Transcript from interview with Sari and Paul Aizley by Barbara Tabach, November-December, 2015

AN INTERVIEW WITH PAUL & SARI AIZLEY An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. 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 University of Nevada Las Vegas 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 accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Paul Aizley was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1936. He earned degrees at Harvard University, University of Arizona and his doctorate at Arizona State University. His 1968 move to Las Vegas was to begin a long career at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. From 1968 to 2008, Paul Aizley served UNLV in a variety of important capacities: a mathematics professor, dean of Continuing Education for 13 years, and the founder of the popular programs of OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.) In 2008 he was encouraged to run for the vacant District 41 State Assembly office. He won and held the position from 2009 ? 2015. Among the legislations he championed was one to advance gender equity. He continues to be an active Democrat, firm that there are not enough seniors in these positions. Sari (Guffenberg) Aizley was born in Newark, New Jersey and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she was in a Jewish minority. She moved to Las Vegas shortly before Paul, who she would not meet until their paths crossed at UNLV. Sari was a single mother who worked for UNLV, where she also earned her undergraduate and master?s degrees. Sari?s resume includes working for the Jewish Family Services, ACLU, selling advertising for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and starting the memorable CLASS! with her son David Phillips and Paul. For 16 years, CLASS! was distributed to the students of Clark County schools; featuring articles for and by the students. For this oral history they highlight many of their accomplishments as individuals. Together they create a valuable legacy for the entire Las Vegas community, both Jewish and non-Jewish. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Paul & Sari Aizley November 13, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv SESSION 1 Tell the story of how they met while at UNLV working in university?s president office. Paul talks about being director of summer programs, Dean of Continuing Education until 2008, and being a founder of EXCELL which later became OLLI [Osher Lifelong Learning Institute]. Sari was on the Jewish Family Services board during that period and its connection with the history of continuing education?????????????????????????..?.1 ? 5 Sari talks about family Russian ancestry; settling in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; family grocery; father was a clothing factory cutter. Paul recalls his family history of settling in Boston; regrets not learning Yiddish; growing up with Italians; discovering that he grew up near another Las Vegas resident, Mimi Katz. Each tells story of how they ended up living in Las Vegas: Paul, a Harvard alum; Sari moved from upstate New York to follow her former husband who was offered a position at UNLV. Both began living in Las Vegas in 1967-1968????..?.5 ? 15 Recollections of Las Vegas was like in the late 1960s; Paul went to dealers school; working for UNLV President Don Baepler. Sari worked for Channel 5 TV station; getting involved with IBEW [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers] union; then worked for Las Vegas Review-Journal for six years; helped initiate classroom program of newspapers???..16 ? 21 Sari and Paul talk about Allied Arts Council, starting Art and the Great Outdoors using open billboards and involving Roger Thomas as a judge. Started CLASS! Newspaper in 1994; son David involved; Paul?s involvement with ACLU; more about civic organizations they were active in including Nevada Faculty Alliance; assorted publications Sari became responsible for at UNLV??????????????????????????????.??..22 ? 29 Sari talks about being on board of Jewish Family Services role in the community of Las Vegas (1987-); the mission to assist people in need, not just Jewish; who was on the staff at the time; how she put together a newspaper for fundraising, sold ads????????????.29 ? 31 Paul speaks about being faculty senate chair at UNLV; working for the university President Baepler; stepping into local politics; becoming assemblyman for District 41; working on a bill for transgender rights; the important role that older members of the Nevada Assembly can play. vi Mention names of other notable Jewish people in local and state politics, such as Flora Dungan and Myrna Williams???????????????????..????????31 ? 35 Talk about the significance of being Jewish in their lives. Paul describes growing up Jewish in Boston; raising their blended family of children?????????????????36 - 37 SESSION 2 Begins with conversation looking at copies of CLASS!, a publication that the Aizley?s started with son David Phillips in 1994; publication written for and by high school students. Talk about Elise (Ax) Wolff; how CLASS! was created and distributed; getting funding for it; support from leaders in the community, many who were Jewish. Sari talks about her thesis on how to start a nonprofit organization and researching Justice Thurgood Marshall. Talks about the success of CLASS!, closing it and donating equipment to Judi Steele and Public Education Foundation; the Review-Journal?s Regeneration page for school articles and competition with them; Spanish language section of CLASS!.................................................................................................38 ? 48 Paul describes the Alliance, the American Association of University Professors, a national group and newsletter; adjusting to technologies and tools in doing publications, eventually on a Mac/Apple computer???????????????????????????49 ? 51 Paul talks about education and the number of Jewish teachers. More about Jewish upbringing in Boston; importance of education for him; attending Harvard University; and long lasting friendships. Sari talks about growing up in Lancaster PA, where few Jews lived; being picked on by a teacher; cultural impact of being Jewish; assimilation of Jews into American culture; Yiddish????????????????????????????????..52 ? 55 Speak about raising children; sense of Jewish identity; Paul being only Jew in the Nevada Assembly at one time and then enough to form a Jewish caucus; irritation with prayer at the Assembly????????????????????????????????56 ? 58 Talk about ACLU and observations of anti-Semitism here; friction between northern and southern groups of Nevada?s ACLU. Anecdotes about FOCUS, Myrna Williams, Flora Dungan, George Rudiak, and others that they associated with. Story about hiring of Coach Jerry Tarkanian; how Sari came to be hired by ACLU in 1989; her experiences there????.59 ? 66 Share 1977 article written by Sari about the Southern Nevada ACLA Strategies and Tactics; story about JFSA fund-raising dinner and newspaper she published, sought advertisers; 1977 summer course listings and cover art using??????????????????...67 ? 69 Index??????????????????????????.???????.70 ? 71 vii viii 1 This is Barbara Tabach. Today is Friday, the 13th, November 13, 2015. I am sitting with Paul and Sari Aizley. Tell me how you two met. PAUL: We met at UNLV when I was working in the president's office and directing the summer term. Sari was in the publications office. SARI: I was the publications director. PAUL: Trying to design the cover for my summer bulletin. We had really met long before that, but that's really when we got to know each other. You walked into the office or you asked her out on a date? What else do you remember about this? SARI: We actually met less formally before that as the president's office was just across the hall from my office and I would sometimes hang out over there and talk with secretaries. He came in and I really loved his beard. I mean that just really attracted me. He had a great beard. We started talking there and we got very friendly there. Then after that was when he had to use my professional university services and he came to me for a cover for the summer bulletin. PAUL: Which was designed with someone's foot on a skateboard and I thought the foot was ugly. SARI: It was a man's beat up foot, barefoot, this big on the cover. PAUL: We agreed on a compromise with repeated feet on the board so it looked like it had some motion to it as a summer activity. So what year was that? Approximately. PAUL: 1974, maybe, around then. 2 So in 1974, Paul, how long had you been living in Las Vegas at that time? I arrived in 1968. I had been in the math department as assistant prof. Elected to senate from Science/Math College; ran for the chair of the senate and lost (1969-70), but I won the next year (1971-72). Then after that year, which is now about '74, I was working in the president's office as assistant to Don Baepler. What was your job description there? Anything and everything. When the summer director got upset and left because he wasn't dealing well with the faculty?they gave me the job. They just said, "You'll do that now." And you didn't mind? I did it from 1974 to 2008. Sometime, about four years in the 80s, I gave it up. Then I got it back as Dean of Continuing Ed and summer term. Then I gave that up in 2008?until I retired, yes. Well, I look at your resume here. It's a partial history of leadership. Founder of the UNLV Center for Lifelong Learning for retired, semi-retired residents. It's now called OLLI [Osher Lifelong Learning Institute]. Yes. People talk about that all the time. Good program. How did that come about? A woman named Stephanie Smith. She was working at the Jewish Family Services?that's why she was clearing her throat?and she was complaining (to Sari) about being rejected by all the UNLV deans. SARI: I was on the board of the Jewish Family Services at the time. PAUL: Sari said, "Why don't you talk to my husband?" I was doing continuing ed. So Stephanie showed up. Stephanie brought a guy from the Harvard program. His last name was 3 Rush; I'm not sure of his first name. Shirley Harris was involved. Carrol Steedman was involved. Edythe Katz's husband?I don't know if they were married at the time?Gil Yarchever. We formed a group. Gil was involved. Oh, not Lloyd. No, no, no, Lloyd was gone. It was Gil. So we just sat and plotted. We gave them a place in Continuing Ed and the program grew very easily. It was called EXCELL at the time, Extended Education Center of Lifelong Learning. [15 years as EXCELL; 10 years as OLLI] Where were the classes held then? Anywhere there was space. And not on campus? No. But I had had the job of assigning unused space to the world. On campus. On campus, yes. It's the same thing I did in summer. I scheduled courses, too. And continuing ed uses unused space. We still don't have a continuing ed building, not because I didn't try to get one, but because I was always one upped by someone else. The popularity of those courses: describe that to me over the years. Continuing ed in general or just lifelong learning? Both of them, yes. They're tied together. Continuing ed has a big history on the campus. They were doing nurses' recertification, they were doing real estate, any kind of a certificate that didn't involve credit courses, non-credit education. In fact, the policy at the time was if you were going to hire someone and pay their salary from your revenue that would be called a continuing ed course. That hasn't held up. As the deans wanted that money, they would do it themselves, too, but they 4 weren't supposed to. But back then we did. So part of the dean of continuing ed's job was to schedule the courses. I already went to academic courses and if there was space available, we would use it. Then there was a three or four-tiered rental agreement available for the outside world to use it. Government, nonprofits and then for profits, all of them used the campus, which was small. It wasn't very big at the time. The policy stayed as the thing grew. I think that's interesting. I don't know that I was aware that it had a Jewish Family Services connection to it. Well, yes. Why did that happen? PAUL: Stephanie Smith was either working there or a volunteer. SARI: She worked there in the office and I was on the board and I hung around a lot, did a lot of work for them. PAUL: And Stephanie was familiar with the Harvard program in Cambridge and she knew that I was a Harvard graduate. So that was another connection to put all of us together. SARI: She and I just sat around a couple of times for several hours and just talked about things especially education. Stephanie was very excited about education and said she desperately missed going to those classes. I told her that Paul had some ideas and she should go and talk to him. That's great how that turned out and the popularity is just constantly growing. So in those early days what were some of the favorite first classes? PAUL: Well, it was done a little bit differently then; everything changes. But the idea from Stephanie was that there would be no leader or teacher of the class. You'd pick a topic. So, for example, one topic was China and Sig Stein, a local pharmacist, that was his hobby, China. So 5 that was a very popular class. I don't know what they have now. Soapbox with an open topic course. I don't know if we had one of those. But whatever the local person was interested in they did. I know they did...What was her name? I forgot her name. Something like, after divorce what do you do with your life? Things like that. SARI: I know who you're talking about, but I can't remember her name. PAUL: It was interesting. She and her husband came here because of the program. They were shopping schools and if there had not been something for them to do with the university, they would have moved elsewhere. I'm almost getting her name. It'll come back. Doris Oberstein. She divorced and took her maiden name back. So I forgot the first name. She's gone. She's moved to Florida. ? So we're going to go back even further then. We'll come full circle back into more modern times: What do either of you know about your family heritage, your Jewish lineage? How far back can you tell me about it? SARI: I can go back as far as my maternal grandmother and my paternal family, whole family. Where did they come from? Well, they were all from Russia. My grandmother grew up in the area...it's a small town outside of Kiev. She was learning to be a seamstress. Do you want to know of a particular incident that happened during her time? Oh, yes. Love the anecdotes, yes. She was an apprentice to a family in the city of Kiev and she lived with them when she was sixteen. This is your grandmother? 6 My grandmother, my mother's mother. She lived with them and while she was there one day there was a pogrom and they started going to houses looking for Jews. Well, she wasn't with a Jewish family. She was with a nice family. And they were looking for Jews. The family moved some furniture. They stood her up in a recessed doorway and moved a very large piece of furniture in front of the doorway. She stayed there until they felt it was safe, until the soldiers left, and they freed her from that. That was vivid when she told me about that. My grandfather, I don't remember what city he was from, but he was also from Russia. They came over individually. They weren't married then. My grandmother came here with her sister and her mother. My grandfather I don't know a whole lot about. My father and his family, he was the youngest of ten children. They were from Odessa and they lived in a beach house, a house on the beach. They were rich over there. His father had a factory making certain parts of shoes. One time he told me it was the little metal holes for lacing. Oh, like the eyelets. Yes. They were doing that. But then he told me they made something else. So I get the sense that he had this small factory that made little metal things. They grew up there. Then some of them came over; I think five of them came over at one time. Three sisters and two brothers came over. His oldest sister, Gania, came over and then Betty and Brica; those were the three sisters. Abe and---. At the moment I forgot the other brother's name...and my dad. I thought there were ten. There were ten, but they didn't all come over. One sister stayed there and became a doctor. She drowned. That was the end of her. She was going across a frozen lake to a patient who needed her for an emergency and she went through the ice. This is bizarre. 7 Well, to be a female doctor back in that era would be very? There were a lot of female doctors in Russia, yes. There were? I didn't know that. They were passionate. Yes. So did your family settle in Pennsylvania? They actually all went to New York. Then my grandfather had a friend who moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and opened a little grocery store. This is weird, too. He wrote to my grandpa and said, "It's wonderful here. This is a wonderful city and I'm making a lot of"?not a lot of money?"I'm making a good living," in Russian he said, "in my grocery store and there is room on the next block, one block away." A block was probably from here to there. It wasn't like a mile or anything. Short blocks, huh? Oh, yes, about twenty steps. He said, "There is a building there for sale and you could make a store there, too." So my grandfather and grandmother with their two daughters moved to Lancaster and opened a grocery store on the other corner. There he made friends and they both were able to support their families from the grocery stores. What was the name of the grocery store? J.M. Booth. It used to be Bootelcuff. So he became a Booth. Sam Aptigar was the friend who suggested my grandfather come. Then Mother was working in New York. She met my dad there somewhere. I think she was sitting in a theater and my dad was walking by her. He liked her and he gave her in his business card. He had them made up. It's not a business card; I mean he wasn't doing anything?yes, he was selling insurance for one of the biggies, one that's still going, 8 Metropolitan; I don't know. He liked the way she looked. So as he was going past her knees, he gave her his business card. I guess she must have called him. Yes, she must have. Right? She wasn't shy. I'm pretty sure that was the story. That was their story on how they met and I tend to believe them. Yes. Well, it sounds very romantic. Oh, yes, it was very romantic. So your dad, you said he was in grocery as well as a tailor? When he and Mother moved to Lancaster, he got a job at a place called Ottenstein Coat Factory. He was actually a cutter. He did the cutting for the coats and suits and dresses and skirts. But I didn't know what to call him, so I always referred to him as a tailor because he was in the clothing business. Then my grandfather got very sick. So my dad left his job and took over the grocery store for my grandfather. Did you ever work in the grocery store yourself? Oh, they would let me scoop ice cream sometimes and they let me sell cigarettes. They would sell them for a penny apiece. Open the packs. The packs were only ten cents. So at a penny apiece, they were making a lot of money. That's the second day in a row that I've heard about selling individual cigarettes. I never knew that that was even possible. There were no rules back then about it. 9 So before I get you to Las Vegas?Paul, what do you know about your family ancestry? PAUL: I really don't know much. I know my father came over probably 1895. He was born in the old country. To me the old country is somewhere in the Soviet Union. He was very secretive about it. I don't know where they came from. And the name was Egracovitz back in those days. He changed it when he was in the military, maybe nineteen years old. He took the name?I guess it was easy to do and he did?he took the Aizley name then. I think he just made it up. So there's no history to the name to go back. More confusing than that, he had probably an uncle?my father, Egracovitz, and another brother Patowitz, they were blood brothers, but they had different names. The Patowitzes ended up in New York; the Aizleys ended up in Boston. My mother was born in Boston, but her oldest siblings were born somewhere in the old country. The family name was Abramovitz then and became Abrams when she got here. My dad was convinced that we would be Americans. Much to my regret they did not teach us Yiddish and I struggled with German later. They picked very American names for the kids. My brothers are Robert?I'm Paul?and Daniel. They were Goldie and Meyer and they didn't want that. They wanted to be Americans. We were all bar mitzvahed, but we have not been close to the temple. I'm closer now because we belong to two temples. We belong to Congregation Ner Tamid and we belong to be P?nai Tikvah with Rabbi Yocheved Mintz. There isn't much Jewish history. I only know of one grandparent that I have a connection with. They were all gone by the time I was three. She was hit by a car, run over. That's the last I've heard of grandparents. Now, some of the older cousins know more about it, but we just have never talked much about it. I think that's not abnormal especially those immigrants that were wanting to Americanize 10 and that was the way that they thought they could plug in. Well, my dad was a social worker without college training in a settlement house called the North End Union in the north end of Boston. What I know about it is that it was Presbyterian run, but it was all Italian Catholics in there, being run by a Jewish guy. He was the manager or whatever his title was. I have a lot of Italian culture that I grew up with. Oh, I think that's a good blend. Didn't your parents have siblings? Yes. My father was the youngest of five and my mother was the youngest of eight. But what's there to offer historically there? My mother's family had a lot of illegal bookmakers in the family. In fact, one of my aunts had?and I deliberately said aunt, not "ant"?one of my aunts was the first female bookie in Boston. Now, there's a claim to fame. What are the stories about her? How do you know this about her? Well, it was pretty much known by the family because the brothers that were bookmakers didn't use the Abrams then. They used Ford. In fact, there was a boxer, Uncle Henry Ford. I was from a very colorful family, but I don't know anything more about the details on that. The women were definitely housewives, homemakers. I do know that my grandmother during Prohibition made gin in the bathtub and my mother had to deliver it. I do know that story. That grandfather was a tailor, also, definitely was a tailor. But like I say, he was gone before I was three years old, so no contact. So what neighborhood were you growing up in Boston? I grew up in Brighton, which is in Boston. My mother grew up in the North End. I was born in the North End, which was mostly Italian at that time, the Jews having moved to the suburbs. 11 Isn't that where Mimi Katz was brought up, too, where she lived? Mimi Katz and I happened at one time and at different times to live on the same street in Brighton, Chiswick Road. Mimi lived there and it was ten years between me and Mimi and I think I was there ten years after. I couldn't find anybody?even my friends' older sisters didn't know Mimi Goldberg or Miriam Goldberg. So we never established a connection, but we both went to elementary school, Hamilton Elementary briefly, and we both knew Rabbi Shubow from the local temple. So we had those little connections. Isn't that amazing? How did that come up in conversation? How did you figure that out? Again with OLLI, with the learning and retirement group. We were at someone's house, I think Stephanie Smith's house, and there were several of us from Boston in the room and that discussion grew. Hamilton was the first thing that came up. And the Hamilton school, yes, which just recently closed. It was open all the years. So get me from the east to Las Vegas. Who wants to go first on that? Well, I had never been outside of New England and barely outside of Boston. I was in Maine one summer and I was determined to go somewhere. So after graduating from Harvard while I was a senior, I applied only to western schools?California and Arizona. Got an offer with a scholarship or help at U of A in Tucson. So I went there. Then after I got my master's, I went back to Boston. I taught at Tufts for two years. It snowed and I left. There is no reason to live in a snowstorm. So that time I went to Seattle to see what the Northwest is like, which I now refer to as the Great North Wet. It rains all the time except when Sari and I visit. Then it doesn't rain. I have never seen rain in Seattle. It's magic. 12 You're one of the fortunate few. Then since I didn't get a degree at the University of Washington, a place I really didn't like, I called my friends in Arizona who had changed and gone to Arizona State University and I got an assistantship there and went there. Then when I was finishing up the Ph.D. at ASU, I wanted a job. I wanted to make some money. And the job was available at UNLV except it was Nevada Southern University when I applied. Then when I arrived they had the big change. The structure changed, the school changed, the president changed; everything had been changed and it was UNLV. So all was good, right? The change was good? Yes. I can think of two things you've left out. What's he left out? Number one, you used to work in a knitting mill and, number two, he got his bachelor's degree at Harvard. Well, I said that. He was one of those walking around students. He wasn't in residence there. What do you call them, day school? Commuter. Commuter, thank you. They don't allow you to do that anymore. You have to live in Cambridge. We had a commuter house; Dudley House was for commuters. You had an interesting summer job. Well, the knitting mill, but they weren't Jewish knitting mills. New England was known for its 13 textile industry and I was in one of the last knitting mills and I worked there for five summers I worked in the mills. Each time I would come back. I was a union member, Textile Workers of America, and had that job for five years. That was probably good experience to have?coming to a union city like Las Vegas. You appreciate what the unions mean. I'm a union guy all the way, and so is Sari. You can't negotiate by yourself if you're working for a big company including UNLV. Now, I need to ask you something. Didn't you tell me that Harvard was limiting the number of Jews? That was rumor at the time that there was a quota, an old-time quota on the number of Jews they would accept. So they did have somewhat of a limit. Now, I can't give you any reference, but that's what we all pretty much agreed to. Wow. I did not know that. It doesn't surprise me, though, because that would have been the 1960s. Fifties. I graduated high school in '53 and college in '57. But Harvard admissions in those days was very different than what it is now. I think we did write a letter. You didn't have to pay anything to apply. One of the local high schools?there's a history of competition between Boston Latin School versus English High School. Boston Latin School was much older?1635, the year before Harvard was founded, which was 1636?and it was for training kids to go to Harvard. It was really a college prep school and not a high school. So probably a hundred, a 150 years later, English High School was one of the first high schools in the United States. But they did a lot of training for people to go to MIT. The year that I went to Harvard, three of the English High School graduates went to Harvard; a hundred and one from Boston Latin School 14 went to Harvard and anybody I can name would probably be Jewish. Almost every one of them that I knew. Really? Yes, yes. So how did you celebrate being Jewish in Boston? Did you belong to a synagogue or anything like that? PAUL: Yes, sure, Temple Beth Sholom, I think. Or is that the one here? SARI: No, that's here. Well, Rabbi Shubow, I know, but the temple was a very similar name. Mimi had said Shubow's name and brought it back. None of my friends or neighbors were really...Well, some did go to Hebrew school after school, but I didn't and my close friends didn't do that. I had private tutoring for about four months just so I could read Hebrew and I've totally forgotten that. I couldn't translate, but I could the Hebrew. I've looked at it since then. It doesn't come back. It's not there. Not like riding a bicycle, huh? No, not like riding a bicycle at all. But you had a bar mitzvah? Oh, yes, yes. Then how did you get to Las Vegas, Sari? SARI: I was living in Upstate New York in a town of five hundred people. There was one other Jew in the town and he was a farmer. I was married to someone else at the time who was teaching at one of the SUNY, State University of New York schools up there in the sticks. He was offered a job. It was at the time UNLV or Nevada Southern, and starting a hotel program and 15 they hired?have you talked to the Vallens, Jerry and Flossie Vallen? They're both Jewish, very interesting. Jerry has just finished two or three books. So he was hired. Jerry Vallen was running a restaurant or a hospitality program in another school in the SUNY system. They hired him to put together a hotel program. So he hired the man I was married to, my husband then, and somebody else from Upstate New York. My husband at that time was doing a restaurant program for Morris or something. Anyway, they offered him a job. Jerry went out and he decided to accept and then he called my husband and said, "Come out here and look at it." So my husband came out to Las Vegas and he called me from there. He was out in June. He called me from the airport and said, "It's about a hundred and fifty degrees here and all the houses are surrounded by concrete block walls. It's like a giant prison. You would hate it. And I said, "Fine, let's go." That's how I got out here. So you really were that big of an adventurer. I was ready to leave Upstate New York. The job I had was twenty miles away in Utica and I had to drive there twice a day including during the winter when that's some of the worst winters in the country in this part of the world, in fact. It's called the Snowbelt of the country. For Jewish history, you have the Vallens and the Levinsons. Levinsons, Charlie and Bea are both gone now. Bea just died. I don't know if the kids are in town. There were three daughters in the Levinson family. I think even Becky is gone now. She moved to California? I think she did, too. So you both got here in about the same year, 1967-68. Yes. 16 Either of you can go first, but describe your reaction to seeing Las Vegas back in that time. What was it like? PAUL: That wasn't my first time in Las Vegas because I had been at UCLA for a summer program and a guy I knew, we drove up. I had a car and I was driving for the summer because the people that owned the car lived in Tucson and they were moving to San Francisco. I went to Tucson and got their car and drove to California. Anyway, we did come over in that car. We drove