungalow colony kids. Each day, through countless summers, the screen door of her large bungalow would swing open hundreds of times, as every toddler, child and even teen knew they were welcome at Rose’s as they were no place else.

Rose’s Formica kitchen table was crowded with platters of sugar cookies and home baked cakes, and trays of brownies and blondies and rugallach. Every spring Rose visited a Long Island candy distributor to purchase huge quantities of candy necklaces and bracelets, blow pops, ring pops, licorice, and cartons of dots-the sugary candy that was stuck to long strands of paper. Her stock of sweets rivaled what was offered in the colony concession, and, better, at Rose’s everything was free.

But Rose’s bungalow was about more than dubious nutrition. Each year, at an incalculable succession of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Rose was a notorious “favor grabber.” Allow me to elucidate. At Jewish simchas through the 1980’s and 90’s, traditional orchestras had given way to the ubiquitous DJ. These DJs were more than just spinners of records-they came prepackaged with awe-inspiring laser light shows, and professional dancers who undertook four or five costume changes. With them they brought cases of chazerai to distribute to the guests-sunglasses, sombreros and other hats of all shapes, colors and sizes, maracas, tambourines, neon glow necklaces and earrings, inflatable musical instruments, bandanas, tee shirts, vibrant flowing feather boas, flowered leis, clown noses, sequined vests, Hawaiian grass skirts-enough junk to outfit several traveling troupes of gypsies. Rose collected, or hoarded, as much of this stuff as was possible, departing from parties with huge trash bags filled with loot. Rumors that she was conspiring to resell these items to other, less accomplished DJs were totally unfounded. Instead, she crammed her two bedroom bungalow full of her hard won booty so it might be readily available to any group of colony youngsters desirous of playing “dress up,” or, for that matter, staging an impromptu Bar-Mitzvah.

There were no ulterior motives behind Rose’s largesse; it was simply that she possessed a limitless capacity for being with and gathering joy from children. Few things in her life provided greater pleasure than having a collection of children assembled around her kitchen table, sampling her baked goods, or her other culinary offerings. If ever a child tasted one of her recipes-whether brisket, chicken, chopped liver, gefilte fish, stuffed cabbage, tuna or egg salad, fricassee, matzo ball soup, tsimmes-and indicated a fondness for anything in particular, then that child ran the risk of Rose preparing and delivering that dish to his bungalow on a weekly basis for the duration of the summer.

Rose was a woman who lived for the country. She was much like the wild lilies lining mountain roads each summer; she was a “perennial”--alive, but in hibernation, until the first sun of late June, when she bloomed anew to adorn the fleeting weeks till autumn.

At our bungalow colony she was a whirlwind, a constant source of energy, the essential fulcrum that fashioned much of the summer’s activities. She was relentlessly assembling lists and collecting money-for mah jongg and canasta tournaments, for kiddie bingo, for a Night at The Races at Monticello Raceway for the colony women, for gifts for colony residents on birthdays, anniversaries, births of children and grandchildren, or, unhappily, to send food to a shiva house. Once each summer she arranged to import a cadre of Chippendale style men’s strippers, and on that night the casino was jam-packed not just with the colony women, but with flocks of women from neighboring colonies, as well. This event usually occurred on a Wednesday evening, and a few husbands deemed it advantageous to set off on an early weekend, arriving at the colony just before the conclusion of the festivities, timely enough to reap the rewards to be gathered from spouses who’d been thoroughly prepped and aroused by ample alcohol and the gyrations of buff men fifteen and twenty years their junior. Rose was a trifle absent minded, and at time inclined to over reacting to even the slightest of bumps in her road. One of her friends remarked, that at times, she was “…Like a fart in a blizzard…”

Rose had been long married to a nice enough guy who was involved in the retail trade, and he only managed to visit the colony three or four weekends each summer. When her son had passed the age where the colony held interest, for the most part she was alone. Yet, in a way, she was never alone. Her bungalow was the hub of nonstop activity, especially on a rainy day, when three or four mah-jongg games were in progress. Rose’s coffee pot perked deep into the wee hours of the morning, and women lingered around her kitchen table, sometimes till dawn, speaking of life and love and dreams and children and husbands and saints and sinners, at a time when their men were a hundred miles away and they were less than anxious to spend another lonesome evening in an otherwise empty bed.

Remembering Rose, and all the pleasure she received from the summers, I am reminded of the quote from the late, great baseball Hall of Famer, Rogers Hornsby. “Roger,” a sportswriter once inquired. “What do you do all winter?” “What do I do? I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the goddamned window and wait for spring.”

In my minds eye that is a picture of Rose that remains eternal. She is in her comfortable Long Island home, staring out a window, waiting for summer.