So let's just say again, it's April the 12th, year 2000, and we're talking about Mel's family in Georgia. And let's start again on the tape with your grandparents, who were David and what was your grandmother's name? Well, this is my father's side. Yes. Fanny. David and Fanny. David and Fanny. A-N-N-I-E or Y. It doesn't matter. David and Fanny. F-W-Y. Yeah. given my family. So they lived someplace in Russia? They lived in, well, either Kiev or Odessa, somewhere in between. I'm not sure exactly where. And then they came over, well, my father apparently, somebody said that he ran away with a circus when he was a kid. Your father? Yeah. Let's just do David and Fanny first.

[01:01]

That's who we're talking about. Oh, your grandfather. Yeah, my grandfather. Okay, so your grandfather ran away with a circus. My brother recently said that what they called a circus was horse traders. He said he thought that he ran away with some horse traders. But I like the circus one better. It's a more lively image. Yeah, it's a little more, you know, interesting. But probably in those small villages, even if horse traders came to the village, it was probably a major colorful event. Yeah, there was something. But a circus is good. Right away with the circus. Right away with the circus. And so at that time, they were drafting all the Jews into the army. And there were times when they had to serve for life in the army.

[02:05]

So they were, of course, running away. Running away was a good alternative. Right. And so I think that his running away with the circus was probably prompted by that. And then I think that one story is that they had to be married to immigrate. or to come over to the United States. I don't know whether that's true or not, but apparently it was said that either he met my mother on the boat, grandmother on the boat, or married her to get on the boat, or something like that. Maybe you had to, maybe you could get on the boat single, but you had to get off the boat. Get off the boat. They were probably selling marriages on the boat. Somebody probably made a business out of it. It's very vague to me. Anyway, they came off the boat together and apparently landed in Pennsylvania. So they probably came in through New York first and then... Yeah, I have no idea what happened prior to Pennsylvania.

[03:10]

Do you think they had other relatives there? Not that I know of. No, not that I know of. I don't think so. And then I don't know anything about their life there except that my dad used to have this picture of a wonderful looking dog named Teddy who was very smart. And that he used to drive a beer wagon. My father used to drive a beer wagon in But my grandfather was clever, and I remember he invented a cigarette roller that looked like a donkey. It was made out of wood. And you put the paper in, and you put some tobacco in, and then you lifted the tail of the donkey up and down, and the cigarette rolled out. From where?

[04:19]

From the mouth? I can't remember where it came out from. Maybe from the mouth. So he had a hardware store, apparently, and then they moved to Los Angeles. So your grandfather and grandfather had a hardware store? Grandfather and grandmother moved to Los Angeles. And what year? They had 12 children. Wow! But not all of them survived. I don't know what year that was. It was in the... What decade? It was in the 20s. Okay. My father was in the Army in the World War, First World War. Oh, stayed with the... But that's different. So I'm just trying to, you know, picture when they moved to Los Angeles. So it must have been right after the war. Sometime right after the war. Right, after the First World... After the First World War. And then they got a house on 68th Street. In Los Angeles? In Los Angeles. And... Do you have pictures of them?

[05:25]

Photographs? Yeah, I have some photographs. What kind of... When you look at them, what kind of impression... Well, you know, the photographs are always very formal looking. Right. And it's hard to tell what they were like from the photographs. It's hard to see their character. But he was... Do you remember? I don't remember my grandfather too well. You know, he was nice. I remember, you know, he'd go into their house on 68th Street And you'd smell all this wonderful cooking, you know. And I remember they had a samovar, a Russian samovar, not the kind we have here. And I used to play with that all the time. But it was boring going over there because their children would come and visit them. And there'd be all this talk about Roosevelt and the New Deal and politics, you know, it was always politics, and I, you know, it was way over my head.

[06:27]

And I remember running my hand over the upholstery, you know, the lines of the upholstery. To entertain yourself? Yeah. And, um... Do you actually remember the upholstery? Do you know what color it was? It was kind of a, kind of a faded lavender or something, faded purple. And the designs were squirrels. Swirled? Swirled. But it had this garage in the back, which was almost too small for a 20s car. And he had these drill presses and stuff from his hardware store life, which was really fascinating for me. And I always wanted to go into the garage, you know. My dad would never let me go into the garage, you know, to look at this. Well, I don't know what the deal was, you know. My grandfather was sick, but this is 1936, he died.

[07:30]

So, I only knew him up to the point where I was about six years old. What was his death? What illness did he have? Did he die suddenly? I just remember saying, I remember someone, my aunt saying, Oh, he's throwing up greens. Yeah, I don't know what it was. Was he sick for a while? Yeah, he was sick for a while. Like a year or something like that? I don't know how long. It's hard for me to tell how long. Did you go to his funeral? Yeah, I did go to his funeral. Was that the first funeral you ever went to? Yeah. Tell us about that. Well, I went to the funeral. And we had to get dressed up. And I remember the open grave. And I remember my brother, I think it was, saying, I have to go to the bathroom.

[08:33]

And I said to him, why don't you pee in the grave? Why don't you pee in the hole? And I remember my father getting very angry at me. I haven't changed a bit. How old were you then? Well, I don't know, I was six or seven. Right, because you were born in 1929. What does that remark express in you, just like your practicality? There's a hole painted, or is it kind of a mischief rebelliousness? What is that? No, because sometimes I have to pee, and I just pee wherever, and my son thinks it's really bad of me to do that. So you're the bad one in the middle.

[09:35]

Your father thought it was bad and your son thinks it's bad. But I think that my son is the reincarnation of my father. I'm totally convinced. At Daniel it's really like the return of Ed. Yep. Absolutely. So now we're back. Is that going? No. All right, so your father died, and your grandmother... My grandfather died. My grandfather died. Your grandmother. Speak about your grandmother. So my grandfather died, but he also had a big wine cellar in the garage. And he had this big cask, this big barrel in a pit. Because I think the garage had a pit, you know, they used to have these pits where you worked when you go down to work on the bottom of the car. Oh yeah, in a garage?

[10:35]

Better than a lift. And he had this big wine barrel that filled it where he used to make his wine. He made his wine and stored it there. Was it a sweet wine that day? I have no idea what the wine was. I don't think there was any wine by that time. By that time, I have no idea. and all that to that. But I remember, you know, my relatives were so noisy, you know, they would argue, you know, point arguing, like when they come to a visit on a Sunday, you know, it's all this chicken soup smell and all this, you know, and then we'd eat dinner, you know, but they were always arguing with each other, you know, but it's just, you know, high talk, you know. Right, like a very excited, passionate, excited speech. But it drove me nuts, you know. Why? How? Because I just couldn't stand the din. And, you know, and I remember when we would drive over there, I would, six blocks away, I'd say, I think I hear them now.

[11:47]

So it sounds, it seems like you were very sensitive to South and it was... Well, I was very sensitive to people's, yeah. Speech. Because you were a very soft-spoken person. Right. But, I'll tell you, when I was... I wasn't always soft-spoken. And I used to, you know... Somebody once told me, you really talk a lot. You know, and that really... I made a big impression on me, and after that I was very careful of how I inserted myself. Because you felt criticized? I felt, yeah, that was jabbering. You were being told that you were doing something out of place. How old were you then? Fifteen. Fifteen. Was it an adult who told you that? Yeah. But anyway, I was soft-spoken anyway.

[12:51]

So there they were with their big loud voices. They had twelve children, which included your father, Ed. And how many survived to adulthood when you went there? Who was there? I think there were about eight. Eight aunts and uncles? Yeah. Did you have a favorite? Was there an aunt or an uncle? One aunt who was my favorite, but she was married to my uncle. She wasn't part of my family. Oh, she was related by marriage. Yeah, she was related by marriage. She was very sweet. And I liked her a lot. What did she like about you? She was interested in me. Ah, right. She wouldn't talk at me. She would talk to me, you know, which was, I felt that she was really, she really was talking to me, you know, and understanding me, you know. Whereas the others, you know, it was all just around me. Just a lot of noise. Yeah.

[13:53]

So it was quite different. Your grandmother stayed with your grandparents? Yeah, my grandmother I didn't know so well either, you know, but she didn't speak much English. I don't know if she spoke any. But when I knew her, she was in bed. And she was the matriarch, you know, like you go in and she would, oh, Melville! Melville! And my aunt, the violinist, spent her life taking care of her and resented it. And she would treat my aunt like, you know, a little girl or something. She had her leg amputated. Grandmother too?

[14:55]

Yeah, when she was very old. Which leads me to believe she probably had diabetes. I can't imagine why. Because she had gangrene. Sounds like diabetes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's a little diabetes that runs in my family. Yeah. And I think that may be why I had it. But that's just my conjecture. I don't know what she did, but that's probably what it was. What was the extent of your aunt's accomplishment on the violin? Well, you know, she always wanted to get into the L.A. Philharmonic. But because she was a woman, she used to talk about this all the time, you know, like, they always chose the men over the women. But she was of that quality. She was of that quality. She met that standard. Had she been a man, she would have been admitted. She was good enough. Oh, great. Was she an inspiration to you about music? Well, I didn't have any aspirations for music at that time.

[16:01]

I mean, I love music, but I could never, you know, my parents would never pay for lessons or get me an instrument or, you know, I mean, that was It's out of the question. Was it out of the question because they didn't have any money, or because they didn't want to spend their money? They just didn't have it. They had a very difficult life. They had a difficult life. They didn't have any money, and it was the depression, you know. And it's all understandable up to a point. Up to a point it's understandable. Right. But they didn't use any ingenuity, creative ingenuity, to make life more colorful or more interesting. Things could have happened if they had. My father, my mother just kind of went along with my father, you know. And nothing happened unless it was his decision.

[17:03]

So, but, you know, everything was no. And it was like, there was nothing but no. There was never a yes. So that was, I grew up with no. That's my memory of my father is no. It's no. The great man of no. But it was, you know, it had its good side as well. Well, I learned that I could do, you know, things without money. I didn't have to have money or things. Like what? Tell me what you could do without money. Anything I wanted. In other words, I didn't have to... I was okay. You could have a nice date, you know, and make a great date for yourself. Well, I mean, my life didn't depend on it. You know, what I was doing didn't depend on it. But if I ever, at some point in my life, you know, after I was an adolescent, after I was...

[18:09]

If I ever wanted something, I always was able to get what I wanted. I mean, I can remember, you know, for 20 years, never counting my money. But as long as I had something in my pocket, as long as I was doing some work, you know, there was money in my pocket. I felt, you know, I was okay. Of course, those days were different than these days, where you could live on that thing. Right. But I did. Oh, yeah. Okay, we're kind of going in now. I can always... Yeah, okay. So I spent my life, you know, not worrying about money. And I, to this day, I've never worried about it. I think from the time I was about 25 or 20 something, even earlier than that, I never worried about money.

[19:20]

It just was never a concern for me. And I've always felt fine and was always able to get whatever I wanted. So you said that your father was pretty strict and there was a lot of discipline in growing up? Yeah. I mean, he was very moral, you know, a very moral guy, and very ethical, and strict. Tell about that. How was he strict? Well, he was strict. I mean, he himself led a strict life. He never drank. He smoked. Of course, everybody smoked in those days. And he was very Punctual and expected, you know people to be honest and straightforward and He never did anything arbitrarily And he did everything very routinely and He expected us to be honest and not steal and not Lie, and you know, I mean he was

[20:40]

So if you made mistakes, if you did... If you made a mistake, you would be very angry. Very angry. Very angry. And did he express this in a violent way? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean... I remember, you know, one of his expressions was, you better mind, or I'll take the strap to you. The strap was... You know, in those days, people used to shave with a straight razor. And they had razor straps, although he didn't really have a razor strap. Not that I remember. You may have, but that's not what he hit me with. What did he hit you with? Sometimes a coat hanger and sometimes a belt. Usually a belt. Wow. That hurt. Yeah. What were... Better mind. What were some of the occasions that... I can't really remember. Do you remember why you got hit?

[21:43]

I really can't remember. Not even once, one time? What's something you did before you got hit? I remember one time when I, um, you know, I think mostly it was threats. Uh-huh. Right. Sometimes he would hit me. But mostly it was threats. Uh-huh. And, uh, just to keep me in line. Right. What did you want from your father that you didn't get? Well, I wanted more interest. For him to be interested in you? Interested in me and more generous. And those two things. Do you remember any occasions on which he was generous to you? Like something nice? No. That's really sad. I don't remember anything that stands out. Do you remember any times when... He provided. Right, he was a provider. He was a good provider. I mean, you know, like, he worked for the WPA, you know, and then... What was his job for WPA?

[22:50]

I don't know. He said expediter. You realize we're writing this book for people who don't even know what the WPA is? He said I was an expediter. He said it for himself that he was an expediter. That was his occupation. He filled in the blank. Expediter. This was in L.A. It's a famous expeditor in L.A. I know him. Say what the WPA was. The Works Project Administration. Right, this is part of the Roosevelt. Yeah, part of the Roosevelt turnaround of the Depression to put people to work, and they put people to work in public projects. And I remember we were visiting a stadium or something that was being built. And there were all these guys standing around leaning on their shovels. Thousands of guys leaning on their shovels.

[23:54]

Some of them were digging. But it was a way of putting them to work, you know. Right. It's a country movie again, right? Did your parents become very, do you think the depression adversely affected your parents? They became very fearful and everything about money and about things. My mother used to send me to the store asking for a bone for the dog. She put it in the soup. Wow. And were they saving money for it? I mean, there was no money. There was just no money. I mean, people, it's not like, you know, here where, you know, there's some handout, you know. I mean, people were standing in soup lines. Right. And they're very poor. So there's no money for anything. And there were no social welfare agencies? No, nothing like that. I once interviewed a man who went to college during those years, put himself through college, worked very hard, he was very poor. He went to NYU and he has memories of looking out the windows from NYU into Washington Square Park in New York and seeing the ambulances come every day and take the bodies that had frozen, people slept in the park and froze to death during the night and remove the bodies.

[25:10]

And that there was just nowhere to go, there wasn't, if you were really destitute, there wasn't hope like there is now. We lived in Southern California. But, you know, there was always food on the table and it was always good. I mean, it was always, you know, it wasn't... Substantial, like you felt full when you ate. You had a nice meal that you enjoyed the taste of it. My mother was a good cook and, you know, she knew how to do that. What did she cook? Well, she always cooked pot roasts and potatoes and... You know, she didn't understand vegetables. She used canned vegetables all the time, which was, you know, turned everybody off of vegetables. I didn't discover vegetables until much later in my life. I remember going home one time and saying, much later and saying, I'm buying some spinach, you know, and I said, Crash! Yeah. And she, well, it's dirty.

[26:13]

I said, well, I have to wash it. But she was a good cook. But we always had, you know, meat and potatoes, you know. Yeah, I mean, after a while, in my memory, but... Chicken. Yeah. Before that, though, I think that... I don't know what we ate. When I was real little, I don't know what we ate. Did you have good Jewish bakeries where you were growing up? Did you have like good rye bread or pumpernickel? Oh yeah, but I don't know. I had no memory of the bakeries itself, but we did have, yes. Did you have that? We had that in San Francisco, too, a long time ago. The Ukrainian bakery on McAllister Street, the Western Edition, before they tore it down. Good. I mean, that was great. There was this little street in McAllister, McAllister and Fillmore, Jewish street. And the corner of the Ukrainian bakery was just incredible.

[27:17]

And you get two different kinds of rye. You get day-old rye, which I like much better because I like the bread that's set a day before you eat it. More flavor? Yeah, it's just more... It's not doughy. Doughy. Anyway. Go back to your father, and I want to mention back to you some of the things that we listed here, some of your memories of him. Pony rye was the first one. Well, I remember, you know, they used to have little pony rides. With kids? Yeah, I mean, when you go, yeah. And they'd set them up in a vacant lot or something, you know. Ten cents. Yeah. And I said, Daddy, can I have a pony ride? Ten cents. He said, no, I can't afford it. And you didn't get it? You never went on the pony ride? So this is the story of the no pony ride. This is the story of the no pony ride. That was the key word here.

[28:18]

No pony ride, no 10 cents. And did you believe him as a child that he did not really have 10 cents? I didn't believe that he didn't have 10 cents. You didn't believe that he didn't want to spend 10 cents on something for you? I didn't believe that he really didn't want to spend the 10 cents. That must have really hurt. Oh yeah, it was very painful. When I was in high school, I did run track, you know, but I wanted to go out to do football. But they had to sign a release, you know, and my father wouldn't sign it. He said no. Yeah, he said no. Why? He didn't want to take responsibility. For something that could happen to you, could get hurt. He didn't want to, yeah. I mean, you know, I can understand his point of view, but it's another no, right?

[29:21]

It's like not trust, not, it's being so conservative that you can't allow, you know, it's not taking risk. And then, when I was in junior high, I think it was junior high, I must have been high school, I guess I was 16, old enough to be able to drive. And I said, um, and this guy had a gas station on the corner and he had this old Essex or something, you know, car. 1920-something Essex. And it barely ran, but, you know, it kind of ran. And I, he was going to sell it to me for 25 bucks. And I asked my dad, I said, if I, if I, um, earned the money myself. Can I buy the car?" And he said, yeah. So I went out and I mowed lawns and I, you know, collected 25 bucks, washed dishes.

[30:27]

And I said, I have the money. Can I buy the car? He said, no. What was that about? Well, part of it was about insurance, which I understand today. which I didn't understand then. But this is, you know, when he was actually making money. I mean, you know, I don't know whether he could have afforded to buy insurance. I don't know what insurance was like in those days. You know, this was in the 40s. I don't know what that was like. But I know that buying car insurance for kids is sky high. Really, that's it. But, um, you know, like, it was a giving and a taking back, right? Right. There was a problem if he had explained the whole thing to me and said no in the beginning, that would have been one thing, but to say yes and then say no, and without really much, a lot of explanation, you know?

[31:39]

Just no. I mean, it's, one of his expressions was, And that's final. That was really one of his major expressions. And that's final. No room for discussion. Do you think the card that he thought that you wouldn't even get the money together? I don't know what he thought. At first he said yes. There was no pony ride, no car. How about the suit? Was there a suit? Oh, the suit. When I was graduating from high school, he finally got work, which is the work that he did for the rest of his life, in a clothing store. And it was a clothing store that was always going out of business.

[32:41]

It always had a going out of business sale? Yeah. Do you remember the name of it? No. We had one in a town where I grew up that was always having, they had a fire, they had a small fire, and for the next five years, they had a fire sale. So, when it was time to graduate, you know, I needed a suit or something. So, he took me down and bought me a suit. It was a nice suit. And then the day after my graduation, he took it back to the store. No! Oh, this is amazing. My brother hated my father. I mean, I, you know, I had my animosity toward him, but my brother just hated him to this day. I mean, to the day he died, when I talked to him about it, he said, our father is just terrible, you know.

[33:46]

I'm going to continue to ask you all the things I wrote down here. What's the story of the gas station? Gas station. Oh, my father at one time wanted to open a gas station. There was this old gas station that had been abandoned for about 20 years. And it had one of these pumps with a wire around the glass, you know, that old. And so he borrowed some money or something to open it up. And just had one or two pumps, you know. And got gas into the pump, you know. And hardly anybody came by. I remember my mother and I, you know, were there helping him out, you know. And nobody ever came by. I mean, it's such an old gas station. Can you imagine that pump with the, you know, so you could see the gas in the glass.

[34:59]

Oh, I remember those. And then they had protective bands of metal going around in rings to protect the glass. My father had a cousin named Silver Jack. I had a case that just... like that. You could see the gas in the glass. Nobody'd stop by a gas station. Yeah, nobody'd catch a soda jack solder. So anyway, after about a week, it didn't work. That was my father's... It was very disappointing, and we were all very sorry for him, you know. He was a nice guy, but in some ways, you know, but... In what ways? Well, you know, by being responsible and... and taking care of his family, that was his main... That was his main contribution. Yeah, you know, and he raised, provided, and... What was he like with your mother? He was very sweet. He liked my mother. He was kind to your mother? Yeah, I mean... Nicely spoken to? Yeah, he was very... My mother, you know... He really, really liked her.

[36:10]

And, uh, I think my mother must have been, you know, she was a nice looking lady. She was more adventurous than he was. Thank God. But, um, but that's another story. Right. We're still on my grandfather. That's right. We were on your father, your grandfather, but I'm going to start with your father first because that's what, that's where we really are. Um, and you said that people were scared of him. So your mother, was your mother scared of him? Oh, no. Well, I don't know. I'm not really scared of him, but, you know, he had a kind of brusque manner, you know, and he would just write people off and was critical of people and critical of things. He was critical of everything, actually.

[37:15]

He just had this critical nature. He just put everybody off. Although he would get angry, he didn't express his anger. He had a temper, but he didn't get, you know, raucous or anything like that. It just kind of came out in his manner, you know, of speaking. He would use like violent type expressions? No, it wasn't violent. There was no violence about him. What do you mean by that? It was just his disdain for everything, you know. So he never had any close friends. Because he didn't like people? Yeah. There was nothing endearing about him at all.

[38:19]

Sounds like a very negative atmosphere. He created a negative atmosphere around himself. Dislike and judgment. Yeah. And he himself didn't have close friends? I don't remember anybody ever coming over to our house. Wow. Do you have a telephone? No. No phone there? No phone. We had a radio. We never had a telephone. Did you listen to the radio together? Was that a family activity? Sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that was, I guess, our own family activity was listening to the radio. So you said reading the newspaper. Did he read the paper a lot? Yeah, he'd come home and read the newspaper. So it was pretty quiet in the house. He'd come home, sit down. Oh, very quiet in the house. He had to be quiet and not disturb him and everything. Well, not necessarily, but... It was quiet in the house. The radio, the one... Your mother would be cleaning and cooking.

[39:23]

Dad would be reading a paper. What were you and your brother doing? Well, my brother had his life and I had my life. We never did anything together. And did you go out most of the time? Did you stay home very much? Or did you kind of like get up and get out? But we didn't have a phonograph. And I think when I wanted to buy one, Of course, that was no. So surprised. Yeah. We're still taping him? Mm-hmm. So you said that you think he was very intelligent and very capable. Yeah, I mean, he could add a... He used to boast about his ability to add up numbers, you know, columns of numbers. And his mental... Yeah, he could, you know, take a list, take a big... column of numbers, you know, I don't know how wide, but yeah, he just had them all up in his head real quick. I thought he had good concentration. He had good concentration.

[40:25]

He could split an apple in two with his hands. He had this little knack of, you know, he'd just go, and the apple would crack in half. Really like in a nice neat hat. Tomorrow? Huh? Are we back to this? Yeah. We're back to this. Okay. Where were we? We're talking, is this on again? Okay. So we're talking about your father, different things about him, and then, oh, concentration. That's right, because you told me he could add up, well, columns of numbers, and then he could crack an apple. Anything else? And, you know, he was a good mechanic. But he didn't have any education, you know. I mean, he quit school in the 10th grade. And then he went into the Army during the First World War, and he got stationed in Hawaii.

[41:30]

That was fortunate. Yeah. And he had a great time. And I have a picture of him with his Cadillac. He had a Cadillac? Yeah, a 1914 Cadillac. And also, I mean, he was in the cavalry. No, he was in the field artillery. He was in the field, which is like the cavalry, because it's all horses. And he just loved horses, you know. And his highlight of his life was when he was riding in a parade in Hawaii, past the Queen. Queen of Hawaii. Yeah, I'm trying to remember her name. She's a huge thing. Yeah, I'm trying to remember her name. And anyway, and his horse reared up on its hind legs when he passed her.

[42:33]

She stood up and clapped or something like that, you know. Waved her head or something like that. And this was his finest moment, his great moment. Finest moment, yeah. That's what he'd always talk about. So when I was real little, he would talk about his life, you know, in Philadelphia a little bit, and in the Army, you know. But, you know, he didn't have much. And... How did his father treat him? I have no idea. I have the slightest idea. You have no idea what his relationship was with his father? No. Did he talk about his father very much? No. The whole family split. As soon as my grandfather died, they all split. That was the only thing that held them together. And they never saw each other after that, that I remember. Was your grandmother already gone then?

[43:36]

Yeah. She was already gone. Well, I mean, he died and then she died. And everybody split. And all the relatives just went their own ways. as far as I know, never got back together again. And I had one uncle, Uncle Joe, who was the black sheep of the family, if there could be such a thing. And he contacted me many years later. And he'd had a heart attack. And he had divorced his wife and married his nurse. And he was much happier. And he used to tell me things about, you know, sympathize with us, you know, about our kids, you know, my brother and I, because, you know, he was, he told us what a difficult family we had.

[44:37]

So he could see that it was hard for you? Yeah, I mean, he was, you know, he couldn't relate to it himself. So nobody could relate to it. Yeah. It's really a shame. What do you think your father, if your father had been born, what do you think your father wanted to be in life? He just wanted to, I think he just wanted to have a good job and live with my mother. That's what he really wanted. He didn't have any ambitions. I mean, any ambition to be anything else than just have a good job and have a family was you know, nonsense. So, you know, anything else, anything that I wanted to do besides work in a clothing store was nonsense. He wanted you to work in a clothing store? No, he thought that was a good idea. Uh-huh. You know? And, uh, I mean, he thought that psychiatrists were crazy and he thought that education was, you know, nonsense.

[45:42]

And, I mean, it was all defensive in a way, you know? And then, When I wanted to go to art school, he thought that was utter nonsense, you know. But he didn't have much to say about it because he wasn't paying for it. So there was never any mention in my family about education. So usually in a Jewish family, it was usually education was prized. Well, this was a low-class Jewish family. This was what? A low-class Jewish family. It wasn't an educated Jewish family. And they were secularly Jewish. Yeah, they were secularly Jewish. They were not religiously Jewish. Although my grandfather, I remember one time, there was no Jewish upbringing. I mean, religious upbringing. Only cultural upbringing. Which, without the religious, it doesn't mean much. Pretty deadly. Right. But, I mean, it's ethical and so forth, but it's, you know, missing.

[46:46]

I said, He said, you don't love bananas. You only love your mother and father. I must not have been very much fun to be a kid around these people. No, it wasn't. It wasn't hard to wait to leave home. Once I left home, that was it. And how old were you? I went on active duty. I've been raised. I don't want to get into that yet. No. So you were born in L.A. Did you live in the same place like your whole life? No. They moved? How often did you move? Well, I don't know how often, but we lived in different places. Several different places? Yeah. Okay. What's the place you most remember? You spent most of your growing up years. The place that's the most vivid to you, what do you remember?

[47:48]

Well, I think, um... Oh, well, we lived in Hollywood at first. Then we lived in Long Beach. When I was going there, uh... We moved to Long Beach when I went to junior high. How far is Long Beach from, um... Well, they're right next to each other. So just the next... Well, Long Beach, that's about... I mean, from where in London? Yeah, right. From Hollywood. Where did your parents live when you were born? What part of L.A.? East L.A. No, actually, no. I don't know where they lived exactly when I was born, but I remember we lived in Hollywood most of the time. I kind of remember the name of the street that we lived on, which was near Vermont Avenue, just around the corner from Vermont Avenue, Vermont, and Sunset, you know, near Sunset Boulevard.

[49:09]

I remember there was this place called Olive Hill. It was a kind of little one-block park, and there was a And there was a building by Frank Lloyd Wright. We used to play in. It was a community center. I remember that. I had my first cigarette there when I was eight years old. Did your father know that you smoked? Well, my father, you know, well, I'm sure he knew that I I smoked a little, but I used to sneak cigarettes out of his package. I was very clever. I used to open the bottom of the cellophane and then open the bottom of the package and then slip a cigarette out and then glue the bottom of the package and then glue the bottom of the cellophane so that it looked like nothing happened.

[50:15]

That's an advanced criminal activity. That's not like a casual impulsive grab. This is a premeditated crime going on there. It's very interesting. Tell me, I still want a physical picture of a place that you lived. Oh, well, I think on Finley, that name sounds familiar, which was near Franklin Avenue, and I went to Franklin Avenue Grammar School. Okay. What did that place look like? It was a duplex, you know, a stucco duplex with a front room and a bed, two bedrooms, maybe a dining room. So you shared a bedroom with your brother? Yeah, until he went in the Army. And how old were you when he went in the Army? Well, he was, I don't remember how old he was. How old were you? I don't remember that either.

[51:19]

Okay. But for a number of years you shared a room with your brother usually? You didn't have your own room? I guess we both moved to Long Beach. I can't remember. Yeah, we were both there. Yeah, we were both in Long Beach. I remember Long Beach more than Hollywood. I mean, I do remember Hollywood. I remember our first... The first place I remember in Hollywood This is what I told you. And then, um, which was a duplex or a flat. We always lived in duplexes or flats. Okay. So you rented you two? Yeah, oh yeah. Always rented. Okay. All I'm looking for is just, I'm looking for a setting. We lived in stucco duplexes. Okay. Which were usually... What color were they on the outside? Like that kind of beigeish gray? Beige. Yeah, gray. The usual style of duplex, nothing fancy. Right.

[52:20]

Post, I guess, you know, post-World War I, or maybe even older. And they were, you know, four-plex or duplex, usually four-plex. And that was what we always lived in. How about inside? Did your mother have any furniture that she inherited from people in her family? Were there some interesting pieces of furniture? I don't remember. Our furniture was not much. Just furniture? Just furniture. But my mother, we haven't talked about my mother yet, but she used to crochet and knit all the time. We're not ready to talk about that. I remember all that more than I remember the furniture. Okay, so if you just picture yourself walking into the house, are these houses bright? Are they colorful? What's the atmosphere of the house? It was light. It wasn't dark. Is it cheery or is there a heavy, oppressive atmosphere?

[53:25]

What's that? It wasn't cheery and it wasn't oppressive. It was just kind of very plain. Just kind of average. My mother kept everything very clean. My father was very meticulous about cleanliness. He used to wash the car all the time, wash the dishes. The house was always very clean and neat. Everything was always in its place. And was it very regular, like you had dinner at the same time every day? Yeah, it was a very regular life. Routine. Routinized. Very routinized, right? It kind of drove me somewhat crazy. And the same things were always in the same places all the time? More or less, yeah. Kind of like the way I live now.

[54:30]

Some of it's beginning to sound familiar. But it's not the way I wanted to live. because my wife wanted to move. It's another story. It's another story. Okay, so what were some contradictions in your father's character? I'm going to get a picture of this disciplined person, negative person, person you just described to me, but usually someone has a flip side. There's some other, something about them that's different than the general picture of them. Were there any idiosyncrasies or anything that were out of sync Something that was out of sync with him. I mean, totally in character, everything he did. Everything he did was in character. He didn't have another side. I don't think he had a secret life of any kind. Well, if it was secret, then it was secret. It's remained secret. Sometimes people's secret lives are exposed a little bit after they pass on. What do you think in yourself is the most like your father?

[55:31]

In what ways are you like your father? No. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I can see my father. I think I must like him. His characteristic would be steadiness. What does steadiness mean? Well, being tough. I'm kind of tough. Even though I'm soft, I'm pretty tough. And not easily pushed over. And even though I'm pretty steadfast, and I'm kind of steadfast, Not as frugal as him, but frugal.

[56:44]

And honest, very honest. I don't think I've been as honest as he was, actually. good at care-taking, taking care of his family, taking care of... making sure that everything was provided. Good provider. Yeah. I'm kind of like that, but not as much as he was. An expediter. Are you an expediter? I'm not sure what an expediter is. I'm just waiting for you to tell us. I'm not. And I think I have his temper. Really?

[57:47]

Yeah. But I have my mother's temperament. Explain that. Well, my mother's temperament is very sweet and gentle and forgiving and insightful and intuitive, you know. So that's her temperament. My father's temperament is stubbornness. I think I have some of his stubbornness, but it comes out more in perseverance, whereas his stubbornness is more like a mule, you know, like you can't get it to go. So I have some of that What did I say? Temperament and what was the other?

[58:49]

I don't know. I assumed his stubbornness, but not his temperament. I understand. So it's like a character trait that finds a different expression. Yeah, right. He was like more attached to ideas and all these other kinds of things. You're very fluid with stuff like that, but you're very persevering. to do the same thing, to keep doing it. Right, and he was, but yeah, that's totally different. It's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else that comes to mind, working right now, about your dad? I think stubbornness was maybe his lead, biggest characteristic, most prominent characteristic. It's interesting because no one would ever say of you that your lead characteristic was stubborn, but almost everyone would agree that your major characteristic is persistence or perseverance.

[59:56]

Very interesting. You've got a positive expression in the next generation. Why don't we turn this off?

[60:06]

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