This page:

Top: Rosa Rothenberg draws a tile.

Middle: Every weekday afternoon, the West
Bloomfield Barnes & Noble is the site for
multiple mah jongg, canasta and bridge
games.

rancine
Friedman, Rhoda
Cantor, Phyllis
Shapiro and
Connie Fidler claim they
were the trendsetters three
years ago when they
arranged their tablecloth
and antique ivory mah
jongg set on a West
Bloomfield bookstore's cafe
table.
Their group, which
started playing the Chinese
tile game together 45 years
ago, stopped for a 40-year
hiatus and then picked up
again at someone's 69th
birthday party. Now it's a
Monday afternoon fixture at Barnes
Noble.
The ladies, who say they "like the
atmosphere," lunch on the cafe's soup
and sandwich offerings, then stay
another three hours sipping coffee and
plunking down tiles.
Each weekday afternoon, at least a
third of the bookstore's many tables
are filled with games of mah jongg,
canasta and bridge, played mostly by
older Jewish women.
Edith Pam, a 3-days-a-week player
who has been mah jongging 60 years,
arrives with her friends at 11:30 a.m.
and stays until about 4 p.m.
Weekly canasta player Marilyn
Weiss says she plays at Barnes &
Noble because of the Starbucks coffee.
Another member of her group, Lois
Posner, says she likes to browse
through the books when it's her turn
to sit out.
"This way, no one has to be a host-
ess," says mah jongger Alice Kushner.

Bottom: Beatrice Dworkis, Regina Baskin,
Marion Gorleick and Shirley Moss play
canasta.

JULIE WIENER Staff Writer

GLENN TRIEST Photographer

❑

Opposite page:

Top: Rosa Rothenberg, Joyce
Wispe and Martha Reiter
watch as Lil Castleman
draws a tile.

Bottom: Shuffling the tiles.

6/12
1998

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