Every March Holy Cross Church and Temple Beth Shulamith held a scrabble tournament. Rabbi Roth organized the tournament at the temple and Father John Regan did the same at the church. The two winners for each respective house of worship would meet in a championship match to decide the “Ultimate Scrabble Championship”. The championship match would be held at the Holy Cross gym because that was the only facility that could hold the 300-400 people who usually attended the championship match. The tournament was held every Thursday night until completion. Because the famous NCAA basketball championship was held at the same time, the scrabble tournament was also referred to as March Madness. No one called the tournament “The Ultimate Scrabble Championship”.
At each institution the tournament started with 64 players organized into 16 four player matches. Each week the two lowest scoring players at each table would be eliminated. Week one there were 16 matches, followed by 8 matches, 4 matches, 2 matches and a finals with four players. The winner of that match was deemed the winner for their house of worship. Prizes were given to the four finalists. The following Thursday the two champions would meet to decide the “March Madness champion. The Saturday night following the championship match an awards dinner was held in the Holy Cross gym. The object of the tournament was to foster brotherhood between the two religions and the two organizations. The tournament was considered a very successful endeavor at both organizations. The tournament started at the beginning of March and ran through the middle of April.
Three and two years ago, Mona Rabinowitz was the winner both years. She defeated Dennis Smith in the championship matches. Mona was in her early thirties and Dennis was 15 and 16. Last year the 17 year old Dennis defeated Mona in the championship match. It was not that Mona was a great scrabble player. Rather, it was hard to concentrate when playing against the beautiful and sexy Mona because of her looks and her penchant for spouting innocent sexual double entendres throughout the game. Mona made it hard to keep your mind on the game. Last year Dennis had figured out Mona’s tactics. He did have a 172 IQ. Dennis either ignored what Mona was saying or responded with a lascivious smirk, thus turning the tables on Mona. Dennis knocked the scorecard off of the table twice, “by accident”, causing Mona to bend over and pick up the scorecard. The first time Mona bent over Dennis remarked about the beautiful view. The second time Dennis remarked on how much he liked a full moon. That tournament took place a few weeks after Dennis heard Mona in the Rabbi’s study and later saw her exit the temple. Dennis won the championship match by 86 points. Mona did not participate in this years match. She knew she could not defeat Dennis.
The four players in the finals in the Temple match were Marlon James Levine, Mona’s sister Marsha, Robert Kluger’s mother, Charlotte, and Sol Finkel, the proprietor of Finkel’s candy store on Caton Avenue. Mona was an interested observer, present in support of her sister. Before the match Mona told Marsha to ignore everything she, Mona, said and did during the match. She explained that she was going to rattle Marlon and the other players. Charlotte and Sol quickly fell behind. They were rattled by Mona and they drew poor tiles. Dennis, Marlon’s good friend, told Marlon what he could expect from Mona. The best way to overcome Mona was to fight fire with fire. Mona got Marlon’s attention and slowly licked her lips. Marlon took it in and licked his lips even more slowly, flustering both Mona and his opponent, sister Marsha. Marlon was an extremely handsome college freshman. Mona gave the middle finger on her right hand to Marlon. Marlon returned the middle fingers on both hands to Mona. The match between Marlon and Marsha was close throughout the game but Marlon ended up winning by 22 points, thus becoming the Temple champion. Dennis easily won the Holy Cross Church championship.