Skip to main content

Search the Special Collections and Archives Portal

Transcript of interview with Jack Lehman by by Claytee White, October 17, 2007

Document

Document
Download OH_01099_book_o.pdf (application/pdf; 27.67 MB)

Information

Narrator

Date

2007-10-17

Description

Judge Jack Lehman is living the life we should all strive for - a wonderful family, a work ethic that has allowed him to serve others while enjoying a magnificent life and above all a great love affair with his beautiful artistic wife, Lou Lou. From Chemnitz, Germany, at the beginning of the Nazi reign to a prominent citizen of Las Vegas, Lehman lives an extraordinary Las Vegas life. Born in Germany in the late 1920s, Jack and his sister were sent to the United States in 1935 and after a series of living situations including a orphanage in New York, they were adopted by the Lehman family in Lake Arrowhead, California. As a young boy, he wanted to become a lawyer. After a degree from Berkeley, two tours of military duty, a stint in radio broadcasting, and serving as the Director of the Nevada Department of Economic Development, he entered law school at USC. Lehman's career in the legal field began at the largest law firm in the city - Lionel Sawyer and Collins - and then into private practice and on to the bench as a District Court judge appointed by Governor Richard Bryan. In February 2008, he was honored by judges and friends statewide as the founder of Nevada's Adult Criminal Drug Court Program commonly known as "drug court." Washoe County District Judge Peter Breen said it best, "The state is a much better place because of Jack. All those people came back from the abyss of addiction because of Jack."

Digital ID

OH_01099_book

Physical Identifier

OH-01099
Details

Citation

Lehman, Jack Interview, 2007 October 17. OH-01099. [Transcript.] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections & Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada

Rights

This material is made available to facilitate private study, scholarship, or research. It may be protected by copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity rights, or other interests not owned by UNLV. Users are responsible for determining whether permissions are necessary from rights owners for any intended use and for obtaining all required permissions. Acknowledgement of the UNLV University Libraries is requested. For more information, please see the UNLV Special Collections policies on reproduction and use (https://www.library.unlv.edu/speccol/research_and_services/reproductions) or contact us at special.collections@unlv.edu

Standardized Rights Statement

Digital Provenance

Digitized materials: physical originals can be viewed in Special Collections and Archives reading room

Language

English

Geographic Coordinate

36.17497, -115.13722

Format

image/tiff

An Interview with Judge Jack Lehman An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University Nevada Las Vegas, 2007 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director and Editor: Claytee D. White Assistant Editors: Gloria Homol and Delores Brownlee Transcribers: Kristin Hicks and Laurie Boetcher Interviewers and Project Assistants: Suzanne Becker, Nancy Hardy, Joyce Moore, Andres Moses, Laura Plowman, Emily Powers, Dr. Dave Schwartz ii ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Name of Narrator: Name of Interviewer: f Use Agreement J-ZttMAti. rfAr.tr ~77 We, the above named, give to tfie O/al History Research Center of UNLV, the recorded interview(s) initiated on —/0 j / "JjdOd / as an unrestricted gift, to be used for such scholarly and educational puiyiose^ as shall be determined, and transfer to the University of Nevada Las Vegas, legal tide and all literary property rights including copyright. This gift does not preclude die right of the interviewer, as a representative of UNLV, to use the r e c o i d i n g s a n d r e l a t e d m a t e r i a l s f o r s c h o l a r l y p u r s u i t s . I h e r e will b e n o compensation f o r any interviews. ^ Signature of brerviewer Library Special Collections 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010, Las Vegas, Nevada 89154-7070 (702) 895-2222 The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer and the Library Advisory Committee. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Nevada, Las Vegas iv Preface Judge Jack Lehman is living the life we should all strive for - a wonderful family, a work ethic that has allowed him to serve others while enjoying a magnificent life and above all a great love affair with his beautiful artistic wife, Lou Lou. From Chemnitz, Germany, at the beginning of the Nazi reign to a prominent citizen of Las Vegas, Lehman lives an extraordinary Las Vegas life. Born in Germany in the late 1920s, Jack and his sister were sent to the United States in 1935 and after a series of living situations including a orphanage in New York, they were adopted by the Lehman family in Lake Arrowhead, California. As a young boy, he wanted to become a lawyer. After a degree from Berkeley, two tours of military duty, a stint in radio broadcasting, and serving as the Director of the Nevada Department of Economic Development, he entered law school at USC. Lehman's career in the legal field began at the largest law firm in the city - Lionel Sawyer and Collins - and then into private practice and on to the bench as a District Court judge appointed by Governor Richard Bryan. In February 2008, he was honored by judges and friends statewide as the founder of Nevada's Adult Criminal Drug Court Program commonly known as "drug court." Washoe County District Judge Peter Breen said it best, "The state is a much better place because of Jack. All those people came back from the abyss of addiction because of Jack." Table of Contents Growing up in Lake Arrowhead, CA; early schooling; moving to the United Stated from Germany; attending Berkeley; entering the military the first time and becoming a paratrooper; second tour of military - Korean War in psychological warfare 1 - 7 Radio announcer in Prescott, Arizona; 1955 move to Las Vegas; advertising and broadcasting work; joined Grant Sawyer's campaign for governor; Director of the Nevada Department of Economic Development; Life in Carson City 8-14 Civil Rights in Nevada; law school at USC in Los Angeles 15-18 Wife, Lou-Lou and home in Las Vegas; working for biggest law firm in town - Lionel Sawyer and Collins; private practice; Appointment to the bench 18 - 22 Children; civic activities; Las Vegas entertainment in the early years; friends 23-28 Teaching at UNLV 29-30 VI 1 It is October 17th, 2007. And I'm with Mr. Jack Lehman this morning in his home in Las Vegas. How are you doing today? I'm doing fine. Thank you. Good. And could you spell your last name for my transcriber? Yes. L-e-h-m-a-n. Tell me where that name is from. I hate to say it, but it's my parents. I was born in Germany. But that was not my name when I was born. I was adopted by the Lehmans. Interesting. So where did you grow up? I grew up in Southern California at a place called Lake Arrowhead. And that's where the Lehmans were. They owned a restaurant and a gas station and a garage. Wow. Lake Arrowhead is that place we all want to go to. It's a lovely place. So tell me about growing up in Lake Arrowhead. Well, it's in the mountains, San Bernardino Mountains. The elevation's about 5200 feet. So we were just about a mile high. And the only drawback to being up there is I would have to take a school bus to San Bernardino every day to go to school once I got into junior high school. So it was a daily trip up and down the mountain 17 miles. And that was kind of interesting. The kids would generally raise hell and I used to be one of them. Did you grow up working in the restaurant and the family businesses? I ran the gas station and the garage because it was right during the beginning of World War II. And it was very difficult to get anybody to do that. At first I worked with a mechanic, but he left for better climes and so forth. So I just ran the gas station and a garage until I graduated from high school. Did you actually fix cars? I actually fixed cars, changed tires and so forth and so on. Oh, that's great. A great place to grow up and you grew up working. Yeah. 2 So when you left there to go to school, where did you decide to go? Well, I decided to go to Berkeley and that was because my sister was there. And she's two and a half years older than me and kind of became my mother when we were sent over here to the United States from Germany. Being Jewish obviously — my mother died of cancer when I was four. My father had heart problems and diabetes and was not healthy. And he had a sister that lived in Los Angeles. And so he wanted to send us to Los Angeles to be raised in the United States. Did he realize that Germany was changing when he sent you here? Enormously obviously. He had been in jail on two separate occasions. They usually released him because he was so sick. So he sent the two of us to the United States. We didn't realize until about a couple of years ago that he died the week after we left Germany. So that was in our file. My sister is a psychiatric social worker, as is my daughter. So I'm surrounded by it. And her husband is a psychiatrist. And so I'm surrounded by psychological people. Through research you were able to find that out. Do you think he maybe knew he was dying? Oh, yeah. I think he did definitely. He was a sick man. The thing was we were being raised by my grandmother, anyway. And my grandmother was not Jewish. My mother was not Jewish, but she converted when she married my father. And, in fact, she kept a kosher house. So she took the religion very seriously. And that was how I got started and came to the United States. How old were you when you came to the United States? I was seven and my sister was nine and a half. So you remember some of that? Oh, yeah. Tell me about those memories of coming to the United States, you and your sister. Well, first of all, I realized that something pretty bad was going on in Germany. There were, you know, a lot of young men in uniform. And periodically - I only went to a parade once because on that occasion several of the Nazis broke from the ranks and saw some people who were Jewish who were identified by the fact that they wore a yellow Star of David on their clothing. And they would beat the hell out of them. So, you know, it obviously frightened me quite a bit. Although I 3 started school over there ~ I went through the first grade over there. Did children have to wear the star, as well? No. And let me know when I'm getting too personal. No. It's all right. Okay, good. When you were sent here, did the people here know why you were being sent? Well, first of all, we came over with a group of 19 young people who were all being sent to the United States to get out of Germany. So that was an organization. I don't know the name of the organization, but my sister did. Matter of fact, she got access to our records. But my sister matured very quickly and she really was the mother figure in my life. And that continues to this day, kind of. That's great. So now, how would you contrast where you lived in Germany to moving to Lake Arrowhead? What was that like, the difference? Oh, obviously ~ the German city, which was called Chemnitz, C-h-e-m-n-i-t-z, is in southern Germany. And that was really where the Nazi Party got its impetus. And so things were turning very bad in our region long before or sometime before the rest of Germany became as militaristic and as outrageous as it became. My grandmother as I say was not Jewish. So she was not harassed at all. And she really raised my sister and I for a good part of the time. My father was a salesman and he would travel to sell things. I don't recall what it was. So our grandmother was really my mother figure until we left Germany. Oh, this is so interesting. Were you part of the Spielberg's oral history project? No. So have you been interviewed about this already? No. Oh, okay. That's interesting. And it sounds like your sister would also — there are organizations within the Jewish community that would probably want to interview your sister, as well. Possibly. She's a psychiatric social worker. 4 They probably would want to interview her. So you grew up in Lake Arrowhead. Went away to college at Berkeley? Yes. And how was that? What was that like? Oh, it was wonderful. I loved Berkeley. However, I was 17 when I graduated from high school. So I only had a short time to go. The selective service, which was the draft, notified me after I had managed to get two semesters in, one a summer session and the other was a regular semester, that I should not start another session because I was going to be called into the service. I was going to be drafted. Now, which year are we talking about now? I graduated from high school in 1945. And we're talking about 1945, 1946. So as the war is ending? The war had ended, as a matter of fact. So were you surprised by that, that they were calling you up? No, not at all. I mean we talked about it in school a lot because it was happening to all the men. In those days they obviously weren't drafting ~ I don't know if today they're drafting women, but they certainly weren't then. Not at that point. So you were drafted? I was not. I waited around for a couple of weeks and got tired of waiting. And so I enlisted for 18 months. Oh, you enlisted. In the army? Yes. And why only 18 months? Because that was the shortest period I could get away with getting into the army. And how was that experience? Did you have to leave the United States? Not at all. Not on that occasion. That was the first time I went into the service. I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, for basic training. And that was kind of a shock because I had never been exposed to — (Indiscernible). 5 — segregation. And I just didn't understand it to tell you the truth. Obviously, we had been, well, made to feel inferior in Germany. And so I could empathize with people in that situation. But it was a very hard situation for me to be in, in that sense because although I was — you know, I'm not obviously Jewish. And so I would hear a lot of anti-semantic remarks. But I was not persecuted in any way because of the fact that I was Jewish. So you got to see Little Rock firsthand. Firsthand. Well, first of all, of course, they don't give you a pass until you've been there about six weeks. So I did get into Little Rock. I would normally when I got on a streetcar or a bus go to the back because that was just where I preferred to sit. And so I got on the bus in Little Rock and went to the back. And they stopped the bus and told me I'd have to move to the front. And I said why? And they said that's reserved for colored people. I said if they don't mind, I don't mind. So they wouldn't move the bus until I moved. So I moved up front. And that was the first head-on clash I had with regard to segregation. Wow. You could have been the first Rosa Parks. Tell me about citizenship. Coming here at seven how did you become a citizen? Through my parents, my adoptive parents. First of all, we lived with a family in Los Angeles. And they were very nice people. They were Jewish because the organization was a Jewish organization. And they had two children, a boy and a girl. And there, too, the girl was older than the boy. So we were kind of raised as part of their family. You know, the family just got four children. We lived with them for approximately two years. And at that time they were going to take a summer trip around the United States. And I think they felt that it was time that we went someplace else. So we went to stay with my aunt first. We later learned that my aunt wouldn't take us when we got to the United States. And that would have killed my father anyway because she was supposedly his favorite sister and he was one of I think 11 children. So that's how we managed to end up with the Lehmans up in Arrowhead. And they adopted us. When they adopted us I became a citizen. Now, why L.A. [Los Angeles]? Why were you sent to L.A.? Because my aunt was there. So the whole goal was to get me - but, you know, it was funny. We 6 arrived in New York. And we were in an orphans' home there. And it was hard to figure out why we weren't being sent to our aunt in Los Angeles because we had been told by our father what a wonderful lady she was and that she had two boys and that we would be going into their family and she would raise us as hers and so forth. Of course, none of that happened because she did not want to take us, oh, unless the Jewish agency paid her. And so they couldn't. They had a rule that if you were going to a relative, they would not pay the relative. If you were going to a home such as we did for the two years that we lived in the place, they would pay a small amount of money to the family. And she felt she was entitled to that I guess. And so she didn't want to take us, which is frightening because, you know, my grandmother heard about this and she told them to send us back to Germany. You know, thank goodness they didn't do that. Yeah. So let's go on with Berkeley. So how did you decide on law school? I think I wanted to be a lawyer from the time I started school. First of all, I enjoyed school and I got good grades. In those days you didn't need the grades. I don't know if I could get into Berkeley now days. I know how tough it is, and any of the big schools. So I had decided early on I think that I wanted to be a lawyer because I had the feeling that a lawyer could protect himself from bad people and that it was a good profession and interesting. And I always enjoyed social sciences. So that's why I decided to become a lawyer. So I probably decided that at about age 12 or 13, something like that. Did you take any special classes along the way that you thought — You know, you really couldn't do that in high school. You were given a curriculum and you took it. And it was a generalized curriculum. Four years of school and then law school? Four years at Berkeley. I graduated and that was when I went into the service the first time and got to Little Rock and so forth. And from Little Rock I went to Fort Benning, Georgia. My closest friend in the army had the notion that he really wanted to go through jump school, parachute school. And I wasn't too anxious to do that. It scared the hell of me just the thought of it, you know. He said, well, what we'll do is ~ it's a six weeks' course, the jump school. And he said we'll go through five weeks and they'll really get us in good shape. And then once we're in good shape — you could quit anytime you want in the paratroops. So we decided we'd go 7 through five weeks and in the sixth week we'd quit before we had to jump out of airplanes. Although in the fifth week they haul you up 250-foot towers and drop you with a parachute on. But that isn't quite as tough as running out of an airplane and hoping that the chute opens. Did you quit in the fifth week? No, we certainly didn't. You know, we were being paid $50 a month in those days. And shortly after that it was raised to $75. Actually, that was a lot more money than we would consider it today. But when we got to the sixth week — we don't get any of the money — you start getting jump pay the minute you — which is an additional $50 a month. So it was double the pay that I was making. But you don't get that until you graduate from jump school. Besides that by then, you know, we had acquired a certain amount of pride. You know, paratroopers think they're the greatest thing on earth and that they can beat any five guys that they have to if they have to. And they teach you how to fight and how to take care of yourself. So in that sense I kind of enjoyed it. In the fifth week you learned to pack your own parachute because that's the one you're going to jump, the first one you're going to jump because you do five jumps in five days. So by the time we got to the sixth week, we said what the hell; let's just go ahead and this isn't so bad and we can stay in good shape and so forth. So we did. I had a year to go by the time I finished jump school. So I just stayed at Fort Benning. I was assigned to a demonstration jumping outfit. They would take usually a company of men. And we would do a demonstration jump and show what we did when we hit the ground and how we got ready for combat and so forth and so on. So I did that for a year and then got out. What was it like jumping out of a plane that first time? You know, it's interesting. The easiest jump was the first because you don't know what the hell's happening. So you just kind of lose consciousness, but you're still moving. And you stand up in an airplane with about 36 other men, 18 sitting on each side of the plane. And they open the door. And there's the rush of air. And then they say go. And there are lights there - the red for don't go, the yellow for get ready, and the green for go. And once they go, you're allowed three-quarters of a second in the doorway. Because if you don't get out in that period of time, the men on the end of what they call the stick — they call one row of men a stick — will end up off the drop zone and then they can get hurt. So you really get out of there fast. 8 And, you know, I don't remember a heck of a lot other than this great rush of air hitting me in the face. And I kept my eyes shut until the chute opened. The chute opens automatically? Yeah. Oh, yeah. The way the parachutes are packed there's what they call a static line, which is about, oh, I'd say 12 to 14 feet long. And that's laced back and forth in the chute. When you go out the force of going out pulls off the back of the chute and it just opens up by itself. Oh, I thought you had to pull a cord. Don't have to pull anything. Oh. Then it's not as bad as I thought. Well, that would take extra time for one thing. And we would jump normally at about 800 feet. So you had just a certain amount of time for that chute to open or you were going to be splattered all over the ground. Wow. So this is wonderful. What a great start. Well, you know, it gave me a tremendous amount of self-confidence. And you grow up pretty fast and you learn to associate with other people, all kinds of other people. So in that sense it was very interesting. Oh, I can imagine that. So after that you then went to law school? Oh, a long time after that. I hadn't been to Berkeley yet except for two semesters. So when I got out I went back to — let's see. I got out of the service and stayed with the Lehmans for a while. They still had the restaurant. So I was helping with the gas station. They had a full-time mechanic at that time. Then my sister was already in Berkeley. And so I decided I would go to Berkeley. And I went back to Berkeley. I had the GI bill. And between the GI bill and money that I had saved, I was able to get through Cal. I graduated in 1951. Got married in 1950. Met my lovely wife at Berkeley. And then I was recalled into the service for the second time because in order to go through ROTC and get that $50 a month, I had to sign up for the Reserve. And so I was in the Reserve. And once again I was told, you know, don't think you're going to be doing anything because you're going to be recalled. 9 And my military occupation special ~ they call it MOS number ~ was platoon leader rifle platoon. And so, you know, I knew I was slated. The Korean War had started two days after I got into summer camp, which was at Fort Lewis, Washington, if you're in advanced ROTC. All the men had to take ROTC for two years. And if you wanted to become an officer, you had to go two more years. And you were in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, ROTC. So I had joined that to make the extra money so that we could ~ plus I would work three days a week and go to school three days a week. I worked for a company called Sunbeam Corporation, which makes appliances. And I would demonstrate their appliances in the Bay Area every Saturday. Then I would ~ no. Actually, I worked Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday because Monday, Wednesday and Friday I'd have classes. I set my classes up that way. So once again after I graduated from Berkeley, we stayed in Los Angeles. Her parents were living there. And we lived with them. And I was looking for a job in commercial radio because I just had been interested. I thought that I would like to become a radio announcer and a disc jockey and things like that. What was your major? My major was general curriculum. So that qualified me for anything. And it was with the idea of getting to law school because I had decided I wanted to become a lawyer as I said early on. So let's see. This would be 19 — 1 got out of the service in '47. So it would be '47 to '51. And when I graduated the second time, I was told I was going to be recalled into the service, which I was. They had promised when I signed up for ROTC that I would be allowed to finish Berkeley no matter what. If an emergency arose I would still be allowed to finish Berkeley, but I would then be called into the service but as an officer. And, of course, having been an enlisted man — I was discharged as a PFC — it was quite different because you were really treated as a gentleman and you got better quarters, better food, better everything. What rank did you go — I was a second lieutenant. So shortly thereafter, I received my orders to go to Fort Benning, Georgia, to the infantry school. And I went to see - I had helped - an officer in the army had run an ad in the Daily Cal, which was our daily newspaper at Berkeley. And they were looking for people to get into a psychological warfare unit. So I thought to myself, jeez, if I'm going to be 10 recalled, I'd like to be in psy-war. And so I went to this officer and said I think I can fill your whole unit for you — he was starting this new unit at the Presidio in San Francisco ~ because I said there's plenty guys like me that know we're going to be going into the service and would rather get in to something like psychological warfare. So the guy said fine. And I did fill his whole unit for him. But before I — well, it took months to get clearance. You had to be cleared for secret in order to get into psychological warfare. Well, after my orders for Fort Benning, Georgia, came through, I contacted the fellow that was in charge of the unit that I had helped put together. And he said, well, don't worry about it, Jack. You'll get new orders and that will rescind your orders there. And you'll be going to Fort Riley, Kansas, to psychological warfare school. And I said that's great. Well, I held my breath. But sure enough, a couple weeks later my orders came through rescinding the old orders and sending me to Fort Riley, Kansas, to psychological warfare school. I went through psychological warfare school there and then went through intelligence school. And then, you know, I was waiting for something to happen. And I got orders that I was going to go to Korea — or go to the Far East, called FECOM. So in the meantime, my wife got pregnant and she came home early and had our first child, who was a boy. And I got a 30-day furlough before I had to go over to the Far East. And I was going over as a psychological warfare man. And so that relieved me. And I was kind of looking forward to the experience because I knew I'd get some good experience, which it was. It was really interesting. Our station was the mother station — it was a radio ~ of an 18-station network that broadcast. We had very powerful transmitters. And we could be heard for ~ I don't know -- five hundred, a thousand miles away. So everything we put out was in Korean and in Chinese. So I had 200 Koreans working for me who were linguist in both Chinese and, obviously, Korean because that was their native language. So I ended up being in Korea for ten months. I got to spend a month with my son after he was born. And for having to be in Korea, which certainly wasn't a nice place at that time because it was a war zone and it had been for sometime — when I got in the borderlines had already been 1 1 changed four times because the North Koreans invaded first and they came almost all the way down to Pusan, which was in the southern tip of Korea. And then the Americans pushed them back. And we started going into North Korea. And we got to the 38th parallel and that's when the Chinese entered the war. And so they pushed the Americans and the Korean soldiers back down and didn't get as far as they had before. But then we counterattacked and we managed to get them up to the 38th parallel where it stayed until the war finally ended. And that was after I had gotten out of the service and everything. So my experience in the service was I was running a radio network, which was exciting. And I was writing. I was supposed to have eight writers assigned to me and I only had three. So between the four of us, we wrote newscasts, news commentaries, radio scripts and dramas. You know, I got tremendous writing experience. And I was already a good typist. So I learned to type very fast. Actually, you know, it wasn't — I was lonely. I missed my wife tremendously and my son, obviously. And so I was over there in Korea for ten months and then came back home and was separated from the service. I was by now a first lieutenant. And they said they would make me a captain if I would reenlist. And I said no; I think I want to get the hell out of here, you know; I've got a family that I want to be with. Her parents were living in Monrovia at that time just outside of Pasadena. And so we were living there with them. Then they moved here to Las Vegas. My father-in-law just loved this area. He loved the desert and he was a hiker, which I became because I like to hike. So we stayed there until I was able to find a job. You know, I thought in L.A. [Los Angeles] I would be able to find a job easily because that's the head — (End Tape 1, Side A.) I was looking for a job, but I couldn't find it in Southern California because the stations wanted people with experience. So some kind soul at one of the stations said, look, you ought to go to a place called Southern California Broadcasters Association and they have members, which are small radio stations, all over the Western United States; so why don't you go down there and sign up with them, which I did. And within a week they said there is an opening in Prescott, Arizona, which I said, well, where is Prescott? And they said, well, it's in Central Arizona and it's at 12 5200 feet high. So I said, well, hell, that's the elevation that I was raised at; so that's fine. So my wife wasn't too thrilled. But we moved to Prescott, Arizona, which was a city of about 10,000 people. And for two years I broke into commercial radio. I learned to do everything there was to do. In a small station you do everything. You sell airtime. You write the commercials. You write good news commentaries. You do newscasts. You're a disc jockey. It was a postgraduate course in getting into radio and being paid for it, not a lot because I think I was making about $75 a week when I started that job. And I was making about $125 when I quit. And because my in-laws had moved here, we decided to move to Las Vegas. In the meantime, my wife became pregnant with our second child, who is our daughter. So we lived here. We moved here to Las Vegas, which was very small. I mean there were 50,000 people here. Which year was that? That was 1955 because I was separated from the service in '53 and we moved here in '55. Other than that, we lived the two years in Prescott, Arizona. I have one question. The work that you were doing when you were in the psychological warfare unit, would we consider that propaganda today? Yes. It is propaganda. Yeah, that's what it was called. So no question. We would tell the truth. Our rules required that we tell the truth, but we could slant it, you know, which we did. So the writing experience I got there, it would have taken going to a university in the United States and I wouldn't have been getting paid for it. While I was in Korea I was making — let's see. Well, I was making about $400 a month. And that was quite good. So anyway, I was recalled and we went to Fort Riley, Kansas. So I went through psychological warfare school, an intelligence school, and then waited to be sent overseas because I knew I was going to be going to the Far East Command. But in the meantime, I got to spend 30 days with my wife and son because my in-laws had moved to Las Vegas. So you came to Las Vegas in 1955 after Prescott. Tell me what Las Vegas looked like then. Well, it was a relatively small city of 50,000 people. As a matter of fact, now days as I look back on it, Maryland Parkway stopped at what was then called San Francisco Street, but it's now called Sahara. We lived right near Sahara ~ and it had changed to Sahara ~ and Maryland Parkway. That was the first. We lived in some duplexes there. Then we bought a house. 13 I bought a house. I had two GI bills. So I had all kinds of easy things. And in those days you could get — I think we paid about $19,000 for the house. My payments on the house, which was a 30-year loan, were $101 a month. And, you know, that was cheaper than most rents here in Las Vegas at that time. Of course, at that time in 1955, Las Vegas was just exploding. They were building new hotels all the time. No hotel was higher than two floors at that time. In about 1957 or '58, the Riviera was built. My father-in-law was in the finance business. And he had been in that business for a long time. And so I went to work for him and actually learned the finance business. I got a job in an advertising agency, also. So I had two jobs because I really wanted to get into radio and television. And so I was working for different radio and television stati