Memoir of the Bookie’s Son

When asked as a child how his father made his living, Sidney Offit always gave the same answer: “Parlay the winner.” If pressed further he had to use his mother’s preferred response—“the shirt business”—or admit total ignorance. But he knew that the phrase had something to do with the rolls of money his parents banked in shoeboxes on top of ceiling boards and with why the favorite household game was imaginary betting, using scraps of paper his father abandoned on the living room floor.