Transcript of interview with Leonard I. Gang and Roberta Gang by Barbara Tabach, September 14, 2016

AN INTERVIEW WITH LEONARD I. & ROBERTA (BOBBIE) GANG 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, Amanda Hammar 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 Leonard Gang (1935 - ) and Roberta Gang (1940 - ) are both natives of New York, though different boroughs and Jewish traditions. The couple met in 1960 while students at Cornell University and married in 1961. Two years later, Len graduated from New York University School of Law. Leonard had fallen in love with Western United States as boy on a family vacation. So when a notice was posted for a law clerk with the Supreme Court of Nevada, he knew he wanted to apply. When he presented Bobbie with a choice of Alaska or Nevada, she flatly responded that Nevada was as far west as she was willing to move. Thus, began their long and influential residencies in both Carson City and Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Temple Beth Sholom was quickly a welcoming place to be for the Gang family. While Leonard?s law career flourished, Bobbie realized her energy and commitment to become an advocate for the benefit of the vulnerable. Over the years, she actively participated in the political campaigns of others and even entered the political arena herself, which she discusses in this oral history. During Leonard?s successful legal career, he held positions as Deputy District Attorney and Deputy Public Defender in Clark County and was in private practice. From 1971 ? 1974, he was District Court Judge in Clark County before returning fulltime to private practice. By 1988, Bobbie and Leonard had become forceful lobbyists including representing Nevada Women?s Lobby among others. In 2012, Bobbie received the Virginia Cain Progressive Award from the Washoe County Democratic Party for her leadership and dedication to the rights of others. In this oral history, the Gangs highlight their tireless efforts, the long list of political and civic leaders that they worked alongside of, some of Leonard?s high profile cases, and their Jewish heritage. They are parents of three: Lynne Moore, Karen Schnog, and Joshua Gang. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Leonard I. and Roberta (Bobbie) Gang September 14 and 27, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????????..iv SESSION 1 Bobbie, maiden name Singer, provides family heritage overview, how and when her grandparents all arrived in the United States from Eastern Europe; story of how her parents who were born and raised in New York met????????????.???????????????.1 ? 3 Leonard talks about his ancestors emigrated from Poland and Austria and raised their children in New York City; kept semi-kosher home; story of how his parents met; surname of Gang; growing up in rural areas of New York; his bar mitzvah, Jewish neighborhood?????????.4 ? 7 Both talk about occasional anti-Semitic comments they recall New York childhoods and being Jewish. Story of they met each other; Len enlisted in Navy at age 19 after attending Cornell University and New York University; Navy radar operator; finishing his degrees. Married September 2, 1961??????????????????????.??????. 7 ? 10 Discuss 1963 decision to move from New York; Leonard graduated law school, applied for a position with the Supreme Court of Nevada; funny billboard story and road trip in Buick to Carson City. Bobbie?s career opportunity in computer systems in Nevada welfare department. Len is horse person; meeting Grant Sawyer, Paul Laxalt, Nat MacDonald, clerking for Justice Milton B. Badt. Jewish community of Carson City at the time???????????????..11 ? 18 Talks about Justice Gordon Thompson; Bob List, Mort Galane; their children learning to ski; story of being lured away to Las Vegas, comparison of Reno and Las Vegas. Move to Las Vegas, friendship with Sen. Richard Bryan and wife Bobbie ??????????????..19 ? 22 Describe Temple Beth Sholom and the small Jewish community of Las Vegas. Mention Ruth and Danny Goldfarb; Hank Greenspun; Faye and Leon Steinberg; Mel Exber; Stu and Flora Mason; Oscar Goodman; Louis Wiener; George Rudiak; Leo Wilner; Rabbi Gold; Cantor Joe Kohn; Charlene Freedkin Ruben. Talks about Len going to work for large law firm, as one of two associates, the other was Harry Reid. Story of Len collecting past due money from a Caesars Palace executive??????????????????????????????..?..23 ? 27 Mentions Mert and Brenda Strimling; Bobby Strimling; Phyllis and Cal Lewis; Passover Seders with friends; Joan and Mel Shapiro. Talks about grocery shopping and dry cleaners being open vi 24/7; what shopping was like in that earlier era; Wonder World and Kaufmans; first home in Royal Crest Rancheros; building on horse property near Pecos and Russell in later 1960s; how land became a school yard. Story of Tahoe area property that they bought; Tahoe Regional Planning Agency; decision to move back to Tahoe area?????????????????....28 ? 36 Bobbie?s volunteer work; children?s preference for northern Nevada; where they became bar/bat mitzvahs. Details of Sisterhood activities that Bobbie chaired at Temple Beth Sholom; preschool daycare options????????????????????????????...?37 ? 42 SESSION 2 Len talks about attending Cornell University; interrupts education to join Navy and was stationed in the Mediterranean Sea; how he returned to college and law school. More about taking the clerk job with Nevada Supreme Court (1963-1964); how his law career grew while working for Morton Galane; worked with Richard Bryan in District Attorney?s office for two years (1965-1966) doing criminal cases. Went into private practice (1967-1971) with Singleton Delanoy and Jemison as an associate????????????????????????????????..43 ? 47 Becomes district court judge in Clark County in 1971; more about his private practice prior to that; how his practice grew; working with and without partners over the years; rented space on Third Street from Joe McNamee; 1967 Richard Bryan hired him for public defender?s office at same time; handles appeals, civil cases. Mentions Justice Myron Leavitt, Gov. Mike O?Callaghan, Lt. Gov. Harry Reid, Judge Harry Claiborne; appointed judge when three new positions were created Clark County in 1971; describes staff and courtrooms set up in a nearby church and Bank of Nevada building; why he wanted to be a judge; compensation; had to be elected the next term; traveled to every judicial district in Nevada. Share thoughts about electing judges; mentions Judge Christensen, Judge Santini, Mike Wendell???????????????????48 ? 58 Talks about Tony Spilotro; Hole in the Wall Gang; Davey Bates; Oscar Goodman; going back into private practice in 1974. Shelley Berkley, Fred Berkley, partnership with Fred. Story about high profile case Sate versus Maxwell; he represented Rosalie Maxwell; details about the case, others included were Oscar Goodman, Frank La Pena, Harry Reid, Stewart Bell, Don Woods (co-counsel), bailiff story, trial strategy??????????????????????.59 ? 74 Talks about the Patrick McKenna case; mentions Mel Harmon (chief criminal deputy) against whom he won two cases; Dan Seaton; Judge Myron Leavitt; commuting back and forth from northern to southern Nevada; takes job with State Bar Association (1990). Discusses creation of Judicial Discipline Commission; sets up office; mentions Guy Shipman; retired again, but still works as an arbitrator and mediator?????????????????????....75 ? 85 vii Bobbie shares her story as a young wife and mother; formerly worked for IBM. Volunteered at Temple Beth shortly after moving to Las Vegas. About five years later invited to join Junior League; did trainings for members; her role grew, public affairs committee, and lobbying and advocacy; continued Junior League involvement in Reno during the years there; mentored by Jean Ford (Director of Community Service); good friendship with Bonnie Bryan (Gov. Bryan?s wife and trip they took together in northern Nevada towns, Highway 50, the loneliest highway in US; funding ran out for Office of Voluntarism. Ran for Incline Village General Improvement District; recruited by Gov. Bryan for State Public Works Board; gender challenges for her; mentions Bill Bible sticking up for her??????????????????????????.86 ? 90 Talks about Junior League?s State Public Affairs Committee, visit to Nevada legislature, tour of prison in Carson City; (1988) recruited by Democratic Party to run for assembly, opponent was Jim Gibbons;. Story of how she and Len became lobbyists for pharmacists. Nevada Women?s Lobby and issues that affected women, children and families; National Association of Social Workers, Nevada Chapter; Planned Parenthood; LGBT issues; Lori Lipman Brown??..91 ? 97 Talks about working for Elaine Wynn?s education coalitions: Communities in School and After-School All-Stars; disappointments due to lack of funding; welfare for needy families. Was president of AAUW [American Association of University Women] and on national board of Junior League; spearheading Grassroots Lobby Days for legislators. Recipient of Virginia King Progressive Leader Award in 2012; recognized by Women?s Lobby with a roast moderated by journalist Jon Ralston. Bobbie recalls lobbying anecdotes, meeting ?cowboy? legislators John Marvel, John Carpenter and Dean Rhoads. Talk about the couple complemented each other?s skills?????????????????????????????????..98 - 104 Discuss their ties to the Jewish community; Temple Beth Sholom on Oakey; Bobbie was Sisterhood president for several years; their Jewish heritage and ?taking the side of underdogs? in lobbying efforts; daughters? bat mitzvahs????????????.??????..104 ? 106 viii ix SESSION 1 This is Barbara Tabach. Today is September 14th, 2016. I'm sitting with Bobbie and Leonard Gang in my office at UNLV Library. This conversation is for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. And I see you've got notes and everything. So this is going to be very good. We have a lot to cover. So briefly, if you both would alternate here, we'll start with you Bobbie. What do you know about your ancestral roots, your Jewish background? Where did it all begin to your knowledge? [*Editor?s note: Bobbie comments are in italics and Len?s are in regular font.] BOBBIE: There's not a lot. My grandmother came to the United States when she was about six years old with her mother. She was born in Poland, which sometimes was Russia and sometimes Poland. Before she was born her father died in some kind of an accident, like he was driving a cart or something. I'm not really sure about it. She came here with her mother and her mother remarried, and so she grew up only knowing her stepfather and she has stepbrothers and sisters. My grandfather came from Russia, from what is now Ukraine. He also came here at a very young age. His story is really interesting. When he lived in Russia and the pogroms were going on?as a young kid, six and seven years old, he would run out in the streets with his friends and they would go into the basements of very rich people to steal tea and lemons because they couldn't afford to buy tea and lemon; it was a luxury, and he would bring it home. One day he came home with a pistol that had been dropped in the street. At that point his parents knew it was too dangerous for him to keep doing this. 2 They had a family of people who were going to the United States and they took my grandfather with them, at age seven. He had a brother who had come to the United States, an older brother, quite a bit older, years before. So his parents sent the brother a letter, in New York City, addressed to him, which they had his address. They sent him a letter saying, "Your brother is coming to the United States with such-and-such family." I think they probably knew the boat they were going on, but I'm not sure. They weren't sure of the date that he would arrive. So every day his older brother came down to the docks and waited for everybody to come off the ship and see if his brother was there. And finally he arrived and his brother was standing there waiting for him. I suppose he had a picture, but I don't know for sure. That's how he got to the United States. The rest of his family never came. So (your grandparents) settled there and eventually meet. Oh, yes. They both were living in New York. When my grandmother and grandfather met?and I don't remember that story?but when they met, my grandmother's stepfather did not approve of my grandfather and wouldn't let my grandmother date him. But she dated him, anyway. She snuck out and saw him. They secretly got married and then told? Now, is this your mother or your father's side? My mother's. Oh my gosh, I've got the other side, too. My mother's mother and father, they secretly got married, eloped, and finally told her father. It was accepted. Fifty years later, when they celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, they had a full-blown wedding ceremony with the rabbi, with the chuppah. All the children and grandchildren were in the wedding party. Oh, how wonderful. Yes, it was. Now, my father's side, both my grandmother and grandfather came from Russia and I don't know too much about when they were there. All I know is they lived in New York City. 3 They had eight children and my father was the youngest; he had two brothers and five sisters. My father never went further than sixth grade in school. His brothers started a trucking and warehousing company and it became quite successful, Singer Brothers Trucking Company. Then later my father branched out on his own and he was Jack Singer Trucking Company. How he met my mother: That's a good story, too. My mother and father met at one of these settlement houses where people who lived in the Lower East Side, mostly Jewish people, would come for all kinds of activities, like we do at our Jewish Community Center. They met at a dance. My mother said she looked across the room and looked at him and said to her friends, "I'm going to marry that guy." His friends all had nicknames from the gangster movies. My father's nickname was Rico Sabatini; that was his nickname. He had friends named Dutch, Scorpie, The Leaf. When my mother met him at this dance, he introduced himself as Rico Sabatini. Well, her name was Lillian Gildelson, but she decided she didn't want him to know she was Jewish if he was Italian. So she said, "My name is Lee Gatelli." They dated for a while before they admitted to each other. Of course, she couldn't tell her parents, my grandparents, that she met this guy named Rico Sabatini. That's hysterical. I'm sorry. I can barely keep myself from laughing. That's so funny. My father was a great storyteller. So were you in a very observant Jewish upbringing between these two Italian Jews? No. Neither my mother nor my father were very religious. It wasn't until we moved?I grew up in the Bronx, New York, and then we moved to Yonkers when my folks could save enough money to buy a house. We moved to Yonkers. At that point I think I was thirteen and my brothers would have been eleven and eight. And so at that point they joined a synagogue and my brothers 4 went to Hebrew school. I never did, but I became involved with the youth groups at the community center. And did they have bar mitzvahs? Oh, yes, they did. It's pretty common that the boys would do that and the girls didn't, right? Right. The girls did not then, yes, yes. Interesting. Well, that's a very brief explanation of that interesting history. We could spend an hour on that alone, I'm sure. So Len, can you beat that story? LEONARD: Probably not. Mine's probably more normal. On my father's side, my father's parents came here in 1896 to New York City. They had?let's see?five children in their family. My mother's family came from Poland. That's kind of interesting. Her father came to the United States before her mother and had to save enough money?they were married in Poland?had to save enough money for her to be able to come on a ship to the United States. And so my mother's oldest sister was born in Poland, actually. Then they immigrated to the United States and lived in Manhattan and Brooklyn and raised a family with six children. They kept a semi-kosher house, but they weren't really very religious Jews, but they celebrated all of the holidays. What was it like to grow up in New York City? Well, I was born in New York City? Did we skip something? You haven't mentioned your father's family, where your father's from, Austria. Good catch. 5 My father's family came here from Austria and all the children, I believe, were born in the United States. But they came here in 1896. So my dad was born in 1906, 1904, and he was the second from the oldest. So all the kids were born in the United States. How did your mother and father meet? It's a good story. Sometimes I need prompting?My mother worked during the summer as a social director in one of the bungalow colonies in Upstate New York, in the Catskills. My dad came up there with some friends and they met there. I guess that's the story. I thought there was more to it. There probably was for them, right? Oh, his name. His name was Max Gang. Yes, that's my dad's name. When your mother heard his name, she thought it was a gang. Yes. Somebody had said, "Well, Gang is coming." Max Gang. "Max Gang is coming." She thought this gang was coming to the resort and she was very, very nervous about it. She tells the story. Then my dad showed up with some friends. Where did the name Gang originate? As far as we know it's always been Gang, but I'm sure it was shortened from something because they came from Austria and there's Wolfgang and other Gangs. Gang in German means walk; it's a walkway. But I don't know where it came from. Anyone named Gang, practically anyone I've ever met named Gang, and I've met a few people, are from Austria. I don't know that we were related, but there's a very well-known attorney in Los Angeles named Gang. I once stopped into see him, because I was an attorney, just to say 6 hello and meet him and he was from Austria in the same area. So there was a lot of people named Gang. That's interesting. And to tell you about my maiden name Singer, when my grandfather, my father's father did come over from Russia, their name was Zogranichniak [Editor note: correct spelling unknown]. Don't ask me how to spell it. I was with my cousins about ten years ago. I went to New York and we had dinner together. Everybody wrote down how they thought the name was spelled?and that was quite a few cousins; there must have been ten of us?and each one looked so different from the other. And we tried very hard to make sure we understood how it was pronounced. So pronounce it again slowly for the transcriber. Zo-gra-nich-ni-ak. She'll do a good job typing that up, I'm sure. Zogranichniak. And when he came through Ellis Island, he didn't speak any English. He didn't know how to spell it for them. And so they just gave him the name Singer. My mother says that they looked out and saw the Singer sewing machine sign, factory across the bay, but that can't be true. I'm sure they had a list of names that they just assigned. It's amazing what names were assigned to people as they immigrated, isn't it, back then? Yes. So growing up in New York?and you were in different boroughs, it sounds like?how would you describe your childhood and growing up in New York City areas? I grew up in a town called Laurelton, Long Island, which was right on the border of Nassau County. So Laurelton was in the city and Rosedale, which was the next town over?or 7 Hempstead?was Nassau County. Where I grew up, as strange as it may sound, was somewhat rural. There was a truck farm across the street from my house for the first ten or twelve years of being a kid. So it was a very?not rural, not farmland, but there was this truck farm and they used to work and harvest vegetables in the summertime. I grew up riding horses and things like that even though I grew up in the city. Laurelton had a large Jewish population and there was a synagogue there. I went to a public school, an elementary school there, and I was bar mitzvahed in the synagogue in Laurelton. Then I went to high school in Far Rockaway High School, which you had to take their train; it was about a half-hour train ride to go to. But there were two schools that we could go to and Far Rockaway was one and Jackson Heights was the other. Far Rockaway, we thought, was a better school, so we went there. You said there was a large Jewish population. So did you grow up in a Jewish neighborhood or was it pretty mixed? LEONARD: It was mixed. It was a mixed neighborhood, but there was a fairly large Jewish population, large enough so that when there was a Jewish holiday, we didn't go to elementary school. They didn't close it down, but there was five or six kids or ten kids left in the school. But it actually was a very mixed area. It had a lot of Irish kids there. The high school I went to was about a third Irish and about a third black and a large number of Jewish kids. Did you experience any anti-Semitism? Nothing that was that unusual, but some, a little bit. I got called names occasionally. It wasn't like I had to walk a gauntlet to go to school or anything like that, but it was occasional. BOBBIE: Because I remember being very young and we lived...I don't even know what section of the Bronx it was, but it was called Crose Avenue, C-R-O-S-E, I think. One day a bunch of kids 8 saw me outside of the building where I lived. And it was a small building; it was only about two or three stories. They started calling me names and I don't remember the names. I'm not even sure I knew what the names meant. And I went running upstairs into my house crying, literally, over it. We lived there and we lived in the Bronx, almost as far north in the Bronx as you could go near Yonkers, New York. My parents saved their money. We lived in a little apartment, three kids, two adults in a one-bedroom apartment. It was a great area. It had a beautiful park, Marshall Park right across from where we?well, down the street and across from where we lived. It was a happy place. Then we bought this house in Yonkers and it was like so wonderful and so important. But even there in Yonkers, there was a good strong Jewish community, but there was some anti-Semitism that I experienced in school. Right now I just recall it. How was it expressed? Was it just words thrown in the wind or was it more...? Yes, it was pretty much just words and especially because my name was Singer. So a lot of people didn't know I was Jewish in high school, probably in junior high school, but more in high school, I think. They would say things in front of me and I would let them know and then they would say very nasty things?not most of them; it happened occasionally. And it was very, very sad. Other than that I was totally accepted by the school. I was just like any of the other kids. But that makes you aware of your identity. And what was going on in homes that we didn't know about, in people's homes, yes. How did you two meet? LEONARD: You better tell this story. BOBBIE: Well, you can jump in. 9 LEONARD: We both went to Cornell University. I'm a little bit older than Bobbie, like five years because I had enlisted in the Navy when I was nineteen. After two years of Cornell and a little time at NYU, I enlisted in the Navy and spent two years as a radar operator on Super Constellation airplanes flying in Europe in the med. Then when I came back I went back to Cornell. So let's see, how did we meet? BOBBIE: Well, you were dating a sorority sister of mine. So that's how I met you. You had actually graduated when I met you. You had graduated from Cornell and you had come back to visit this?I won't mention her name?this sorority sister and I met you. Then that summer?well, you graduated in January. What year was that? BOBBIE: 1960. January 1960, right? LEONARD: Yes. BOBBIE: And the friend graduated in June. As a graduation gift her parents gave her a trip to Europe. While she was in Europe, I met Leonard in Massachusetts at...What is that concert? I went with some girlfriends up to...Tanglewood. LEONARD: Tanglewood Summer Concert. The Boston Pops plays there in the summer and other symphony orchestras. My folks had a summer home, a small, little cabin on a lake up in Massachusetts?After the concerts everyone would go to bars and things like that. I walked into this very popular bar and saw Bobbie and her girlfriend, one of the girlfriends who I knew. BOBBIE: We started dating after that. And the old girlfriend never was mentioned again. LEONARD: Never was a factor. BOBBIE: So that's how we met, at Cornell after he graduated actually. I probably met you once or twice before. 10 LEONARD: Well, Bobbie was president of the sorority that she was in and the girl I was dating was in that sorority. So I kind of knew who Bobbie was. BOBBIE: And then when you?[laughing]?when you came back the following?okay. So he graduated in '60 and I had my senior year there. So now he continued to come up to Cornell, more frequently, to visit me and to date me. You'll tell this story about how you would drive up. But the first time he came to the sorority house, one of my sorority sisters answered the door and said, "Well, so-and-so isn't here anymore; she graduated." And he said, "I know. I'm here to see Bobbie Singer." He drove up like almost every other weekend, I think. LEONARD: Well, I don't know if that often. But I was going to law school at the time. Let's see. I had graduated and then I started law school. So my first year?I graduated in the winter and started law school in the fall and I got a job as an assistant law librarian for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which was downtown, a short subway ride from the law school, and I started law school at night. Then I went two years at night. Well, after I had finished one year at night, Bobbie and I got married and we lived in Manhattan, way at the top of Manhattan? BOBBIE: Spuyten Duyvil. LEONARD: ?where Spuyten Duyvil is, where the Hudson River cuts across over to the East River. Then Bobbie got a job at IBM as a systems engineer. So I stopped going to law school at night and went to law school for the day for my last year and was able to graduate in three years plus one summer; otherwise, it would have been four years. So neither one of you wrote down when you got married. LEONARD: September second, 1961. Oh, so you just celebrated... 11 BOBBIE: Fifty-five years. Wow. Congratulations. I can't believe you've been married fifty-five years. You were babies. LEONARD: Well, she was. You're the older man, I guess. LEONARD: I was a little older. I was in my mid-twenties; Bobbie was twenty-one. So you're in Manhattan. And we're getting closer to your decision to move west. Tell me how that came about. What was going on? LEONARD: I didn't like living in New York. I never liked living in New York. When I was a kid my folks would travel out west with my brothers and myself and I fell in love with the west and I wanted to get out of New York and I wanted to move out west. During my senior year they had job notices posted on the bulletin boards and the Supreme Court of Nevada was looking for a law clerk and the Supreme Court of Oregon was looking for a law clerk and the Supreme Court of Alaska was looking for a law clerk. So I applied to all three, hoping I would get Alaska. Really? LEONARD: Really. You wanted to move there? BOBBIE: No. Very adventurous. I was hoping that he didn't get any of them. I did not want to leave my family. LEONARD: I got a job offer in Nevada from the Supreme Court. I said to Bobbie, I said, "Well, let's hold off a little bit; maybe I'll get Alaska." And she said, "Nothing doing; Nevada is as far west as I'll go." So I applied and they offered me the job. 12 I had a little sports car; I had an Austin-Healey sports car at the time and we were going to move west. So I had to sell the sports car. We both cried when I sold it. It was our pride and joy. Oh, I'll bet. LEONARD: And bought my father's big Buick. We loaded the Buick with everything we owned and started west. How many days did it take you to travel? LEONARD: Well, we weren't trying to get here?I finished law school in July or the beginning of August and I didn't have to start until September. So we kind of took our time a little bit, not really. We drove really out west, but we went to some national parks and things like that and saw some interesting things. One thing sticks in my mind. We stayed in Salt Lake City overnight and stayed a couple of days and saw some things. We got up at like four o'clock in the morning because it was summertime and my car didn't have air-conditioning and it gets obviously very hot. So we're driving across Utah and we crossed into Nevada. Now, I don't know if you've ever been to Eastern Nevada. This is 1963 and so there wasn't as much there as there is now. It was a great big billboard that said as you crossed into Nevada in the desert, total desert?you could see for miles; you could see everything?and there's a big billboard that says, "This area reserved for the United States population explosion." BOBBIE: It wasn't a formal billboard. It was like a big sign that somebody had created and I'm sure they did it as a joke. LEN: Yes, I'm sure it was a joke. Oh, I wish there was a picture of that. BOBBIE: I know. 13 LEN: I took a picture of it and I lost it. I can't find it. We went back; we traveled that route many times since across Nevada. We used to go to snowbird Utah for skiing and we have never seen it again. But that was probably a couple of? It was only fifty years ago. No, but at that time it was probably, I don't know, a couple of years later. It might have blown down in a dust storm. When I got the job offer from Nevada, we looked up to see where the Supreme Court sat, where its office was, and it was in Carson City, Nevada. So we looked up Carson City and it had five thousand people at the time. Bobbie looked at me and she said, "Five thousand people...There were ten thousand students at Cornell and I knew half of them by their first name." For me it was going to be quite a bit of culture shock. Now, I worked for IBM in New York. I worked in the largest branch office in the United States on Church Street. When I applied for a transfer?I was very, very fortunate; the Carson City office was in need of a systems engineer and I was able to transfer?I transferred from the largest branch office to the smallest branch office in the United States. It really was an amazing difference, just amazing. But we did it. Systems engineer?I've got to go back and forth now because that sounds like something that might not have been a lot of women in that field in the early sixties. Actually, no, there were a lot of women who were in that field. It wasn't truly engineering. It was...Well, I'm trying to think. In my office, we would program these giant-size computers, which still operated with punch cards which read the little holes in the cards. I remember that well from college, yes. IBM cards. We would design the computers?no