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was humorous. I don't know. My daughter Peggy has a lot of that. I don't know where it comes from, but I guess I refined it because of my contacts to theater and with people who -- it's not like “Make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh.” But I went to the Palace Theater regularly. I saw all the great comedians.

As a boy.

As a boy. I saw the Marx Brothers, Milton Berle when he was sixteen, J.C. Flippen, the great master of ceremonies, Burns and Allen, and I was always taking notes and sending the notes to my brothers Jack and Phil, who were performing in the Catskills, for sketches they were going to do, and I was giving them the jokes. So I don't know, it's not a joke-telling kind of thing, but I think it's a cynical humor or whatever.

Sort of the Jewish world view of people at the mercy of a crazy universe?

That's one way of putting it. But I guess the fact that I'm Jewish also adds to it. I think there's something in my Jewish upbringing, the kind of people I dealt with, that helped in this humor kind of thing.

Looking back, are there areas of regret or things that you might have done differently?

I guess there are many things I would have done differently. I think that, for example, the whole question of Bread and Roses reaching an audience of our members more effectively could have been done differently, based upon what I know now.

But more important, the regret I have is that what this meant to my family. I was never home, so I was physically never close to my daughters. They knew me and they loved me, and I know that, but I would never be able to spend much time with them. And in Anne's case, it's very special. Here was Anne taking care of the children, taking care of the family, cooking, and going to graduate school to get a degree.

In?

A Ph.D. in sociology. And then continuing as an assistant to a very distinguished professor, Matilda White Riley, and teaching at Rutgers, and going out to Rutgers, and yet being responsible for the family. And then was--or is the author of a number of very, very important works on aging in society. She was doing all of this without