Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324         Page 278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292 of 592

I was tired very often! I was often tired. But you sort of got, you had a lot of adrenalin going. You were really going beyond your bounds. It was like your whole life. That was it -- the union was your life. In that sense it was exciting. Just thinking you were growing. To see the union suddenly shoot up to be a big union I guess was sort of incredible -- created problems with other unions.

You haven't commented in many many interviews about your personal life. I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to say about that.

My personal life became subordinated to this. I mean, it pays a big price. Anne is going to school. She decides to go back to school, a long time ago. She had worked for her father, just a nothing job. She had been an economics major. She was a very good student. Unlike most of her friends, who decided to go back to work -- most of them decided to become teachers. She didn't want to become a teacher. So she went for a masters in sociology. You could go at NYU because they had classes after four o'clock. I was at work and she went and the kids sort of took care of themselves. We would bring a sitter and that kind of thing, who prepared the food. I would get home very late, she would get home very late and she would be studying. After she finished her masters she decided to go ahead for her Ph.D.

At NYU she was a student of Matilda White Riley, who is one of the most important persons in writing on aging. She was a very good student of hers and she also taught at Rutgers. So she became her assistant, sort of a teaching assistant, and was shortly thereafter offered a position at Rutgers. Then worked with Professor Riley, with a team, on a Russell Sage grant. They produced several volumes on aging and society that are still the major volumes. Anne has written many books. But our lives were work all the time. The kids took it on the chin in that sense, I guess. My relations with my children were, you know, they were not that close -- they couldn't be. We were not together that much. We have a good relationship now. I know families that have much better relationships because they have spent more time together. That's the way we've been all the time.

Those are choices you've ultimately felt comfortable with.

Yes. Yes. First of all the hospital campaign was all over New York. Everybody was very proud of it, you know, that kind of thing. So are you going to say, “Stop this kind of thing, and don't do it?” That's what it was like.