O ur family minhag was that my father distributed the Chanukah gelt on the fifth night. He explained that this was the minhag in Lita as the fifth night is the only night that never falls on Shabbos so you can always count on being able to distribute the gelt then.
My father was a photographer who traveled all over the Tristate area photographing newborns. He could be in Freehold on Monday Stamford on Tuesday and in the Bronx on Wednesday. He never arrived home before seven but he would always call home at six from a device called a pay phone.
Money was tight in those years and if my father was in New Jersey — a long-distance call — he couldn’t afford the 95 cents required for the first three minutes. So my parents devised a system a prearranged “coded ring.” He would call and my mother wouldn’t answer the phone; rather she listened to the rings.
If he hung up after the first ring that meant he’d be home within the hour.
