ROBERT EPSTEIN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY:This is Christa Whitney, and today is April 5th, 2011. I am here at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts, with Robert Epstein. And we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Robert, do I have your permission to record this interview?

ROBERT EPSTEIN: Yes, of course.

CW:(laughs) Thank you. So, can we start by -- can you tell me briefly where your family came from and how they came to the United States?

RE:My parents were from Poland -- Brest-Litovsk is the English name of the town. Brzesc, I think, is the Yiddish name for it. It's on the Polish-Russian border. 1:00And sometimes it was Russian; sometimes it was Polish. My father came in 1906, and -- by ship. He was nineteen, I believe, at that time. And I don't know the exact year my mother came. But they met here, on the Lower East Side, and were married here. My father was in the garment industry. He was a -- operator on cloaks, women's cloaks, it was called. And they also had a pushcart in the '30s, when things were slow. And he had a partner in the pushcart, but when there was work at the shop, my mother covered the pushcart, and then I was with her, and I would hang around the pushcart. It was on Park Avenue, in East Harlem.

CW:And what --

RE:And Mayor LaGuardia was anxious to get the pushcarts off the street before 2:00the World's Fair, and so he built at least three different locations -- Lower East Side, Essex Street, and Park Avenue, in the East Harlem -- 116th Street, I believe it is -- indoor markets. And so, they were rent, and they couldn't support two people, so my father gave it over to the partner, and -- anyway. And my mother, as far as I know, didn't work. She was at home. Okay?

CW:Do you know what your family did in the Old Country before they came over?

RE:No. I know that my father's parents had a grocery store here, I thought. My sister, older sister, thinks it was a rooming house, a boarding house, where they served meals to the people that they had here. My mother's father was here 3:00also. And he was a ice and coal man here, with a wagon, horse and wagon. And he went back to Europe. He had two daughters there. That's part of our family history. And he -- in about '33 or '4 he went back to Poland. He never got to come back. And our family history includes pleading letters in Yiddish from the two sisters, the two aunts, to bring them over, 'cause things were getting worse and worse in the '30s -- '4, '35. But my parents couldn't bring them over, partly because they didn't have money for a bond. You had to place money in escrow of some kind. They didn't have enough money to do that. So they never got brought over, and -- my eldest sister translated those letters. They were in Yiddish. And both the Yiddish and English were given over to YIVO for their 4:00archives. So -- but I don't know what they did in Europe.

CW:Can you describe the neighborhood you grew up in?

RE:Yes. I was born in the building, an apartment on the third or fourth floor, on Lexington Avenue, between 102nd, 103rd Street. That's East Harlem. There was a Jewish community there then. And then, we moved to 105th Street, and I went, my first three years of school, in East Harlem. There was a shule [secular Yiddish school] there, an imparteyish shule [Yiddish school not affiliated with a particular political party], which is a non-partisan by Yankev Levin. There were different strands of shules, partly dependent on your political leanings. This one was, I think, in the middle of the road. And so, he was a -- this guy, 5:00Yankev Levin, was the leader of the shule. My parents were active in the shule. I think I started going there when I was seven years old, six or seven. Very young. So, and then we moved to the East Bronx, 163rd Street. Which was, coincidentally, about a block and a half away from where Sholem Aleichem lived on Kelly Street, and died, in 1916, on Kelly Street. But I didn't know that at the time. And then, we moved to Kelly Street, further up, and we lived there till nine-- I lived there until I was taken in the army and got married, and my parents then moved to the cooperative apartments on the Lower East Side. So, I grew up, most of my life, in the South Bronx. Elementary school, junior high school, and then --

CW:And what do you remember about the move from East Harlem to the Bronx?

RE:Well, I think it happened while I was away (laughs) in camp. I was sent to a Yiddish camp, Camp Naivelt, for two weeks. That was the imparteyish camp that Yankev Levin ran. And my parents at first lived in the same building. Was a four-floor walk-up. We had an icebox. The guy came up with ice on his back, put it in, and it lasted maybe a week; I don't remember exactly. It melted. We got a new icebox. In the wintertime, we put stuff on the windowsill, you know, as a ref-- make it cold. Then we -- you had to stay there about a year, and then we moved to a building with a elevator and a refrigerator and -- the elevator had operators in the building, for a year, and then they became automatic. But -- 7:00and that's where I lived from the age of ten to twenty-six.

CW:Can you tell me more about the camp, Naivelt?

RE:Well -- no. But let me tell you about my Yiddish --

CW:Sure.

RE:-- focus on the Yiddish in my life, okay?

CW:Sure.

RE:My sisters continued in shule, which are secular Jewish schools. After elementary shule, they went to mitlshul [high school], and then they went to teachers' institute. My eldest sister learned Yiddish shorthand and typing, and she worked -- and we had a Yiddish typewriter in the home. My parents were active in the shule, raising funds for the shule. And I remember going to 8:00parties where they raised funds. I was young -- seven, eight. And, so that was the beginning. And Yiddish was spoken by my parents in the home. But -- and then, when we moved to the Bronx, we were sent to Hebrew school. My grandfather was Orthodox. We had a kosher home, but we were not Sabbath observers. My parents -- my father went to shul on the holidays. But we moved to the Bronx. My grandfather was very Orthodox, and my grandmother. And we were in the same building that they lived in for that first year. And so, the Hebrew school had -- the history book was in Yiddish! So, we would learn Hebrew and prayers in Yiddish in the Hebrew school. 'Cause they assumed that that was our second 9:00language. And so, that -- I thought that was unusual. Then, for a few years, I went to Hebrew school, came home, ate dinner, and then went to shule in the Bronx. I didn't rebel, it appears. I accepted that for one or two years. And so, that shule was a left-wing shule. It was the most closest one to our home. So, that was a shule while I was going to Hebrew school. I think that was unusual in itself.

CW:And what was the political environment in your home?

RE:Well, my sister was -- tended to be -- call it radical -- my eldest sister, and her friends. My next sister was left-wing as well. My parents were liberal. 10:00They belonged to Histadrut, which is the Labor -- the Zionist organiza-- they're very active in that, that aspect of it. I remember the incoming mail my father got were the Jewish Defense League or some democracy and labor -- you know, I can see by the mail where his feelings were. He was an active member of the Brisker branch of the Workmen's Circle -- 286? They had numbers. He was a secretary. I helped him fold envelopes. So, from my sisters -- and my parents were liberal as well -- I would tend toward the left. But the home was strictly kosher, and on Friday, there wouldn't -- floor was washed, newspapers were put down on the floor -- to keep it clean longer, I guess. And so, it was respectful of the religious tradition. My grandfather was Orthodox. We lived in the same 11:00neighborhood. Our seder were old-times seders. We read the whole Haggadah in Hebrew, the whole thing. So, it was mixed in that respect, but it was politically left, I would say. And then, the Yiddish became quiet. Oh, my bar mitzvah speech was read in Yiddish. It was written by my teacher. You know, now the kids write their own speeches. And, you know -- but my teacher wrote the speech. It was very florid and learned and long. But I read it in Yiddish. So, I'm able to read and write Yiddish. When I was in the army, I wrote postcards to my parents in Yiddish. My vocabulary's weak, but I'm able to read and write, and I'm not fluent in Yiddish, which gets to another story in a while. So, there was 12:00not much with Yiddish after I got married -- I want to tell you about that. But then, they started -- there was a Yiddish class in the temple that I belonged to for many years. And that lasted for several years. And the teacher tried to teach grammar, which turned people -- the few people that came -- off. And then, somebody brought in a postcard that she wanted translated from Poland, you know, and she asked for help. So, I knew the names of a few people who were versed in Yiddish because of the class. So, I got them together, and we got together, and we started a Yiddish club. Now, that's been going for about fifteen or twenty years, twenty years now. And I'm a leader. We have a Yiddishist who's a co-leader and more expertise than mine, but I'm the leader. We do proverbs; we 13:00sing songs; we talk about the language; talk about the food and the culture. And we get as many as -- when they're not in Florida -- twenty-two people, twenty-three people come. And we have people from other synagogues who come to our synagogue for the class. We meet monthly. And that's an important part of what I do. And I enjoy it very much. And one last thing about Yiddish is that I work -- for the last ten years, I've worked at a senior Jewish camp. It's an Orthodox camp. And I do -- since I have experience in doing Yiddish sessions, stories from "Royte pomerantsn [Blood oranges]" -- I have Shakespeare translated into Yiddish. We had a book in the house, and I got the Marc Antony speech. So, I have sessions in this camp in Yiddish. So, I made up a story that I had to convince them I could speak Yiddish since I have sessions in Yiddish. But I 14:00can't; I'm not fluent. They are, many of them. Many of them are surviv-- some of them are survivors, and many of them -- so I started telling this joke that I had told many, many times, about -- "In rusland, hobn zey gehat a ki, geven an alte ki ober a gute ki, un der ki hot geshtorbn [In Russia, they had a cow, it was an old cow but a good cow, and the cow died]." So, they corrected me in the first sentence three or four times. "S'iz nisht a 'ki,' s'iz a 'ku' [It's not a 'cow (ki),' it's a 'cow (ku)']." You can pronounce it either way. "A ki shtarbt nit, a man shtarbt, a frey shtarbt, a ki peygert. M'darf zogn 'di ki peygert.' [A cow doesn't die a human death (shtarbt), a man dies a human death, a woman dies a human death, a cow dies an animal death (peygert). One must say 'the cow dies an animal death.']" So, and then "S'iz nisht 'der ki,' s'iz 'di ki' [It's not the (masc.) cow, it's the (fem.) cow]," feminine, so they were correcting me, you know. So, I'm in a cold sweat. And I didn't succeed in convincing them. So, I had to think of a new plan. So, the new plan was to memorize the song 15:00"Oyfn veg shteyt a boym [By the road stands a tree]," written as a poem, by Itzik Manger. So, I would recite it, learn eleven verses, and recite it to them at the Oneg Shabbat. So, I did that. And I love the way the sound -- it's as if I'm speaking. "Oyfn veg shteyt a boym, shteyt er ayngeboygn. Ale foygl funem boym, zaynen zikh tsefloygn. Dray kayn mizrekh, dray kayn mayrev, un der resht kayn doyrem. Un dem boym gelozt aleyn, hefker far der shturem. Zog ikh tsu mayn mame, 'Her! Zolst mir nor nisht shtern. Vil ikh mame eynts un tsvey, bald a foygl vern.' [By the road, stands a tree, bent over. All the birds have flown away from the tree. Three to the east, three to the west, and the rest to the south. And the tree is left alone, empty before the storm. I say to my mother, 'Listen! Don't worry about me. One, two, three, and I will become a bird myself.']" And it goes on. And it sounds like I'm speaking Yiddish! I love to hear it. So, the next day a lady approaches me and says, "Bob, tell me. Where were you born?" You know? She figured that I was really -- so -- and then -- and then, also, when I asked the local rabbi, who was studying Talmud and translating in Yiddish, if I could sit in to hear more Yiddish, he says, "Oh," 16:00he says, "No, your Yiddish is more classical than mine. I speak just Amerikaner Yiddish. Your Yiddish is much better than mine." So, it worked. It persuaded them that -- as if I was a Yiddish speaker. So, that's the last part of my experience with the language. So -- but it becomes -- had become more important. I subscribe to Mendele, the listserv, and I share with the class the news of what's happening with Yiddish -- other parts of the world: in Israel, in England, in New Zealand, wherever. And so, as I say, it's become more important to me. So, where were we?

CW:Well, going back to Yiddish in the home, you mentioned that you speak it with your parents. Were there times when you would switch into English, or was it all 17:00Yiddish in the home?

RE:No, we generally -- I spoke English. They may have answered me in Yiddish or English. But the English was important to them. They went to night school. They got a geography book as an award for good attendance. You know, so they were committed to English and learning as much as possible. So, the language of the home -- I think they spoke Yiddish; we spoke English, I thi-- as I recall.

CW:And in Yiddish shule, did you study Yiddish language?

RE:Yeah, in shule, we learned to read and to write and the alphabet and songs and pro-- yeah. And, as I say, in Hebrew school we learned to -- just to read. But the -- so I can read and write. But my vocabulary is weak.

CW:Do you remember what newspaper you got at home, if any?

RE:Yeah. My father read "Der Tog." The paper was an important part of his life, 'cause it wasn't only the news, it was -- and he asked me to read the English column -- Margolis, I think, maybe, was the writer? He didn't make -- and I know they listened to the "Forverts shtunde [Forverts hour]" on the radio. But the "Tog" was the paper in our home.

CW:And what was -- do you remember what major topics of conversation were at home?

RE:Um --

CW:I mean, did they talk about political events or the day at work? I mean, what were things that would be discussed in the home?

RE:Well, sometimes they would discuss how things were going in the garment industry. Two terms that I never knew -- couldn't visualize what it was -- one was the "shop." I didn't know what a shop looked like. He had to go to the shop. 19:00And then, he would go to the market. The "market," it turns out, was a street -- Seventh Avenue and Thirty-Seventh Street or something -- where people would congregate and learn what's happening at different shops and where the work is. So, the market was, I understand, to be the street where they exchanged information. So, the "shop" and the "market," as I remember, were words that were used. But that's all. Oh, by the way, the pushcart, they sold housecoats and sweaters. Some of them hung up over -- I remember that.

CW:Do you remember -- can you describe what -- if there were any specific objects in your home that were important, or what your home looked like?

RE:(pause) There were books in our home. Some of them belonged to my sisters. 20:00One sister was eleven years older than I. One was six. And one was two -- uh -- years older. I was the youngest. They got books from the news-- a collection of Mark Twain were from newspaper premiums. And I think there was a collection of Sholem Aleichem in our home. I had an uncle who was a leader, executive of the Jewish People's Fraternal Order of the International Workers Order, which is the Yiddish far-left organization. Uncle and aunt, my mother's sister. I don't remember other aspects that would reflect the Jewishness of the home, except 21:00that the milkhik, fleyshik, and Passover dishes were up in the top, and that aspect of it. But I don't remember other things.

CW:And do you remember any specific traditions that your family had for different holidays or -- you mentioned you had a traditional seder, but what about other holidays? Did you do anything special for Hanukkah or --

RE:Well, Hanukkah was certainly celebrated. And we had a little tin Hanukkah menorah. That was dignified. I think we got Hanukkah gelt, the coins, at that time. But that's all. I don't remember other holidays. I don't remember holiday 22:00-- except that I learned -- in the home, anyway -- I learned in Hebrew school about the other holidays.

CW:Who were your friends growing up?

RE:Well -- yeah. All my friends were Jewish. There were a lot of street games. One group of friends are important; I'm here with them today, seven other people. Some of us knew each other from elementary school; some from junior high school. Nearly all of us went to Stuyvesant High School. We remained friends. These are junior high school connection, and one of them was a Hebrew school 23:00classmate. He had passed away. And so, there was a group of six men -- six, I think it was -- who remained close. Two of them -- three of them -- have died. And one is in a nursing home. And so, we meet periodically, maybe twice a year, and email a lot to each other, talk to each other. So, that's really a very old and cherished group of friends. But the other friends, the street -- the game friends, in the street, were Jewish kids. 'Cause in the Bronx, there was a Jewish neighborhood. Yeah.

CW:One more question about the home: looking back now, what do you feel your 24:00parents were trying to pass on to you, if anything?

RE:Well, I know that being Jewish and the Yiddish language was important to them. Otherwise I wouldn't -- and that was communicated to -- clearly. It reflected in my sisters all knowing and being interested in it. It reflected in them sending me to shule and (laughs) Hebrew school at the same time. It reflected in things they said at the table about the news about Israel. I remember the emotion that my father -- much more than I -- in 1947, when Israel was declared, the joy that was reflected. I just remember that clearly. But, so being Jewish -- and then Yiddish language -- was important to them. Communicated 25:00in various ways.

CW:And did you have any particular mentors growing up, people that inspired you to go in certain directions?

RE:No, I can't think of any. Just one anecdote: This friend that was in Hebrew school with me, we admired the -- the teacher was an important person for young children. And once, we followed him to the subway. He was a real person who took a subway. But later, in adulthood, we found out through a friend's wife, aunt, was abandoned by this teacher. You know, many -- some men came here, to America, 26:00were gonna send for their wives in Europe and didn't send for them. And they made new attachments here. And so, this teacher was one of those men who had abandoned my friend's wife's aunt. So, we learned about that in adulthood, and this idol -- you know, was this scowly guy, was such a human. And it was disappointing to us indeed. Yeah.

CW:(laughs) Yeah. Were there any specific experiences that were particularly formative in your identity as a Jew?

RE:Just ones I've described. I wanted to talk about other aspects of my life --

CW:Um-hm.

RE:-- if we can.

CW:Yeah, sure. Well, I wanted to ask you -- maybe this could be a segue: how did 27:00you end up as a teacher?

RE:Well, there were -- as a young adult, Jewish -- Yiddish was not important any more. And as an adult, I was in the army. Being Jewish was important, but the Yiddish was not -- what was your question?

CW:How did you become a teacher?

RE:Oh. Well, we went to City College. I considered being a social worker or -- but I have a speech impediment, but I was able to pass oral exams. And jobs were available. And so, I was taking courses. I did well; it wasn't not just an 28:00accident -- towards being a teacher. I was interested in it. And I started immediately after completing college. And we were allowed to take a master's at City as well, so I did that. I was in a -- I was able to walk to work in my first teaching, in the South Bronx. It was a Puerto Rican neighborhood for the most part, mixed -- it had been partly Italian, but it was -- so I became a teacher for five years in the South Bronx. Then, I was taken in the army. I was married -- I met a wonderful woman in the school. She was a teacher. We married, and I was taken in the army at the age of twenty-six. And I was sent to Panama 29:00after basic training at Fort Dix. And she came down to teach the children in the Panama Canal Company employees. So, I spent two years in the service. And then, I taught for three more years in a classroom in the Bronx. And then, we moved -- we lived in the north Bronx, so Marion Avenue, together for one year. We had a child, moved to Long Island City. I taught in Long Island City in a special program called All-Day Neighborhood School, where children stayed till five o'clock. The school day -- my working day -- was ten-fifteen to five. So, I helped teachers in the classroom during the day, enriching their classroom, and 30:00then had a club in the afternoon. So, the children had a informal relationship with an adult and a safe place to be and -- so that was what I did in Long Island City. Then, I became a guidance counselor in South Jamaica for five years. And then -- and we moved to Springfield Gardens from Long Island City. We were in a co-op in Long Island City. We moved to Springfield Gardens. I was there for seven years. I became an assistant principal in South Jamaica. And then, we moved to Oceanside, on Long Island. And I was -- finished my career in Ozone Park, which was an old Italian ethnic community, as an assistant principal. Our children -- when we moved to Ozone Park, we moved to Oceanside, 31:00and we joined the temple. Oh, when we joined the congregation -- oh, my son had his bar mitzvah in Springfield Gardens. There's a large cooperative development called Rochdale Village. And he was bar mitzvahed in a Conservative congregation. But I was not a participant in that congregation at all. We moved to Oceanside. He continued, and my other -- my daughter -- I have three children -- went to Hebrew -- to religious school in the temple. And he continued, till the age of eighteen, and they all continued till the age of eighteen in that religious school. I became active -- which is where we have our Yiddish club -- very active. I've been a trustee for thirty-six years. I was involved in being 32:00social action chairperson. I'm involved in a interfaith council. I'm involved in a Shabbat Torah study group, where I become the -- call it coordinator or administrator of the group. It's a volunteer group, but -- so we meet every Saturday morning, and we study both Bible or other books of the Tanakh. And we study with our rabbi, part of the time. And then, when he leaves for a bar mitzvah, we continue studying on our own. And the group as -- becomes -- seeing each other every Saturday and studying together, there's a closeness that develops emotionally. And that is a very steady, permanent part of my forty 33:00years in Oceanside.

CW:How did you decide to become a member of the shul after --

RE:Well, I guess it was because I knew it was important for my children to be connected and to know who they are. And I know that Yiddish wasn't going to hack it, if that's the expression. There was no convenient Yiddish shule. And I knew -- I knew it was important for them. So, I really joined for them to get their religious education. And at first, I was like an onlooker to their education and was not a participant in things. But then, I realized that -- so we became much more active in the temple. We just -- for them, that we started. Yeah.

CW:Going back to being a teacher, sometimes you talk about students teaching teachers as part of the career. Is there any specific moment that you remember, a particular time that you learned something from one of your students?

RE:Well, just -- one of the students in the South Bronx -- father had a fish stall, Fulton Fish Market. I knew it would be a great opportunity for our children -- for the class -- to visit. And so, we arranged that visit. And Fulton Fish Market is a very dramatic place -- was; it's now in a different place in the Bronx. And so, we went; we visited his father's stall and saw the activity at the fish market and got a sense of how food gets to us. What is the 35:00source of our food, you know? So, it was an important experience. I picked up on that and used it when he mentioned that. I just want to mention three --

CW:Sure.

RE:-- projects which was a little unusual, and I'm pleased about. One of them was a adopt-a-tree program. I took a course by the Park Department in pruning to -- it was to train community block associations to take care of their trees. But I was a -- I took it as a teacher, as an administrator. And so, I got to be comfortable with the idea of how you take care of trees. And so, I had -- the children -- I applied for a grant and got some money to -- a beautification 36:00grant. Over the summer, they each adopted a tree in their neighborhood. They each got a bucket, a trowel, and a cultivator to pick up glass and other things in their tree pit. So, they had to loosen the soil in their tree pit, clean the tree pit -- one tree in the neighborhood. And if it didn't rain that week, they were to feed it fifteen gallons of water. They had to have access to water. So, when the community sees children caring for the trees that they let their dog poop in and throw stuff, it becomes -- they realize that that's an important part of their community. The children had to keep a log. Once a week they visited their tree; they did what they did. And if they brought the log back in September, they got to keep the bucket and the tools. 'Cause we had bought it with the grant that I had got, $300 grant. So, I thought that was a good, worthwhile project. Another thing that I did was -- oh, I knew that independent 37:00reading was a key to being a good reader. Not being taught, necessarily, but the fact that you read yourself, the active reading helps make you a better reader. And so, the idea was to make reading at home a new habit. So, we had -- if they read for twenty minutes at home, they'd write down what they read, and their parent had to sign it, that they indeed read. And they brought it back, the log of their reading. And they got scrip. And with the scrip -- it was a series of -- with ten scrip, you could do this -- there were little privileges in the schools that they got. We didn't have a lot of money. (laughs) Not gifts, so much, but privileges. They could leave the lunchroom before all the others to go out to the yard to play for five or ten scrip or something. I don't remember the number. And for thirty scrip, I remember the parent association provided a bus 38:00trip to the Staten Island Zoo for those children who went there. So, that was another good project. And then last one I want to mention is we walked from the school to Shea Stadium. Children very often -- it was about eight miles. And it was not a forced march; they had to volunteer -- remain in their neighborhood and don't know that there's things out there. And it's free to them and open to them, and the whole city is part -- can be part of their life, in a way. So, I wrote an annotated walking tour, trip, from their school to Shea Stadium. It passed through Forest Park -- we were in Ozone Park at the time. And I did it from my previous school also, but this -- we walked past stables. We visited the horses, for the riding path. We passed Forest Hills Gardens, which are -- 39:00unusual community. I arranged the bathroom in a school -- used the bathroom in a school along the way. We walked underneath the Van Wyck Expressway, all of the arterial highways. The fact that you have within your power to go where you need machines to take you. So, it was -- and then the school bus took us -- we saw a game at Shea Stadium. They sent free tickets periodically. And the school bus took us back. So, that was another unusual -- the superintendent, when he heard about it, say, "Epstein, you're taking them on a forced march! You're making the kids walk eight miles or something?" He was like, "You have consent slips?" So, I had to -- I sent all the consent slips to the superintendent, the district superintendent. It was not a forced march, and it was with parental consent. So, those are three -- the more better things that I did. They were just the -- anyway, that I wanted to mention.

CW:And you -- I think you also wanted to talk about the projects that you've been involved in since retirement. And you mentioned the camp. Were there other projects you want to talk about?

RE:Well, yeah -- well, since retirement, one of the things -- I found out within a year after I retired that there was a soup kitchen not far from us. So, 1987 -- I'm in my twenty-fourth year, I guess, of working in the soup kitchen, once a week. For a period, I was the captain of the Monday team. But -- and now I pick up the breads Sunday night from the local bakery, excess bread. I bring it in Monday morning, and I'm there till about one o'clock. And I help package the bread for people to take home, help with the food preparation as needed, and serve the lunch. So, I've been doing that for twenty-four years. And also -- 41:00that was since I retired -- I volunteered to be in the Volunteer for Israel program. I was there three weeks as a volunteer. That was my first year of retirement. And that was very meaningful to me.

CW:And can you tell me what you did there?

RE:Yeah. I was assigned the -- I really lucky -- I was assigned to a navy base in Haifa. I was assigned to a tugboat. So, my job was not arduous. I thought it was quaint. They would -- the men would eat their lunch and throw things in the harbor -- very often, not always. But on Friday afternoon, we all cleaned up the harbor. We cleaned up the garbage along the shore of the harbor. You know, 42:00(UNCLEAR) Sabbath, (UNCLEAR) Sabbath. But -- so I accompanied the -- I helped paint the tugboat when necessary. I accompanied them when they took some divers out to repair the underground part of the harbor, harbor wall or something. And so, it was nice. And then, we were able to spend several Shabbat with families, which was very meaningful. The word "traditional" -- you picked the kind of family you wanted to be with: secular, traditional, or Orthodox. "Traditional" meant Orthodox. "Orthodox" meant, I think, very (laughs) Orthodox.

CW:Ultra-Orthodox. (laughs)

RE:Yeah, ultra-Orthodox. So, the language, you had to understand it. So, I had the chance to see how modern Orthodox Israelis live. And that was interesting. So, that's another thing that I did. And then, I ran marathons. I ran three 43:00marathons. I had time to train. I ran the New York City Marathon twice, and that was a special achievement. And things like that. Just on that subject, I bike -- I bike what I call functional biking. Oh, I was biking to work, for fourteen miles each way, from Ozone Park from Oceanside. And that was an achievement. It just took me about an hour. Which was about what it took by car, because of the traffic and the other thing. So, I was really very pleased to be able to do that. But subsequently, I do functional biking. I do maybe five or six hundred miles a year, going two, three, four, five, six miles around, to the bank, to the post office, shopping, whenever I -- wherever I can. And so, that's one of 44:00the things I do. And then -- oh yeah, and there's a lunch group that I -- men's group, since I retired, that was just -- I joined it maybe three years ago or so. We meet weekly, temple group. The rabbi's part of that group. And that is another thing I'm able to do now because I don't work. Yeah.

CW:How has being Jewish played a role in being a teacher and in doing these volunteer activities?

RE:Well, certainly -- certainly I've been informed -- like, the soup kitchen seemed to be a natural expression of my Judaism. And I knew from modeling from my parents that they were involved in helping different -- the shule, the 45:00Histadrut, the Workmen's Circle -- be outside themselves in taking roles, playing important roles sometime, in developing these organization. And my social action activity, at temple -- I'm on the Yom HaShoah planning committee; I'm on interfaith council. So, well, part of being Jewish is affecting the world in which you live in a better way, in a positive way. So, that -- you know, I'm aware of that.

CW:And you talked a little bit about what your parents passed on to you. What did you try to pass on to your children and grandchildren?

RE:(pause) Well, they, uh -- well, my children know, because there wasn't any question about whether they would, let's say, continue with Hebrew school after bar/bat mitzvah, after confirmation in the Reform congregation where I belong, that there was no question but they would continue till the age of eighteen, for example. My middle child, my daughter, said -- when she was taking piano lessons and it was taking time, she said, "I'm not doing both. I'm not taking piano lessons and going to religious school!" So, she stopped taking piano lessons. You know. (laughs) But religious school continued. So, and the things we talk about and the things that they know I do. And most recently, I've got each of 47:00them a subscription to "Moment" magazine. And some of my grandchildren as well. And so, that would be the way that they know, yeah.

CW:And do you -- how do you think your children and grandchildren's identities are different than yours?

RE:Oh. Well, (pause) complicated. One of my grandchildren went on Operation Birthright to Israel, my eldest granddaughter. I have six grandchildren. My 48:00youngest granddaughter, four years old, is in a preschool attached to a local temple. And she's bringing into the home things that the home ordinarily wouldn't. They bring a challah home on Thursday and learn Purim songs and Hanukkah songs. And that pleases me, and they're aware of that. But -- and my son's two daughters were bat mitzvahed. But it's -- it's just that they know -- and when they come to our seder, they know that it's not just a meal, that it's a formal thing. And I ask -- and I let them hear the Four Questions in Yiddish the way I re-- I tell the way I recited it when I was a child. "Papa, vel ikh freygn di fir kashes. Di ershte kashe iz: 'Far vos iz dos nakht andersh fun ale 49:00nekht fun a gants yor?' [Papa, I want to ask the Four Questions. The first question is: 'Why is this night different from all other nights of the year?']" You know, when I read it. Then I give out the papers, you know, with it on there. So, the Yiddish is included in our Passover seder in my home in that respect. And -- so it's communicated not in formal ways, but in ways that they know what's important to us, and --

CW:What would you say have been the major cultural influences in your life?

RE:(pause) Well, I just should mention here, perhaps -- not directly related -- 50:00that one of my interests is singing old American folksongs. As I became interested in them in latter part of high school and college, and I know perhaps fifty or sixty -- a lot of them. And I sing them. I play the guitar -- rudimentarily -- and piano also. And I do it for myself, and sometime I do it in public. And I call them abandoned songs, because even the folk music has grown way past that subsequently. So, these are old songs. Some are labor songs, love songs, children's songs. But old songs. And I have affection for them. And, I --

CW:Can you give an example? One of your favorites?

RE:Well -- (sings) "Oh, the fox went out on a chilly night, and he prayed for the moon to give him light. He'd many a mile to go that night before he'd reach the town-o, town-o, town-o -- many a mile to go that night before he'd reach the town-o." And it goes on and on. And "Hush Little Baby" and -- you know, for children. "I Love My Rooster, My Rooster Loves Me," and "The Green Grass Grows All Around, All Around" -- so I sing it for my granddaughter, and --

CW:So, how'd you get interested in those? I mean, how were you exposed to them first?

RE:Well, when we grew up in the '40s, we had a group of friends who were interested, and we would go to concerts and get recordings and sing together, 52:00somehow. I was able to see Woody Guthrie in person -- you know, I'm old enough. And Lead Belly, as well. Caught Pete Seeger, of course, and Josh White, and -- those are the performers -- and Burl Ives -- you know, Richard Dyer-Bennet. Those are names that are not familiar to you, perhaps, but early folk singers of the '40s and '50s. And --

CW:And how -- you were mentioning the '40s. What historic events were particularly influential for you?

RE:Well, we, um -- we had a club -- Club Lexington, I remember that we were active in political things. We were in high school, and in college. And we carried petitions for Jackie Robinson to be able to play baseball in the Major Leagues, you know, blacks in the Major Leagues -- on issues, progressive issues. I think my parents took me to a May Day parade. Shules, I think, marked the May Day parade. I'm sure, I think, that I'm not thinking of it now. But -- yeah. So --

CW:And how did World War II affect your family, if at all?

RE:Well, we had -- by the way, when we lived in the Bronx, we had boarders. When my sister got married, left the house, we had a bedroom, so we had boarders. But one of the people who lived with us was a child of a friend, a young man. And I shared a room with him. And he would take me places sometime. I was very young. 55:00I was nine, eight or nine. He was killed in North Africa. In that sense, I remember it affected me personally. But no one -- nobody else that I knew was involved in the war directly. Except that the knowledge of the Holocaust became a painful -- painful for us and for my parents. I was in the army in 1954, which was -- the Korean conflict had just ended. And so, I was deferred as a student and as a teacher before that. But I can't think of -- except for the limitations 56:00-- you needed the coupons to buy certain products, collecting aluminum for the war effort, something. So, it really didn't affect me directly. And my father began to work more regularly when the war started. So, it affected us in that way.

CW:Hm. So, can you tell me how today -- you know, if you had to say, articulate, what Yiddish means to you?

RE:Oh, yeah, I didn't tell you about the time -- well, just that the Yiddish is 57:00a -- is a connection to Jewish history. It's a connection to something that was important to my parents. It's a -- when I tell people -- and by the way, I do plan to, uh, to do a fifteen-minute thing on Yiddish in our religious school, just to show them how Yiddish words are in the English vocabulary and let them hear a Yiddish song and just tell them that two-thirds of world Jewry were -- two-thirds of the world Jewry spoke Yiddish before the Second World War. So, I plan to use it in the religious school. But aside from the club and new 58:00evidences that Yiddish still lives in important -- in some places, a new attitude in Israel about Yiddish, changing Yiddi-- it's become part of my emotional connection to my -- to the Jewish history. And so, it's important in that way. Oh, can I go back?

CW:Yeah, go ahead.

RE:So, my -- when I was a teacher, we had the summers off. So, sometimes I worked in camps. And, uh -- so one summer I went on a two-week canoe trip with American Youth Hostel in the Adirondacks, Saranac Lake. Fulton Chain Lakes. And 59:00one summer, I was in the Audubon camp for teachers. Got a scholarship for a conservation camp for several weeks. And one summer, I worked on a Swedish ship for the whole summer, a Swedish merchant marine, and we went from Montreal up the Saint Lawrence, picked up products and -- we were in Havana in 1953, and July 26th, which is the name of the Castro movement -- July 26th Movement. And so, I was walking the streets of Havana, and I found -- I must have looked or something -- Temple Israelita. And I went up, and it - like a big hall, with nothing much happening. It was a -- a wedding had taken place or something. So, 60:00I made that connection while I was there. But that was an exciting summer. We stopped off in Mexico with products, in Florida, and then back. And they wanted me to stay on the ship. They were going back to their home port of Gothenburg in Sweden. And -- but I couldn't, 'cause I was a teacher. You know, I was not adventurous enough to take a leave of absence. But the relationships on the ship with the other men were important. Men from Norway and Sweden. Sometime we'd go in ports together, you know, to places. So, that was an interesting and adventurous part of my life that I look back on with affection. (laughs)

CW:Great. Well, are there other stories that I want to make sure we leave time for?

RE:Well, I wrote some things down here. (pause) No, I described my work in the 61:00Torah group and the soup kitchen and the marathon and the gardening. I'm a active garden-- I like to spend time out of doors, and I -- since I learned about pruning at that course that I told you about, I have shrubbery, and I cut down trees. (laughs) No, and I -- I do a lot of hand things, where other gardeners use a machine and shape it. But I prune a lot of things by hand and take care of things. And enjoy seeing things grow, and I like to spend hours at a time out of doors taking -- it's an excuse to be out --

CW:When did you --

RE:-- taking care of things.

CW:-- when did you learn -- I mean, when did you develop that love of being outdoors?

RE:Um -- I'm not sure. My sister is ninety-one years old, and she goes out with this hand grasper -- you know, claw -- and picks up sticks and throws them out. She's cleaning up her ground with this hand thing. And she was interested in gardening as well. And my other sister, who lived in Dall-- who's passed away in Dallas, did a lot of work. All my sisters were interested in plants and in gardening, as the case may be. And I was thinking of influences. And my mother would take cheese boxes and plant orange seeds and things like that in them. I remember them going to the -- Central Park and taking soil from the park -- 63:00probably stealing, I guess what you call it, what, the taking of soil -- for the cheese boxes. They come in wooden boxes, the cheese, at that time. Perfect size for planting. So, that was developed. And all my siblings and I are interested in gardening. And I'm not -- my father would take us on walks in the park, and to hear the Goldman Band, 'cause we were within walking distance. I think once we slept in the park 'cause it was too hot in the house -- Central Park -- all of us, you know. But I don't know -- it was a real influence.

CW:Did you have any -- did you do anything special for Sukkot?

RE:Um --

CW:In relation to the outdoors?

RE:Well, we had an interesting thing at our temple in that we had joint celebration of Simchat Torah with a Orthodox and Conservative congregation, which is very unusual. And it got national press, I understand. But that worked as long as we visited the Young Israel area. We danced in the streets with the Torahs. Women had to dance in their own circle. But when it came time, we wanted to transfer it to other -- to take a turn, take turns at doing it. That didn't work out -- that couldn't work because they had to go back to their synagogue to finish the service, 'cause hakafot [Hebrew: circular walk or dance at Jewish 65:00celebrations, lit. "the circles"] was part of the service in the -- towards the end, but not quite finished. So, they'd have to walk a half a mile back to finish the service, 'cause they wouldn't pray in our temple. So, it lasted for two or three years, but that has stopped. So, that was unusual for us. But I don't have a personal Sukkah, if that's what you're asking. I celebrate -- I go to shul for all the holidays and yizkor and the minor holidays, pilgrimage holidays, I go. So, I attend synagogue services more than the average person.

CW:Have you noticed any trends or major shifts in culture or, you know, in society, over your lifetime?

RE:Well, I've read a lot about, and I see it that the younger, non-Orthodox Jews are not affiliate very often, more so than in the past, not affiliating themselves with congregation. We have decreasing membership in our temple. Families whose children are bar mitzvahed don't want to go to the expense of continuing their membership in the temple. A bar mitzvah is a puberty rite, not a religious commitment or anything. And I see it in my children as well. We're 67:00trying to convince my daughter that there should be things happening in the home that reflect their Jewishness, that -- 'cause that, I think, is a key place. Not what you learn out there that teachers teach you, but what your family thinks is important becomes important to you. And in that sense, that when I was a young father, I didn't make -- that was not part of our experience. We lit the Shabbos candles in our home, but attending the services was not important to me at that time, and I'm sure the kids sensed that. If you take kids with you when they're young, very young, it becomes an important shared experience. So, I'm aware of 68:00that, and we try to convince, persuade, my daughter of that. But kids are removed -- I mean, not kids -- I mean, young people are removed from religious life. And it's very threatening, I think, for the Jewish people, because it doesn't take too many generations for them to lose the bond. We see families where it goes quickly, the connection. That's --

CW:And what do you think should -- from your perspective, what do you think should be the place of Yiddish within all of this: Jewish education, greater society?

RE:Well, I think, for example, the literature -- um -- I was able -- I've been telling stories and reading part of it to the Yiddish club, each month a different story: Sholem Aleichem story, Peretz stories this year. They know about six or seven Peretz stories. Now I got -- was able to acquire a few in transliteration. We did a story, "Sholem-bayes [Peace in the home]," by Peretz -- a little story. It was a charming story in Yiddish. So anyway, so your question was the connection of Yiddish. I think everybody can appreciate the literature in English, but the knowing that it was written in Yiddish is a 70:00connection. But I don't know how it will develop as a living language. I understand that the Hasidim use it as a language. But they don't use it as a literary language or anything like that. And I understand that they have made it easier for themselves by having every article be male -- "Der -- der tish. Der yingl. Der meydele. [The (masc.) -- the table. The boy. The girl.]" Instead of feminine and masculine, having to learn the difference, they just say "der" for everything. So, you know, easy. Easier. And so, I understand that's happening with it. But I don't know what the future holds, and I can't imagine. But I'm struck by the wonderful stories.

CW:Have you had any contact with the resurgence of interest in Yiddish, Yiddish music, Yiddish -- I mean, young people learning Yiddish or any of that?

RE:(pause) No. We go to the local -- we belong to the Workmen's Circle. We go to the local East Meadow branch, when they have lectures and song, monthly things sometime. But very few young families. But when I get their bulletin, I look at their bulletin, and I see kids do attend their shule. I see evidence of their 72:00artwork, kids' artwork, around, and I -- and young parents are anxious for their kids to know Yiddish. So, there are some shules -- very few -- still around. I know -- so there's one on Long Island. But you have to put yourself out, and it's -- and it's very hard. You have to have the parent committed to it for that to transmit Yiddishkayt through Yiddish language. You can't just do it by sending them to shule. You have -- the parent -- it has to be important to the parent in other wa-- be shown in other ways.

CW:Well, I just want to return briefly to this group of friends. And can you tell me how they've been important over the course of your life, how that group has played a role in your life?

RE:Well, I -- one of the friends is a particular interest in Yiddish and the work that I do with the Yiddish club. His son is a fellow here now, on the staff here, and that young man's history is -- I very often describe it to friends as what's happening with Yiddish in some cases -- his trajectory into the Yiddish world. But -- and we -- and my wife is very supportive of my Yiddish work. Words 74:00come back to her, words she spoke to her grandmother, words she hasn't heard in fifty or sixty years, she knows the meaning of because she -- somehow it's part of her unconscious. It's amazing; that's an amazing thing. Obscure words, you know, she knows the meaning. But she's very supportive. And I know I get the general -- oh, and another friend from the Bronx, his -- a wife of one of the guys is intere-- so I'm able to share some of my work in Yiddish with them. And it's appreciated. And -- but the group -- we talk about our health, and we're frightened of -- one of the friends now has mental disabilities, forgetting reality. So, only three of the men have -- of the seven -- have all of their 75:00faculties. And they're talking about losing their facts. But, so we're concerned about growing older and -- but we're all important to each other, and we're all aware of what we mean to each other. Yeah.

CW:Well, do you have -- I want to wrap up here so you can get back -- do you have a favorite Yiddish word or phrase?

RE:Well, uh -- (pause) no, but I used the expression recently "Amerike ganef 76:00[America the thief]" in writing an email. One of the friends -- "What does that mean?" So, I explain its usage, what it means. Well, we don't know how it got to mean that. 'Cause the literal meaning is "America thief." "Ganef" is a thief. And it means, "Isn't this land wonderful?" "Amerike ganef" is "Look what the wonderful things you find in America." So, we don't know how it got connected to the -- well, this is the recent occurrence of trying to connect words. And so, sometime I use Yiddish expressions as a natural way of expressing a feeling or an idea, with our -- you know. So, that was one I used recently in an email that required translation via someone. But -- anyway, I appreciate the -- your 77:00interest. (laughs) And I think we've covered all the --

CW:Okay.

RE:-- subjects that I have written down. (pause) My sisters and my Hebrew school and the Yiddish club and the senior camp -- the senior camp, I've worked at for ten years. I -- it's a Jewish camp. It's a -- I tell a little vignette -- people get off from a bus after traveling for four hours, very often, or longer, and 78:00most -- a lot of people ask where the restroom is or go and get some juice or whatever. But this fellow gets off the bus and says, "What time is mincha?" So, what's important to them in his mind. So, I've gotten the connection to an Orthodox world, which I didn't have before, about habits and customs that are very interesting for me. But I'm able to relate to them comfortably. I developed outdoor games that I lead: croquet and bocce games, and Frisbee golf, which I developed as a game, which is throwing a Frisbee and getting it into a laundry basket or into a hula-hoop that's on the ground and count how many strokes it takes you. So, I helped people have fun, and it become important. I get a lot of satisfaction from that. And it's my connection to a part of the Jewish life that 79:00I've never experienced -- to say kiddush if there's not a man at the table on Friday night, the women go to the rabbi's place for him to say kiddush, and for them to have wine, he pours wine from his cup into their cup. You know, you may be -- people may be critical of that, that you need a man -- that women are dependent on men to say the kiddush wine. But it's their custom. And I can appreciate knowing their custom. And so many other things at camp. But I relate easily to them. I enjoy the talks, and the way that some secular and religious people can live together in that setting is a beautiful setting. So, that's 80:00become important. My wife is having a problem with her leg, so I don't know if we're going back this year, but I've been doing it for ten years. And I take them on walks in the woods, trail walks, and we appreciate that together.

CW:How'd you get involved in that camp?

RE:Oh, we had a friend who was a bridge teacher. And he moved to Baltimore, and we didn't get to see him much. He said, "Why don't you come work at camp?" I said, "I have no skills that would allow me to work at -- I'm not a lifeguard." I can't -- I couldn't imagine. I didn't know what happened there. So anyway, I got an interview, and they tried me out, and I was able to do these things successfully and add things to their -- those games are something that I introduced. And I enjoy the woods, so that was a natural thing for me. But I have discussion groups. And I have Yiddish sessions, as I said, as well. Oh, 81:00this is -- once we had a large Russian population of Jews there, and they didn't know -- so they said, Look, you could do your Yiddish jokes with them. So, they assigned me to the group, and it was a large group. But they all spoke in heavy accents, different accents, and quickly. And I was breaking up into a cold sweat. When they told jokes, I laughed when they laughed 'cause I figured that was the time to laugh. But I had trouble understanding them. And so, they -- so that was the only time we did anything like that. But -- and I talked to them about Yiddish, why some Russians remember Yiddish -- oh yeah, I engaged them in 82:00conversation -- and some that don't know any Yiddish. And they -- the general response is those that grew up in big cities forgot their Yiddish, don't know Yiddish, and in smaller towns they spoke Yiddish and know it. So, that was -- I found that of interest. So, they know at camp that I'm the Yiddish guy. You know, even though they speak better than me, that I'm the guy who's interested in Yiddish. So, I know Yiddish songs. At the oneg, I'll sing "Gey ikh mir sphatsirn [I'm going for a walk]," you know, a song like that. And "Hob ikh mir an altn daym [I have an old dime]," a drinking song, "a daym gornisht mayn [a dime that's not mine at all]." So, they know that I like Yiddish and I know some Yiddish, and I've convinced them by that poem that I can speak Yiddish. But actually, I can't. So, you know, so Yiddish is a important part of my work at 83:00the camp too, in terms of they know that this non-Orthodox person -- I don't wear a yarmulke around camp or make them think that I'm anything other. They know that Yiddish is important to me. But for many of them Yiddish is not an intellectual thing or a new thing; it's part of their personal history. So, they won't come to classes very often because Yiddish is not something you study or learn about, something you do. So, it's a different role that Yiddish plays in their life and the people who do come to class. But the Shakespeare thing interests -- people get a kick out of hearing -- we do not only Marc Antony's speech but a sonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet, with two different translations, one a gedikhte yidish -- a literary, Germanic Yiddish -- and one with a more easily 84:00understood Yiddish, you know, translated. They find that interesting. And I do Ecclesiastes in Yiddish, from Yehoash. "There's a time for everything under the heavens," right? "A season for everything"? In Yiddish, and they enjoy hearing that. And I enjoy reading that as well. And Song of Songs, I get from Yehoash. And I have English translation, and we do that as a way of Yiddish being transplaced, out of place, from -- so that's an interesting program that's popular in camp, and I use my Yiddish there.

CW:Well, you may not have a favorite Yiddish phrase, but do you have a favorite Yiddish song?

RE:Well, I -- oh, I mentioned, um -- well, this -- (sings) "Hob ikh mir an altn 85:00daym, tra-da-day-da-da-day-day./Iz der daym gornisht mayn, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Lomir ale freylekh zayn, kumt mit mir in shenk arayn, trinken bronfn, trinken vayn, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Hobn mir a gantsn toler, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/bin ikh mir dem gantsn tsoler, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Lomir ale freylekh zayn, kumt mit mir in shenk arayn, trinken bronfn, trinken vayn, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day. [I have an old dime, tra-da-day-da-da-day-day./The dime isn't actually mine, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Let's all be happy, come into the bar with me, drink some whiskey, drink some wine, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./We have a whole dollar, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/I can cover it all myself, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Let's all be happy, come into the bar with me, drink some whiskey, drink some wine, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day.]" And there's other verses. "Lomir nit zayn vi di alte bobes, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/lomir makhn fun mikh far shobes, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day. [Let's not be like the old grandmas, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/let's make Shabbos for ourselves, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day.]" And the chorus. And -- oh. "Hob ikh" -- the politically incorrect "Hob ikh nit keyn vayb un kind, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/bin ikh fray vi der vind, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Lomir ale freylekh zayn, kumt mit mir in shenk 86:00arayn, trinken bronfn, trinken vayn, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day. [I don't have a wife and child, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day,/I'm as free as the wind, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day./Let's all be happy, come into the bar with me, drink some whiskey, drink some wine, tra-da-day-da-da-da-day-day.]"

CW:Thank you. (laughs)

RE:You're welcome.

CW:Well, I just want to close with one final question: given all this amazing life experience that you have, what advice do you have for future generations?

RE:Well, some of the advice I gave, in terms of sending children to learn is different from what you teach them by the things -- like I mentioned, I even looked at the mail my father got about what was important to him, what organizations he belonged to. League for Industrial Democracy, something like that. You know, so I knew things that were important to him, and that became important to me. So, even if it's religious or cultural or Yiddish, if it's just 87:00out there, not part of what you do or tell your children or -- you can't tell them; they just have to see you do it. And that's the way your values are transmitted. I don't know how you transmit Yiddish values, except that if you get email from Yiddish organizations, things, or magazines from "Pakn Treger" that comes into the house -- you know, that's transmitted because -- that becomes important to you, and the kids see that.

CW:Great. Well, thank you. Anything else --

RE:Well, thank you, Christa --

CW:-- you want to add?

RE:-- for listening, and --

CW:It's been great.

RE:-- letting me sing.

CW:Of course! It's wonderful. (laughter)

[END OF INTERVIEW]