Interview with Stephen Norman Weiss

Weiss, Stephen Norman ; Gashurov, Irene

Stephen Norman Weiss is an attorney in New York specializing in Litigation, Patent and Trademark and Intellectual Property cases. He is managing partner at Stephen Norman Weiss Law Office, but currently semi-retired. He pursued a liberal arts education at Harpur College, which he believes was on par with an education from an elite private college. His JD is from New York Law School.

2017-11-27

In Copyright

2017-11-27

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

94:30 minutes

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Stephen Norman Weiss
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 27 November 2017
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(Start of Interview)

IG: 00:03
All right, okay, so for the record, this is Irene Gashurov interviewing Steve Weis. Steve, can you tell me your name, your age and who you are?

SW: 00:23
Okay, my name is Stephen Weiss. I am 72 years old. I am a man. I graduated at Harpur College in October 1966 but I am officially the class of June 1967. I am a lawyer. I practice patent litigation and international law in New York City, and I live in Tenafly, New Jersey. I have a wife and four children and five grandchildren, and what else about me? That is who I am.

IG: 01:01
Um, that is fine. That is [crosstalk]

SW: 01:03
Tenafly, New Jersey.

IG: 01:04
Okay, so where did you grow up?

SW: 01:06
I was born in Bronx County, New York City, in 1945. I go- I-I grew up in, oh, I was I live- We lived in the Bronx until March 1958. My first memory, big memory of the Bronx, was coming home from elementary school, and there was a block party going on, celebrating the death of Joe McCarthy and the whole street and- It was fabulous. 815 Fairmount Place. You can actually find that in Google, but that is where I lived, and there was a big block party, and I was wondering what was going on, and they were all celebrating that someone had died, which was odd to a kid, but um the person that died was Joe McCarthy. So I lived, we lived there, and my sister, myself and my parents lived there until March (19)58 and then we moved to Flushing, Queens, and we lived there until- I lived there until June (19)63 when I left to go to college. I went to high school at Brooklyn Technical High School, which was in Brooklyn, New York, so I had to commute to high school, and there I studied engineering. I know I never became an engineer, and that is probably good, because the bridges and tunnels in New York City that stand today probably would not be there if I went for engineering. [laughs] So then I start- when I applied to Harpur College, at the time, there were two financial programs that made college free for me. I do not know if they still exist. One, you had to take a test for. It was called the Regent scholarship. And if you were a resident of the state of New York, you took a test, and I do not know a certain grade gave you the scholarship, and otherwise you did not get it. And so I got that. And then there was another program called the Scholar Incentive Award, and that was given to all residents of the state of New York, so if you had both, then basically went to college for free. And which is what I did, went to college basically, I mean, there was, there was, like a nominal fee, but I did not pay for dormitory. There was a meal plan, and of course, there was tuition. I paid for books. That was it. And at- when I got accepted to Harpur College, there was no state univ- there was a State University of New York system, but Harpur College was known as Harpur College. It was, was not, was not known as SUNY Binghamton. It was not, I do not know if it was part of SUNY Binghamton or not, but the sign was Harpur College. The acceptance documents which are going to donate to you say Harpur College. And they were just starting the trimester program. My class was the first class that had the opportunity to go in July of (19)63 I wanted to get out of my house as soon as possible, so I opted to go right after I graduated high school to go to college. So that is my background leading up to college.

IG: 04:20
Yeah-yeah. so what I am just will return to Binghamton University, and I am very interested to learn what you knew of Harpur College at the time that you applied.

SW: 04:37
They- there was no Internet, there was no email, the- we had a guidance counselor at the Brooklyn Tech. And at the time, if you went to school in the one of the New York City High Schools, because my sister went to music and art in New York City, what they would tell you is that you could apply to and I remember three or four colleges, period. I mean, you could not pay that. You could not apply to more, even if you wanted to. I think if you were rejected, you could get another application. But I know people, I know I have four kids and they, I know what they did, but I probably spent more in college applications than people spent on tuition back then, but, but then you could not do that, and one of the applications had to go to the city university system, which was city CCNY, Queens College, Brooklyn, you had to apply to one of them. So that left you with three. And then the guidance counselor said, Well, there was, there was a, he called it a new college. I guess it was not new. Was not was I do not think it was new. It was fairly new because it had been someplace else. Had been Vestal, I think, and they recently moved to the Binghamton just a few years before I started. I think, I think, I am not sure. So he gave me this brochure on Harpur College, and it was a liberal arts college, and I did not want to go into engineering. I want to want the liberal arts, because I like the literature. I like learning various subjects that it want to be, you know, science and engineering. So that was a liberal arts college, and I do not remember. Oh, I know where else I applied. I applied to Oberlin. Oberlin, Ohio. So Oberlin College, and I do not remember if I got in or not, but I mean, I went to gone there for free, then I could not afford it, and I applied to one more, and I did not want to go to the city colleges, because I had to get out. I had to get out. I was very highly motivated to get away for reasons that I will go into so I remember, I remember it was a green brochure, and it just, I just remember, I remember the brochure, it was green, it was like four pages, and it just described the liberal arts education. And so it intrigued me. Now, we did not visit colleges. Then the way, you know, as I said, with my four kids. I mean, I spent money. We flew all over, we flew to Michigan, we flew out to everywhere you can, you name it. We visited with four kids. As I said, on airfare and applications, I spent more than college tuition, but then you did not visit. So CCNY I knew because was in the city, Oberlin. I never visited. I just knew from the brochure the other college that I applied to, I do not even remember, and I did not visit Harpur so but that was the only university that, other than CCNY, that I applied to, where I could use the Regent scholarship and the incentive program. So it was liberal arts, and it just looked interesting, so that is why I applied there. But there was no visiting, no interviews, nothing.

IG: 07:55
Let us just backtrack. Um-um, tell me what your parents did for a living, and how many were you in your family?

SW: 08:11
My father worked for the state of New York as a tax examiner, and also had a second job selling insurance. He did that for my home, and my mother was a clerk or secretary for the Department of Buildings for the city of New York. And my sister, who is seven years older than I, she actually got married when I was 13 and became and finished the last two years of college, being married and she became a teacher. So she moved out in (19)58 she moved out the year that we left the Bronx and moved to Flushing.

IG: 08:52
So did your parents value education, and did they see that education as a vehicle of to a better life. What was their attitude?

SW: 09:06
I want to be totally honest [crosstalk].

IG: 09:07
Yes.

SW: 09:08
Okay, well, I came from a dysfunctional family, okay, my parents really did not get along, just one of the reasons I had to get out, and that is one of the reasons that my sister left in (19)58 and she got married. She was sophomore in college. She just had to get out. So it was a very difficult childhood, and that is one of the reasons I went to wanted to go to Brooklyn Tech to just to get away. So I commuted to high school. I did not want to go to my local high school. I took a test, and in Brooklyn Tech, you could start in the ninth grade, Bronx Science and Stuyvesant, you had to start the 10th grade, and I wanted to get out. So my mother, neither of my parents went to college, but my mother was-was more encouraging. My father, I actually had to forge his name on the consent form to go to Brooklyn Tech, but my mother helped me out, you know, when she could. So my mother valued education. Now my-my mother's brother, he was actually dean of the graduate school at CCNY during the (19)60s. His name is Oscar, was- is Oscar Zeichner, z, e, i, c, h, n, er, and my mother's maiden name is Zeichner. So his family was also dysfunctional. I do not want to fame my uncle, but he was, he was dean there, and they wrote history book, and so he obviously highly educated, PhD. So my mother valued education, my father, I mean, I did not really, I mean, would not really talk that much. So I do not know what, what he valued, but I always thought. I always knew I would go to college. I do not know why I knew, but I knew I would get actually, ever since I was a little boy, I wanted to be a lawyer. I mean, I have, like, I have some stuff from my childhood, like, like, old, autographed books in the sixth grade. You know, it starts off go little album far and near to all the friends I hold so dear, and tell them each to write a page that I might read in my old age. So now I am 72 I went back and looked at it when I was in the third grade. I wanted to be a lawyer. I do not know why, because I did not know any lawyers. No one in my family was a lawyer, but I wanted to be a lawyer. [laughs] so, so I knew I was going to get a higher education. I never doubted it, and that is not because of parental encouragement or anything.

IG: 11:50
But it if not parental encouragement. Do you think that the encouragement came from your teachers and maybe your [crosstalk]

SW: 11:57
I think everyone-

IG: 11:58
-your, um-

SW: 11:59
I am sorry.

IG: 12:00
Yeah.

SW: 12:01
-everyone in my neighborhood was expected to go to college. I mean, I was brought up in a Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx, and everyone there was expected. It was just like you were expected to go to kindergarten and expected to go from the sixth grade to the seventh grade-

IG: 12:18
Right. Yeah.

SW: 12:19
I mean, it was just-just understood that that would happen as natural as, you know, as guys going as eating dinner, We just understood that you would go to college. I do not know anyone who did not expect to go to college in the group of people that I grew up with. I mean, it just was, I do not know anyone who just thought of getting a job, or thought of enlisting in the military or thought of going becoming a technician, everyone that I knew, every page in my year, in my elementary school where they signed the autograph book. They all talked to talk about college.

IG: 12:23
Right. So was that- was the culture [crosstalk]

SW: 12:32
It was the environment, was the entire environment. Was the public, the most unbelievable public-school system.

IG: 13:01
Yes.

SW: 13:02
I read in high school. I read The Rubaiyat. I read, I read Heart of Darkness in high school. I mean, I mean, I remember, I remember, I remember poems I read in the in junior high, I remember reading John Green Whittier. Do you familiar with that? No. Do you know that?

IG: 13:22
No.

Third speaker: 13:22
Yeah.

SW: 13:23
The Maud Muller, it says, "of all the words of tongue and pan the sad a star it might have been." I still remember that this elementary school would do a sixth grade. So it was the public-school system was unbelievable at that time, I mean, in my neighborhood, Jonas Salk, who had the polio vaccine. He went to my Junior High School in the Bronx, yeah. It was just-just unbelievable public education.

IG: 13:37
Right. Right.

SW: 13:53
So it was just expected.

IG: 13:56
So when you arrived to Harpur College, what-what did the campus look like? You know, was it a culture shock for you to come from the city.

SW: 14:10
No.

IG: 14:10
And end up in the-

SW: 14:12
The country.

IG: 14:13
-in the country. Yes,

SW: 14:14
No, it was not. I do not know why. It really was not. I mean, it just-just, I cannot explain it. I said, no, like, like zelig, like a chameleon.

Third speaker: 14:26
Do you want to draw that for us?

IG: 14:26
Yeah.

SW: 14:26
Just, I just-just changed. I mean, I just, all of a sudden, I was a college student. I remember very early on there was, there were tables in the student center. Now, if you drove up to center drive, there was a, like, a like a circle, like you would drive up to center drive, you made a left, and you went around a circle, and there was the student center right in front, and there was an Esplanade, you know, an elevated walkway. I have a movie of it which I am going to email you. You see it there? I guess I could draw it. Yeah, I am not a good artist, but, but, but that is where the bus pulled up with that video I showed you. But anyway, in that building I remember, let us see, there was a bookstore, and there was some rooms, hold on, in the back and to the right, where we used to where we had meetings, including SDS [Students for a Democratic Society], but the date that within the day or two after you got there, there was not a formal orientation. There was a letter I got from an advisor which I gave you, which is in that folder.

IG: 15:34
Right.

SW: 15:34
That was my orientation. He met me.

IG: 15:37
Right.

SW: 15:37
And-and in there-there were tables, and there was the debate society, which I joined immediately. And the coach was Dr. Eugene Vasilew. And there was a thing called services for youth, which worked with poor children in the Binghamton area. So that intrigued me, so I joined that there were tables, and you would go to the table, and there was a pad and-and there were people who were in that group, and they would talk to you about it, and you could sign your name.

IG: 16:11
Why did the opportunity of working with poor children in the neighborhood intrigue you? Was that part of your upbringing?

SW: 16:20
I probably identified with them.

IG: 16:22
Yeah.

SW: 16:22
I mean, I would have to go through analysis the real reason, which I am not going to do, but-but probably, you know, probably I identified with them.

IG: 16:34
So, do you think that there was a lot of outreach that Harpur College did to the community. Do you think that it, it had strong ties to the community?

SW: 16:45
Right. I think so. Yeah, and they really, they made you feel welcome. I mean, they made me it was a very small school. I mean, when I visited it in October for the 50th, my 50th Homecoming was very- it was large. There was like, I saw those separate communities they called the College in the Woods. I think they called.

IG: 17:04
Right.

SW: 17:05
That did not exist. None of that existed. There was Harpur College, there was, there was, let us say, Champlain Hall. There was a building to the left of that. There were, like, just a few dorms who basically knew, I think that the cornerstone said (19)58 or (19)59 and I entered (19)63 I mean, some, some of them were being built. Then in the back there was a dawn being built called Chenango, it was not built yet. I moved in there in my third year as the first tenant. I mean, the first student. So you felt like it was a very small community. And at least those of us who entered in July knew everyone

IG: 17:06
Right-right.

SW: 17:07
Now that changed, because I could talk about trimester, but in that first going there, there was no-no one was there before us, because we were the first trimester. So there were, there were, you know, that was it. Everyone was started [crosstalk]

IG: 18:05
You were really the path breakers.

SW: 18:07
Yes, yeah, right. There were sophomores and juniors. I mean, people who were in the by- the two-semester system. Obviously, some of them opted to take the next semester starting July, but, but it was very small, so you sort of got to know everybody. So you really felt, I mean, you felt welcome. You- professors had us over it. One of the videos that I am going to email you, that I showed you was, Dr. Vasilew having us over at his house for barbecue. Dr. Carlip [Alfred Benjamin Carlip], he was an economics professor. I do not know if this name anything mean anything to you. He was chairman of the economics department, C, A, R, L, i, p, he had us over to his house. Dr Kadish [Gerald Kadish], he-

Third speaker: 18:52
He is still there.

SW: 18:53
Taught. He taught history.

Third speaker: 18:54
He is still teaching.

SW: 18:56
Really? He is still teaching. I have a picture. I have to send it to- it is in my basement. I got to find it. He, he came in my last year, the last semester I had an apartment in Vestal, right near the Vestal High School. So we had an anti-war meeting there, and he came, and I have a picture of him there with his wife, who I learned he divorced a few years after that. May have remarried, but he was a specialist in Egyptian-

Third speaker: 19:25
That wife died, so it is, but he is, he is good.

SW: 19:29
Really? He is what Egyptians are still specialized in Egyptian history.

Third speaker: 19:33
Ancient.

SW: 19:35
Ancient history. Yeah, right-right, conversational hieroglyphics. I am joking, but yeah, but yeah, so he is still, he is really teaching.

Third speaker 19:43
And very sound, yeah.

SW: 19:48
Well, he was young. He was young. I mean, I am 72 and he is maybe 10 years older than me. So he must, he must be in his 80s. Yeah-yeah.

Third speaker: 19:53
Maybe even more. I mean, he is old, but he is still functioning.

SW: 20:01
That is cool, huh? I value would have known that I would have looked for him at the October reunion. He would have remembered me because he came to, we had anti-war meetings in my in my apartment, he came, he came to a few of them. He came with his wife, the one that he divorced anyway. So, yes, so-so it was very welcoming, warm atmosphere, inclusive.

IG: 20:26
And it is, it is very unusual that you had that much interaction with faculty being at a public university, because you would expect that, you know, from a Princeton or-

SW: 20:37
Right. Right.

IG: 20:40
-something like that, where there is very close interaction.

SW: 20:43
Yeah. I saw that that in Columbia, yeah, but that was different.

IG: 20:47
Yeah.

SW: 20:47
But the but the thing is actually the movie that I showed you at Dr Vasilew's house, I am playing ball with his son. He is like, a five-year-old son, or something, six-year-old. You know, you just felt like, all of a sudden, my dysfunctional family that I grew up with became a functional, welcoming family at this college. It was really-

IG: 21:09
It is wonderful.

SW: 21:10
-totally different experience. Yeah, I do not know if I did not get that feeling when I was there and October, but I mean, it is only there for a day there, and it seemed much bigger.

IG: 21:21
Did your parents visit you? Or did you visit them during your years at [crosstalk]

SW: 21:28
My parents, my parents split. My mother said she was [inaudible] She always told me she was going to wait until I graduate high school. Oh, she should not have, but she did, because my father was a little bit nuts, but uh, but um, but they did. But actually, my father and sister came up with me when I went to college in July. I am trying to think how we got up there. We must have taken the Greyhound bus and Port Authority. That is how we got up there. They came up there, and then right across Vestal Parkway, there was a hotel, which is nothing, and then, but they were there for days. So they came up there. My father was not there again. He actually died the following year. I came home, I actually found his body in the bathroom. So, because he was living alone and my mother was living alone, they split. So I came home. I remember, I know why I came home, because I was campaigning for Robert Kennedy for Senate. So I came home in the in October. That was the end of October. Election Day was November, something November 3. And my father died November 1, so he wanted me to stay in his apartment, but I would not, and I came there, and I have had him dead in the floor. So that is sort of guilt. My mother did visit me, actually. She came up a few times, and I would, I would come back here. I would take the train and I came back here. So I would, I would, you know, stay by my mother's place or friends. So I would come.

IG: 23:11
Hello.

SW: 23:13
Hi, Mary. I am being interviewed.

IG: 23:19
Yeah

SW: 23:20
I am famous.

IG: 23:22
So, I mean, I think I know the answer, but tell us how you-you felt about the Vietnam War at that time.

SW: 23:33
Okay. I was against it. There are many, many reasons why somehow was selfish. I mean, we had the draft so that the-the (19)60s are often romanticized by the music and, you know, free love and all that, but there was a pervasive anxiety, because, you are killed. What do you do? You go to jail, go to Canada, maybe never come back. You go in and who knows what is going to happen to you. So there were many reasons why I was against at first, I read a lot and just seemed stupid. I mean, the one seemed stupid, it was no reason for it later on. I mean, if you saw the series on TV, I mean, they lied to us, but it was obvious then that they lied. And you could see, well, I could tell that there was, I can tell the guy's name because I did not like him, Irwin Romana. He was a student up there, and his family had money, so he hired a draft lawyer. So if you had money, you could manipulate the system. I remember his initial. He told me the initial. I said, you have a lawyer. And I remember. This conversation. He said, Yeah, is it expensive? He said, Well, the first visit is $1,000 you know, that was more than college for me for four years. So, but anyway, so it was unfair, it did and it was scary, and there was no justification for it. So, and we studied. I do not know if you, I do not know. Do you have any economic background?

IG: 25:29
Well, I have read.

SW: 25:30
Okay, so you see if we soon. You know the Mont Pèlerin Society, the what Pèlerin Society? You know the Mont Pèlerin Society? Okay, well, just go into this, because I was [crosstalk] okay. So-so at the end of World War Two, I think Mont Pèlerin was (19)46 I think you remember, yeah, so at the end of World War Two, there were a group of economists who were shocked at what happened with strong centralized government. I mean, in Germany, the strong centralized government gave us, obviously, Nazis. And strong centralized government in Italy was Mussolini, the strong centralized government in Russia was Stalin, and the strong centralized government in Japan was Tojo, Hirohito. And the strong centralized government in the US was created by the New Deal and Franklin Roosevelt. There was big difference between the New Deal and fascism, but it was a strong central government, so they were frightened as to what was going to happen now, as Europe is about to be rebuilt, and how do we deal with the reemergence of strong central governments, how do we fight against it? So they had this meeting in Mont Pèlerin. It was in Switzerland. I think I do not remember you remember more better, more than I do, but and they discussed how to get rid of it. And of course, at that time, the only two strong central governments, was America based on capitalism and the Soviet Union. So they were petrified of the Soviet Union and communism, and they wanted America to become more capitalistic, and they wanted to get rid of a lot of the New Deal elements, which was strong centralized government like Social Security and TVA and all the things that Roosevelt did that they just did not want it so but the big fear was the Soviet Union and communism. And out of that, they broke their promise to, you know, to Ho Chi Minh, that Roosevelt made, that if you help, you will help you fight the Japanese and everything else, because, first of all, died and so anyway, so I was familiar with all that. So that that because I studied economics, and I could tell the teacher that taught it to me, Dr Melville, he was a professor at Harpur College, and they really went into things that, I do not know if they go into it now, but do they teach about the Mont Pèlerin now, I do not know.

IG: 25:42
Yes, absolutely.

Third speaker: 28:04
I am sure they do.

SW: 28:05
Yeah, but so-so-so I was, there were many reasons where I was against Vietnam. So there was a selfish reason the draft, there was the pervasive anxiety that, as time went on, all my friends felt, and we had Dylan playing for the dorms. I mean, I remember, but that was nice and-and we had, you know, lots of sex and other things that were fun, but there was a pervasive anxiety that we were always, you were scared. So since I was against it scary, very scary time. And then we had friends who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement, that there were people from, I guess you know that I think one was not the kids killed going down to one of the marches. I think, I think in (19)65 and I was a sophomore, I think, I think one of the students was killed down south. I did not get the only March I went on South was I went to DC, but I did not, I did not go to the I did not go all the way down south, but I think one of the kids that went down, they got hurt and killed. So there was the Civil Rights Movement. Then scary.

IG: 29:16
When, when did you kind of become open to politics and the, you know, the American, American scene, and so engaged, was it because of your of the threat of being enlisted in the in the war, or what made you so alive to the political scene?

SW: 29:41
Well, part of it was, we all, were-

IG: 29:43
You all were-

SW: 29:44
Yeah, I mean, it was, it was not there. Was this was not the this was the small group, maybe a small group joined SDS. That was not the only thing that was there. There was-

IG: 29:54
I mean, did it, did it happen on campus, or did it happen before coming? Your Harpur college-

SW: 30:00
I think it really evolved. It really got strong on campus. Yeah, not before first of before I was on campus, there was a lot of promise with Kennedy and the I did not know that he actually but he actually did not get I did not know that that, but no in high school, I mean, Kennedy was elected in November (19)60 I was in high school, and he was not killed until I was in college. And he was very popular with young people. One of the things I am giving you that Kennedy book I got the Hobb Bookstore, yeah, extremely popular. He was young. He was funny. And, you know, you got us, there was Bay of Pigs, and he admitted it was his fault. You know, he seemed, you know, almost like truancy. The buck stops here. I mean, he seemed honest so, and he said, I am a liberal and proud of it when people do not say that anymore. So, so through my high school years, when, before I went to college, I mean, I was really, you know, I was proud to be an American. Still, I am still thinking America is best country, you know, it is just that we have to do something about it.

IG: 31:15
Right.

SW: 31:15
But-but I was really felt the American pride. And then was after he was killed, the things started, you know, then, you know, it just like, like, shocked when he was killed, the chain, it changed a lot. And when Johnson came in, because we, you know, there were these theories, was he involved? And I am sure he was not, but, but then things started to jail. So Harpur College really happened.

IG: 31:47
So tell us what your involvement in student activism was like, student protest or activism, and what that that scene was [crosstalk]

SW: 31:56
Okay. So when it was still a very small college where in November (19)63 when he was killed. And through my through my years, there was that. There was not, if these other colleges did not exist, even when I graduated, there was no it was still small. It was bigger, but still small. And everyone, and everyone I knew was involved, it was not unique. It was not like the young democrats and young republicans, and they may have been stuff like that, but, you know, it was more focused. There was a group really focused on the Martin Luther King and on the south and, you know, and I remember, like we talked about, we talked we mentioned this, this, this country as good as it is, was a country where half of the country fought for the right of one human being to own another. Civil War was it was a war where someone fought for the right to own another person. So he was not with that, and obviously it was a long way uphill. So, so there was, there was, to some extent, there was separate. The SDS was both, was both was divert for a minute. One of the things that SDS fought for was ending the student curfew. You know about the student curfew?

IG: 33:22
Yes, that is another thing that I will-

SW: 33:24
That was one of the, one of the first things, the first time I went to a meeting, which was in the old student center under the Esplanade, one of the first things they talked about was the curfew. Because if you were a female, you had to have you did not get a key. They locked the door. I do not remember what time it was during the week. It was one certain time, and then then on the Friday night and Saturday night, it was a little bit later, but it was still they locked it. Now they did not lock my door, only the woman's dorm. So SDS, one of the first things that we did was to fight against the curfew. When we had petitions, we sent it around. These the mailboxes were. They were not in the student center. There was a building, so I do not remember what the mailboxes were. I remember I was box 38 Harpur College, but I do not remember where they were. You used to there was a, I think was a combination. I do not remember, but they would, we would stuff these petitions in the mailbox that in the curfew that was when big things that SDS did was fight for that. Because I remember I went out with this girl, and we got back late, and she was locked out and she was suspended, and nothing happened to me. Nothing. I mean, I nothing happened to me. Yeah, we felt horrible.

IG: 34:48
It is.

SW: 34:50
I felt horrible. I mean, we did not go to bed together. We just-just thought we would just, there was this hill that led to the gym. The gym was down here with the students was here; it was like a hill, and it was sitting on the hill and talking just and we went back and it was locked.

IG: 35:07
Yeah.

SW: 35:09
Now if you but if you were 21 you got a key. So if you were, like a junior or senior, and you were 21 years old, you did not have the curfew for a female. So-so-so that was one of the things we did.

IG: 35:22
For a woman, for female and-and [crosstalk]

SW: 35:25
Men did not need a key. I mean, there was no [crosstalk]

IG: 35:27
Female after 21 they did not need a key.

SW: 35:30
They did not need the kid. No, they got a key. I am sorry they did not get locked out. In other words, you could not get into the dorm after they locked unless you had a key. Was a little, you know, [inaudible] regular key. Yeah, so, but you got the key if you were 21 so, um, but you could drink when you were 18. So you get drunk. Mr. Curfew, get suspended. So, but you could not vote. Can vote in 21, but anyway, so that was one of the things that they were for. But then we talked about the war, the draft, one of the things that we did in, I forget which year it was, we had an intense debate about the Selective Service Exam. You are familiar with that?

IG: 36:21
I do not think so.

SW: 36:22
Okay, I forget when, what year was, when I was a sophomore or junior. I Think, I think Junior, it does not really matter. But Johnson, if you were in college, you were deferred from the draft, you had to register when you were 18 with your local board, and then if you were in school, you had what was known as a 2s which was a student deferment. But what Johnson did was, what was have a test, because he said that they wanted more manpower in the army, they wanted less student deferments, so they-they gave a test in the spring of the academic year, and the test was to select an exam just the general like, like a College Board test, like ETs and-and the test was being given in the gym, and there was only one gym, and you went down this, the main road of down this hill, and to the right there was a gym. And in the gym, they set up chairs, and they had this exam. So we were debated. We were against the exam, but then some of us said, “Well, look, you know, it is fine to be against the exam and not take it,” but what if they actually use this exam for the student deferment would be deprived if we, if we prevented other students from taking it, would we be giving them a ticket to Vietnam, getting rid of the 2s so they were back and forth, and anyway, it went the way the pro- We decided to protest it anyway and tell people not to take it. I did not take it. I did not take the test, but that was the decision I made for myself, but we wanted to make the decision for everyone else, so that was the debate. And debate was that we were going to make the decision for everyone else, not let them take it. But we never did that. But I remember we wanted to do that, but we did not. so. So it was not the homework. It was not, you know, everyone did not agree with every you know, it was not like-

IG: 38:26
How many were you? How many were you in the SDS?

SW: 38:32
Not a lot.

IG: 38:34
100?

SW: 38:35
No-no-no. Not the whole, the whole, no, 40, 50, maybe less, maybe less. We did not come to we did not come to meetings. Some people signed up. But-one of the reasons I signed up, there was a very attractive girl who said, you should because I was active. I mean, I did make my political views known. This is very attractive girl who came up to me says, Why did not you, why do not you go to an SDS meeting? And that is why I went for the first one.

IG: 39:16
Well, it is a good enough reason.

SW: 39:19
Yeah, but-but, I mean, most meetings, then they are not that many people. It would be, I mean, there may be 50 total in the whole thing, but there were, you know, maybe 10, 20, would come, maybe 10 would come. But we were active, like we got these petitions for the for the-in the curfew, we tried to block the-the Selective Service Exam, we-we put up the posters. Did you ever see the poster? Girls say yes, the boys who say no.

IG: 39:59
No-no. That is, that is funny. So there were, were they? Were there females in SDS?

SW: 40:07
Of course.

IG: 40:08
Of course, yes.

SW: 40:09
Yeah-yeah-yeah.

IG: 40:15
Very funny.

SW: 40:15
Sponsored there by the protest against the army. We put them up in dormitories. And we actually encouraged, for selfish region- reasons, also, we actually encouraged women to, you know, support the anti-war movement by, you know, free love, just-just, you know, resist the draft, go to go to a protest, and we will get sex. I am not kidding. That is, that was one of the things we talked about, you know, just-just doing that. There was no aids, there was none of that stuff there.

IG: 40:53
Or it was not known about.

SW: 40:54
It was known about, I do not think there was, was there back in the (19)60s. No, I do not know. It does not really matter, but that is what happened. So, you know, experimented. I mean, we were not the same, like the SDS started in Wisconsin with the Port Huron manifesto statement, you know.

IG: 41:15
How were you different?

SW: 41:17
Because we were not really part of, like, like a fraternity, like a national group, and we did not really get involved with them.

IG: 41:23
Right.

SW: 41:24
You know, there was not like a, it was not the it was not a unified thing. It was not like a, was not like the Democratic party with a Democratic National Committee. There was the Port Huron statement, and they probably did have involvement at Columbia, where they had the student strikes. CCNY had student strikes in the in the Lewisohn Stadium, I think was called [crosstalk]But we were a very small school and-and we did not, we did not have much to do with any national, any other-other SDS. We were basically contained.

IG: 42:00
But you got your messages.

SW: 42:03
Yeah.

IG: 42:03
Platform-

SW: 42:04
Oh yeah, oh yeah. No, we did. We did communicate, yeah. We did communicate it, but we did not get Yeah.

IG: 42:08
And how did you communicate with them? With-with-with central [crosstalk]

SW: 42:15
Yeah-yeah, no.

IG: 42:16
So what was [crosstalk]

SW: 42:19
We got brochures from them. I remember getting box, a box of brochures. We got a box of those posters girls, you know, things like that.

IG: 42:27
That is interesting.

SW: 42:28
-to put up on the wall.

IG: 42:31
So we touched on this a little describe to me what your- the social scene was at Harpur College. Was it a party school? What is it? What did it have a reputation of being a party school at the time?

SW: 42:46
No, did not.

IG: 42:46
It did not.

SW: 42:47
It was and it was serious. It was serious. Was serious, but it was fun. there- was it was fun. It was not fun because we know it got drunk or anything like that. First of all, you only have to be 18 to drink, so it was no big deal. I mean, you know, I drank when I could get a drink when I graduated high school, but legally, no bar. I mean, it is, you know, there was a we did not get drunk when, I guess we did sometimes, but it was not, it was not the big thing. No, it was not, was not the party school. We had fun. We had, we had, I remember seeing the Beach Boys at was not there. We went up. I remember a group of us went up to Ithaca, the Cornell, The Beach Boys performed. I remember seeing the [inaudible] Erin Quartet.

IG: 42:56
Yeah, Oh, yes, they are still around.

SW: 43:35
They are?

Third speaker 43:36
I have a question, what were you doing? Like, other than attending classes, like when you are not going to school, or during the weekend? What were the like- Some of the activities?

IG: 43:36
Yes.

SW: 43:36
They were in residence, I think so, yeah, in Binghamton. So they- we- I remember seeing the great, great they had great entertainment that we saw. What is his name, if you have Max Morath. He did Ragtime. Did a show there. It was very crowded. Did that. It was, it was a lot of fun, you know, this, you know, other than the pervasive fear that we had with the war lingering over us when we graduated, it was, it was a lot of fun. There was, there was, you know, no, it was not, was not the party school. No serious students. We took academia seriously. We took politics seriously, and close relationships. And there was, there was, like, free love, but, you know, but that was pervasive. I think then, maybe now too, I do not know. Well, I was on the debate team, so we traveled to various schools like you saw that thing from. Lehigh University. We traveled to New York City. We stayed at a hotel on the Grand Concourse, concourse Plaza Hotel where the Yankees stayed. We actually had the first- where they had one of the first UN meetings there at the concourse Plaza. So we traveled. So I was the debate team. I was on services for youth, where we work with poor children in Binghamton, I was in SDS. We did. We went with the brochures rallies. We encouraged people to protest. A group of a group of them organized a bus to the south, I did not go. I do not remember, I do not remember where the dream. I thought that someone got killed, but I am not sure it was my house, school, or someone who went along. Yeah, I did not go this. I cannot think what happened. I did go to Washington, so we sponsored that. What else did I do? I worked. I worked in the in the Music Library, Music Library.

IG: 46:08
that like, what did you do?

SW: 46:12
We put on music. In other words, you would sit there, like, if you were taking music appreciation, you would sit there and put on headphones [crosstalk] and Beethoven's Ninth, and then we would, I would be in the control room, and I would put on a record with Beethoven's Ninth, and I would say, plug it to seat nine, right? There was no mp3, so things like that. So I worked there, and there was a language lab. What we do? You win, and then you put on headphones and you listen to German or Russian, yeah, and you would repeat. They would say, you know, guten tag, guten tag. So some people work there, but I remember working in the music. I had another job one of the summers I was up there driving a tractor on a golf course. I got paid $8 an hour, which is a lot then.

IG: 46:19
Yeah, I remember yeah music library [crosstalk] it was, it was probably a lot in in certain parts of the country.

SW: 47:07
Yeah-yeah, so that is one thing [crosstalk]

IG: 47:09
So were you self-sufficient, pretty much with your scholarship and the money that you earned from part time jobs? Or-

SW: 47:17
Yeah-yeah.

IG: 47:17
It is tremendous.

SW: 47:17
Yeah. Had to be.

IG: 47:17
You had to be.

SW: 47:21
Yeah. Yeah. I also, once, one summer, I worked in the I came back and I mother had my mother lived in the Bronx. My father already died, and I worked in the New York Public Library, actually, oh yes, from [inadible]. You know what I found them, I could bring it down later, I found the letter that I wrote saying, I think I am going to go into politics, to the person in the library on Harpur stationary. I will give it to you. I will give with the stuff. When we are finished, I will bring it down.

IG: 47:53
Yeah. Was this is [crosstalk]

SW: 47:58
I never went into politics. I never did.

IG: 48:00
No-no speaking about politics, was there recruitment for the war on campus?

SW: 48:05
No, that is not that I remember, I-

IG: 48:09
-not that you remember. So do you think that that was unusual for because of the constituency?

SW: 48:16
We did not have ROTC.

IG: 48:17
I see.

SW: 48:18
I mean, other schools did. We did not. First of the school is too small. We never had it. We did not have France either. I mean that to their fraternities.

Third speaker: 48:25
They have now.

SW: 48:27
Do they do? We did not. We did not have them. We had no fraternities. We had, we had society. They had, I was not a member of it. There was a Greeks society, but it was not fraternities. I do not know what it was, because I It was not very big, it was not very popular, and I do not know anyone who was in it, so, but there was no recruitment. There was no ROTC there was [crosstalk].

Third speaker 48:28
Oh yeah.

IG: 48:49
That-that answers the question. So what was residential life like? What did you do for entertainment?

SW: 48:56
Well, there was, there was a TV in the lounge. There was only one TV, and it was in the lounges, black and white TV. The lounge was in the first floor. If you went into Champlain Hall, let us see. There were two dormitories that faced each other, Champlain, I think, and something else.

IG: 49:15
Right.

SW: 49:16
And the first semester was in the one on the left. I do not remember what a name of it was. And then the go at the-the entrance was, let us see, there was a walkway, and then the entrance was this way, perpendicular to the walkway, and go in, and you wind up in the lounge, and there was a TV there. I remember seeing Ed Sullivan seeing the Beatles. We all sat around.

IG: 49:39
I remember that too.

SW: 49:40
The Beatles is on the Sullivan show. Yeah, that is where we watch the Kennedy funeral, and everyone was crying. And go to the Student Center. We go to a place [inaudible], and we go to a place called Sharkies. They had something called spiedie. It was like something on a skewer. Yeah, I do not know what it was.

Third speaker 50:08
They still have that. Not Sharkies I do not know but spiedies, chicken spiedies.

SW: 50:09
Sharkies, yeah. I do not think it was chicken, I would not eat it now, but-

Third speaker 50:16
Yeah.

SW: 50:17
I do not know what it was. So we did things like that. We had these, the SDS, we had the other clubs. I mean, there was always something to do. It was always, you know, there was a theater. If you faced the student, if you went up to the main driveway, and then you went down the circular thing to the right, and the movie where you saw those me and my friend breaking into the window. There was a theater in that building, and they had entertainment there. It was, it was, was fun. I mean, it was, it was, it was, it was a lot of fun, actually.

IG: 50:51
So were you in a in a kind of a circle with a lot of girls as well? It was, there, were there sort of mixing of the girls, it was everybody went out together. Or did you go out in pairs? Or, I mean, where did you go? Like [crosstalk]

SW: 51:08
When you went to Shark- when you went to Sharkies, would go-

IG: 51:10
Yeah.

SW: 51:13
-in-

IG: 51:13
Yeah.

SW: 51:14
Boys and girls would go.

IG: 51:15
Yeah.

SW: 51:16
The thing with the debate society.

IG: 51:19
Yeah.

SW: 51:20
Boys and girls would go, there was no coed dorm. SDS, boys and girls that the video I showed you at Vasilew's House you saw female students and male students.

IG: 51:28
Yeah.

SW: 51:30
Kadish, if you are asking, give Kadish my name and just home Stephen Weiss and in the apartment in Vestal and the anti-war meetings. I mean, if he is still there, he will remember that. And his first wife, because he came there, he used to use the bum there, yeah, yeah. And one of his, one of his best students, was the kid running for the bus with the little stick they said, is dead now. His name was David Lorden, remember the name? You mentioned that to Mr. Katie, Professor Katie, she remember him too, as we used to go, yeah. But then, no, that was coed. We used to do things. You know, sometimes we students was, I forgot the name of it. That is my senior moment with the kids what I said was-

IG: 52:23
Well, how did the faculty regard your you know, social interactions your dating. Do they get involved in it? I mean, or rather the supervisors, were they kind of scrutinizing what you were doing after-

SW: 52:42
What surprises?

IG: 52:44
Did not you have RA resident assistance or any kind of supervision in your dorms? Because obviously there was somebody monitoring your comings and goings with the curfew, right?

SW: 52:58
But we did not have a curfew.

IG: 52:59
You did not have a curfew, but the girls did.

SW: 53:01
Yeah, I do not know. I do not I have no idea what was in the girls, but in the men, let me just think we did. I am sorry.

Third speaker: 53:09
Not curfew, but maybe like rules, that-

SW: 53:12
There were rules, but let me just think there was a there was a woman almost like a den mother for the Cub Scouts. There was no there was an older woman who I do not know what her involvement was, I mean, do you know what I am talking about? There was some, there was a woman who was like, part of out from Champlain. She was, she was like the den mother-

IG: 53:35
Maybe she was-

SW: 53:36
-for Champlain. And this other dorm that was quite opposite, this walkway, no Champlain would be here. This other dorm was here, and the left one, I am indicating left and the right, lawyer talk, indicating, but uh, and there was this woman, no, she was not a resident assistant. She was employed, I guess, by Harpur. But I do not remember they may have been. I do not remember what you would call I know RAs, because my four kids went to colleges and they were RAS but I do not remember that at Harpur. That does not mean they were not.

IG: 54:08
I mean, I am I see a little bit of a discrepancy here, because on the one hand, you talk about free love, and that must have been taking place somewhere.

SW: 54:20
Right.

IG: 54:20
And on the other hand, there were curfews for female students-

SW: 54:24
Right-right.

IG: 54:24
-and if they were just a few minutes late, they would be suspended.

SW: 54:28
Right.

IG: 54:29
So-so where was there-

SW: 54:32
Was, there was the-

IG: 54:34
-happening.

SW: 54:35
There was outdoors. There was this hill-

IG: 54:37
Yeah.

SW: 54:37
-that led down, I remember this hill that that went from where the dorms were down to the-

IG: 54:44
Right.

SW: 54:44
-gym, and lots of kids hung out there.

IG: 54:46
Yeah.

SW: 54:47
There were people with cars and doing the back seat of the car.

IG: 54:52
Okay.

SW: 54:57
I remember doing the back seat of a Volkswagen.

IG: 54:58
Yeah.

SW: 54:59
Yeah. I mean, you did what you had to do, but no, but there was-

IG: 55:02
Yeah-yeah.

SW: 55:07
But you could the girls could not go, wait. Oh yeah, you could wait. I am trying to think some rule that your feet had to be on the ground, wait-

IG: 55:16
Yeah.

SW: 55:17
-your feet had to be on the ground. [crosstalk] Or, that rings a bell. I do not remember what that was.

IG: 55:22
Right, I forgot exactly, but yeah, along those lines.

SW: 55:24
Yeah, you could visit, but your feet had to be on the ground. Door open [crosstalk]

IG: 55:27
One-one of the you know members, well, the member of the office is sex, or had to have at least one foot on the ground.

SW: 55:36
Yeah-yeah. But who would check? But then the door had to be open, so there must be somebody.

IG: 55:40
Somebody could not be lying,

SW: 55:41
Right. Yeah, but-but there must have been someone to check it. I mean, there must have been some walking by.

IG: 55:46
Exactly-exactly [crosstalk]

SW: 55:46
I do not remember who that could have been.

IG: 55:48
Not hearing with that.

SW: 55:49
I have no idea. I do not remember, but I am- just rang a bell about feet on the ground. I just-just thought of that right now.

IG: 55:55
Yeah-yeah. I heard about that too.

Third speaker: 55:58
Could you visit the girls' dorm?

SW: 56:01
During the certain hours she could it was visible and that we had that feet on the ground, yeah, certain hours during the day, you could go into the other dormitory and go upstairs, they said the hours, and you could do that. There were not there was no men's room bathroom in the girls dorm, and we could not use their bathroom, and there was no girl's bathroom in the men's dorm, but you could visit. And it was said [inaudible] maybe, maybe was one to four or something on certain days, on the weekend. I do not remember what it was, but yeah, you could, and the door had to be opened. And the rule was both feet or one foot on the ground with the door open. Remember that. But when you want to have sex, you have sex, you find a place to do it.

IG: 56:47
Yeah.

SW: 56:47
I mean that there is no-

IG: 56:48
Do you think that expectations about sex and marriage were changing very much then that, you know, the free love, of course, does not equate, you know, the expectation is that it, it will not necessarily lead to marriage. So-

SW: 57:08
Just as no, there was no reason not to enjoy that feeling.

IG: 57:12
Yeah.

SW: 57:12
Just because you are not going to get married [crosstalk] or you are going to go your way.

IG: 57:15
I am just sort of trying to get [crosstalk]

SW: 57:21
People expected to get married. Yeah, I expected to get married someday. The girls that I knew expected to get married, not necessarily to me. I do not know any girl back then who wanted to marry me. Now, whoever would ever, ever think of marrying someone like me? I do not think I was-

IG: 57:36
What were you like back then?

SW: 57:38
I remember doc- I remember Dr Vasilew said-said to me personally. He said a girl would probably think twice because of your childhood, you know, like him broken home and you do not like to visit [inaudible], you know, he said that probably would have an effect on how, how I would relate to a partner, the type of relationship. He actually said that to me. Dr. Vasilew, I remember it very clearly, so-

IG: 58:11
That is very prescient of him, you know, because people were not necessarily talking like that back then.

SW: 58:16
Oh, he said that to me. Oh, yeah, he did. Meanwhile, I have been married at the same woman since 1974 it can look very well, no, that is something, you know there, but, um, yeah, but people expected to get married, but not necessarily to the people that they went to bed with then, and also people disappeared. now they went, well, they went a different way. This is an out of town college with a trimester program where people, you know, I, there was one time I went three semesters and took off a semester. I mean, you know, then someone else would not be there, and then when it come back a semester later.

IG: 58:56
Right.

SW: 58:56
And then, you know, we did not have emails. I lost contact with a lot of people because there was no email. You did not do an email, if you did not write a letter. I have letters upstairs that I wrote to some people, but when I left Binghamton, I mean, I could not email, you know, my old roommate, my kids, they still email roommates, they email friends from high school. And I could not, and we did not do that. So you lost contact. If you did not write a long hand letter, that was it, and you did not call, because it is not, you know, unlimited, you know, calls on the cell phone.

IG: 59:33
So how did you stay in touch, because clearly you-you know the face of some of your classmates.

SW: 59:40
The only reason I know faces, I looked them up on the on the Binghamton. I learned that, well, I learned that Harvey Bournfield died. Who was he was the one in the video, because I tried to email him. I kind of classmates.com recently, five years ago, and I remember, and I. And then I-I had a phone number, I called him and actually got his son, and I found out that I had missed him by a year, and he died of cancer. So I sent his son a copy of that video. I said, I have a video of your father you may want to see, because he was the one climbing through the window. So, you know, I said that to me, really, he liked that so, but that is that I learned about Dave Lawton, who I was on the debate team and knew Dr Kadesh. I found that he died because I checked him on the alumni page. I checked names before the reunion, before the October. That is the only reason I know otherwise I will not know, yeah, and we did not keep touch. No.

IG: 59:45
Were you? You said that you know Binghamton or Harpur College was felt like a family that you had not had with your own-

SW: 1:00:50
To me, not necessarily to people who did have a family. It is all subjective.

IG: 1:00:56
Of course, we are talking about your experience. So were you very saddened when you graduated and you had to leave this family?

SW: 1:01:05
No, that is a very interesting question. I actually thought about that recently, because I was talking to my wife about that I want before we went back to that reunion. I wondered why I was not.

IG: 1:01:19
Yeah.

SW: 1:01:20
I mean, I really wondered about myself, why? Why was not I sad about leaving like, like my old my last roommate was a fellow by the name of Ira Mintzer. And we were close. We were good friends. We went on double date, double dates together. We had an apartment in Vestal near the Vestal High School. And, you know, I had left in the I left Binghamton, and that was it. No contact, no letters. You want to hear an interesting story about Ira Mintzer.

IG: 1:01:20
Yes.

SW: 1:01:23
So I am on Facebook, so I searched for some names. I come across Ira Mintzer. I remember he wanted to be a doctor. So Ira Mintzer doctor in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So I contacted him, because my old roommate, and two years ago, my wife and I were going up to Boston, so I said, “We are coming up to Boston.” He had me at his house for dinner, and his wife-

IG: 1:02:24
How nice!

SW: 1:02:25
-had not seen him since 1967 this was two years ago, since 2015 and got along as if, as if, we just graduated. So it is Facebook.

IG: 1:02:44
You probably felt connected with him.

SW: 1:02:47
Yeah, no. Now we come with now we write each other. I mean, on Facebook, we do not, we do not write. But now you do not have to send letter. You do not the call. I mean, you just there. It is, yeah, indicating with my fingers, yeah, no. So.

IG: 1:03:00
Maybe-maybe.

SW: 1:03:02
I do not know why I did not feel that, but other people, other people would have cried graduation. I maybe it is a defect in my personality.

IG: 1:03:10
No, maybe it gave you what you needed, and that was it.

SW: 1:03:13
Yeah, it was time to was time to move on.

IG: 1:03:16
Time to go.

SW: 1:03:17
Well, it is time to move on. I moved. I guess that is good. Maybe, you know, yeah, but I did, yeah, well, I do not know, but yeah, but I did not feel I felt glad to leave my home and go there.

IG: 1:03:34
Yeah.

SW: 1:03:35
I was happy when I was there. Other the anxiety that was pervasive in the (19)60s, and I was but I was not sad when it came time to leave. It was time to leave.

IG: 1:03:45
Yeah.

SW: 1:03:46
I did keep in touch with Dr Vasilew.

IG: 1:03:48
Oh.

SW: 1:03:50
By-by letter, we wrote each other. I would write him, and he would write me, not frequently, maybe a few times a year, but we did. But he was more than a pro- he was my coach and debating, so we would travel together the debate team. You saw that article which mentioned the debate team was not at large. It was eight of us, and I do not remember, but it was not large, so we were close group also. And you know, it was also like a cub master, and I was friends with his kid. I was friends with his kids, but when we went there, we played with his kids ball. He had three kids, daughter and two sons.

IG: 1:04:32
When you look back on this experience at Harpur College, what do you think you know? How do you think it changed you? What did it give you? You said [crosstalk]

SW: 1:04:46
Liberal arts education, yeah, and nothing with the clubs or anything else. The edge, I felt like the classes were small. We did not have any. There was one hall. All that looked like a lecture hall, and that was across the street from across the lawn, from the library. There was a new building, which, I mean, I think was science or something. I remember what it was, and that had a lecture hall, and I remember taking Psychology 101, and that was a lecture hall. Even then there was, was not a lot of students. Every other class I had was in the classroom not much bigger than the classroom I had in high school, elementary school, which was, you know, what, was not big. So we were really, I mean, it was really an intimate educational environment, you know, what, the way you picture something in the in the Aristotle or the Socrates, and, you know, he really, it was really back and forth. You know, when we this, when Dr. Carlip, discussed the Mont Pèlerin Society, when we really discussed it. Remember discussing, well, the-the outcome of that was Reagan and taking back, undoing the New Deal, but really with their motives. And I remember debating it, their motives, to some extent, were good motives, because they were afraid of central government, the fascism and everything else that came with it. And I remember debating it back and forth, maybe like 15 of us in the class and Dr. Carlip, and every once in a while, he would have a sofa to his house for a class. So these were not big classes. So it was, I think I really learned a lot. I mean, my notebook, I used to, I used to type my notes, and it was just, was just, I mean, I really felt I got an unbelievable education. I mean, I remember just, I just remember things that these professors said I. I remember my English. I remember my English professor-

IG: 1:06:45
For example, give us, give us some, you know, memorable things that they have told you that have influenced your thinking.

SW: 1:06:52
Okay. they want my-my English, one of my English professors who had us to read The Rubaiyat [Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám]. So, I mean, I read that to my kids when they were young. the moving finger writes. You know that right? You know the Rubaiyat so. So just remember, I remember, I am saying "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit ". Can call it back the cancel half a line or your tears wash out of it. I just remember standing up there. I remember, remember how that influenced a young student, you know, did? I am a devout atheist. Let me enforce that. So just and Dr. Melville [Robert Melville], who he was an advisor to the House Committee on sales and use tax. So in my because of that, just because of him, yeah, I am just getting a notebook because of Dr. Melville and when they read, I read the bill, it was just a bill. But this was the bill back then, HR, 11, 798, he was the, he was the member of Congress in Binghamton.

IG: 1:08:22
Oh, wow.

SW: 1:08:23
And since Dr. Melville was involved in that, I mean, I wanted to research it, so I read it on my own, because, because of him, so, you know, and I wrote a paper about it. I think that is my paper. I am not sure. Is that about the sales, news, tax-

IG: 1:08:47
-introduction, apology and justification? Is that it?

SW: 1:08:51
Oh, I know what that was. Yeah, about economics. I do not remember.

IG: 1:08:57
Yeah-yeah, theory and you agree beginning.

SW: 1:09:03
But you could see what the type of student there was by looking at my notebook. I mean, there is my notes-notes. I mean, I typed everything, but I really like it really felt like, like a partnership. Let us pull my rope. I mean, I really, I really felt like there was a partnership between the students and the professors in the academic environment that we learned from each other. I said it was almost like the what you would think the Greek learning system was. So that is what, that is what I got out of it. I do not know if they do that now, I think the classes are bigger now, yeah, and the money's cut back now. I mean, education was still highly valued then by our society.

Third speaker 1:09:50
Oh, graduate level, you get that?

SW: 1:09:53
I am sure you do.

Third speaker: 1:09:54
But undergraduate level , you do not.

SW: 1:09:56
Oh, we got it. My undergraduate level, we got small class. Is, we delved into things deeply. We debated them.

Third speaker: 1:10:04
You describe like, what you describe here sounds like, you know, graduate [crosstalk]

IG: 1:10:12
Well or a very, you know, exclusive private college, right?

SW: 1:10:18
It was like that. It was free. It was great. I do not believe I did all this. I am looking at these notes. I must have lunatic. I must have been very compulsive. My God.

Third speaker: 1:10:18
Yeah.

IG: 1:10:34
So how do you think that the college prepared you for your future life, what, what imprint did it leave on you? What, you know, in a quality of kind of thinking, or how did it-

SW: 1:10:50
I think it made me help, make me a better human being. When my first job as a lawyer was legal aid, criminal, you know, I did not, was not there for the big bucks or anything I really want. I mean, that is the only job I applied for. That is the only thing I wanted to do. So, I do not know. I think it helped with everything. I think it was, it even helped me be a better husband and parent. I mean my kids. I mean I am proud of them. That is my four kids up there, but I mean they at Thanksgiving. I mean, we all went around to say what we are thankful for. We are all eight. We are all atheists, but we went around, but one of them things, Alex said, my youngest son, he said, I am thankful for a close knit, happy family. that was just, I mean, you know, just. And one of the things I remember, one of the things I envied of Dr. Vasilew, was because I came from a broken home, was to see him and his family when he took a sit into the to the house and so, so I think it helped me be, you know, and be a better lawyer, too. I think that the more liberal your education, the better you could be at whatever you do, whether you are a doctor or lawyer. So it helped me, you know, with the assigned counsel, because you were assigned as legal aid to defend people, I just, you know, I understood that, but for the grace of God, no, I so. So, yeah, I think, I think the education I got there really carried me far.

IG: 1:12:34
So any thoughts for the future of how, of what elements, what ingredients are most essential for the kind of educational experience that you were provided?

SW: 1:12:47
I think the most important thing, I disagree with what Obama talked about, and I supported Obama at both times, but when he talked about, you know, maybe not everyone, maybe we should have so much of a liberal arts education, but should prepare people for jobs and things like they said that.

IG: 1:13:05
Yeah.

SW: 1:13:06
I disagree. I think, I think, if you an educated society is the best guarantee of freedom of-of, you know, universal health care, of opportunity and-and that is a liberal arts education. You have to literature, math, science, history, economics. Mont Pèlerin, you went to study that, unless you went to economics. But that is really, that is really a philosophical Ryan [Paul Ryan], the House of Speaker is a Mont Pèlerin type person, right? I mean, he really believes that the government has no business in Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid. Well, that is right out of Mont Pèlerin's first year away from the New Deal or away from Nazism or away from the central government. So I think that a well-educated society, liberal arts is the most important thing. I think everyone should have liberal arts education. I mean, I do not know how we can do that. You know, Bernie Sanders said education for all, but the society, I do not think, is, is moving away from it.

IG: 1:14:19
Right.

SW: 1:14:19
You know, the-the thing that, and a non-educated society is more susceptible to fear. I mean, when you are, you know, if you are educated, then, then you-you can, you could, like we did in the classes in college, you know, you could look at something and ask, this, is this makes sense? Like Vietnam? Does this make sense? Does it make sense to go to war when, when a group of fanatics bomb the World Trade Center? Does it make more sense to have police work and deal with them and fight them, and that is and that is not a war, you know? Yeah, you use a reason, but you but, but that is the luxury of an. Educated person, but, but, but we should recognize that it is in our interest to have our neighbors educated, otherwise our neighbors will come at us with the pitchforks. You know, the educated one is not because, so it is a selfish reason, just like, Why was I against the war in Vietnam? Or part of it was altruistic, but part of it was selfish, so, but there is nothing wrong with having a selfish component, because we are people, so that is fine. So that is what I that is what I think, you know, and we have to invest more, but we are not going in that direction. I just told my son when he was here for Thanksgiving, I said, Why do not you go into politics? My youngest son-

IG: 1:15:39
But you know, going to Harpur College at the time that you did, you know, during the mid (19)60s, when the country was really going through cataclysmic changes, you know, maybe intensified your educational experience.

SW: 1:15:56
Of course it did. Yeah, we were forced to be involved. Well, part of it was the Selective Service system. You were forced. You could not-not be involved. You could choose not to take the exam in the gym, but you were involved with the ticket or not. You know, it is like Moby Dick in the whale. You know, you can decide to throw a spear into Moby Dick or not. The whale is going to be there. It is there. So, you know, we were involved with the you could not-not be involved. You know, we got those develops like I am going to give you from the draft, but we were involved, the civil rights movement. We were involved. There were people getting angry. Out of out of SDS, came the Black Panthers, yeah, [inaudible] the SDS, you know, so you we were involved, and there was nowhere not to be. There was areas of Binghamton where you would be afraid to walk because of blacks, and there were other bars. There was a bar that I remember, there was a street that was parallel to Vestal Parkway, where the we passed by, where the Dean's house was, and there is still a lot of house there the dean.

IG: 1:16:59
I think so [crosstalk]

SW: 1:17:01
Continued down all the way, almost like Binghamton, before the bridges, there was like a bar, was a black bar, and they used to charge what was known as white tax for the beer. So like, if you were a black person, you paid x for the beer, and if you were a white kid like me, you would pay 2x for the beer.

IG: 1:17:18
Yeah, that is like the sub the Soviet Union used to have a dual-

SW: 1:17:23
Yeah, the friendship currents, yeah. I remember that, yeah. I remember the [inaudible] Street and going, yeah-yeah.

Third speaker: 1:17:30
How was the campus then, like, were there any black students in the campus? Like-

SW: 1:17:38
Very, actually, I only remember one. He was next. He was a- an exchange student from Kenya.

Third speaker: 1:17:48
Africa, not America.

SW: 1:17:49
Not an American. Like, no, I do not remember.

Third speaker: 1:17:52
Not even one?

SW: 1:17:52
I do not remember. I do not remember one look at the yearbook from (19)67 and (19)66 it is in the-the Alumni Center. I do not think, yeah, I do not, I do not remember any black students. No.

IG: 1:18:03
Most of the students were from New York City, from Long Island.

SW: 1:18:06
New York City and Long Island, yeah, and-

Third speaker: 1:18:09
Like, when you compare boys versus girls, like, majority of them like boys, right? Not many women?

SW: 1:18:18
No, there were a lot of girls there, you know? I mean, I did not seem like I was, I mean, I went Brooklyn Tech, where I went to high school as an old boy school. So it was so refreshing, because it was coed, yeah, but I did not feel that, that, that we outnumbered them by any significant amount, that would no there may have been, but I do not I in my subjective memory. No.

Third speaker 1:18:19
No, yeah, I am asking how you remember.

SW: 1:18:34
Yeah, no, I do not, I do not remember it being overwhelmingly male. No. SDS had a lot of SDS had a lot of girls in it. Actually, that was an attraction, but they had a lot of girls, and they were not subject to the draft, but there were a lot of girls there.

IG: 1:19:06
So did you have any interaction with the, with, with, you know, the rest of the population in Binghamton? I mean-

SW: 1:19:16
Services for Youth.

IG: 1:19:17
Yeah-yeah, that is right, of course.

SW: 1:19:20
I do not remember how the kids got involved with us. I remember there was a-a park. If you went into Binghamton, we took him to a park. there was a zoo in the park, and you went into Binghamton and went to the right, up this little hill, there was some park there. And in the park, there was a zoo. Yeah, Ross Park.

IG: 1:19:20
It still exist.

SW: 1:19:39
Yeah. I remember taking kids there. Yes, we were involved in them, but I do not remember where the kids came from. I do not remember, but yes, we were involved. And not all of the faculties supported the anti-war group, Kadish went to my apartment to a rally. Vasilew, who I, who I liked a lot, who was the one that gave me my comment that a girl would think twice before marrying someone like you, which is true. I understand that. I mean, you know, like saying, if a plate is broken, you can glue it together, but the cracks still there. You know, so, but anyways, but he, I remember, you know, as I remember talking about the draft, and he said, he-he actually, he had two sides to him. First, he has he, he thought that the draft was appropriate. He was liberal, and on the other hand, he was not sure if we should have gotten involved in World War Two. I remember him saying that. So, which is fine, because there is no right answer. You know, it is unlike you know, two and two and was, what is the answer? There is no right answer.

IG: 1:19:40
There is no right answer.

SW: 1:21:02
No there are right questions. And then you think about the answers. So, I mean, back then, I probably was not so kind as to his response, because I thought, you know, for World War Two, we were the good guys, and to Vietnam, we had no business being there. And it is black and white. And it was not until I became more mature that I realized there is no right answer, and Vietnam is definitely wrong. And should we get involved too? Well, I still think we should have but, but there is no right answer.

IG: 1:21:28
So it, you know, again, looking back, do you think that this was among your happy the happy period?

Speaker 1 1:21:46
Yes, absolutely, I am basically, I basically became a happy person when I left home. I mean, I have a mean, that is my personality. I mean, I just my wife sometimes calls me the happy idiot. I am not kidding. No, I get happy sometimes for no reason. I mean, I because I am lucky. I mean, life has been good to me. I mean, but, but that was definitely that there was a change. It was a change for me from a miserable childhood up until I left, to-to not, you know, not being subject to that misery. So, yeah, it was definitely very happy period.

IG: 1:22:25
So you never really returned to your family.

SW: 1:22:30
Well, my parents-

IG: 1:22:30
Your parents were split up.

SW: 1:22:32
They split. [crosstalk] My mother waited until I graduated high school, and then then my father moved to, uh, an apartment in also in Flush, in Flushing off Main Street. And my mother moved to place in the Bronx called Riverdale. And-and so they lived, you know, apart. And so no, there was no home to come to. So and then I said, I tried to avoid this. I mean, I visited my father, I thought I could stand him. And as I told you, the one time that he asked me to visit him, and I said no, and then the next day I came and he was dead. So then the guilt that I felt was, you know, it took me a long time to get over that, I know. Very nice.

IG: 1:23:11
Yeah, I could imagine.

SW: 1:23:12
Because I felt, well, what if I have been there, then I would call a doctor or something, you know, but it was no.t

IG: 1:23:18
Yeah.

SW: 1:23:18
And he had been dead already he was lying in the bathroom.

IG: 1:23:20
Yeah.

SW: 1:23:21
So, but no, the college years, it was-was turning out what happened I was happy in college, basically, other than the fear. But yes.

IG: 1:23:34
So, what-what do you have any message for? You know, a future student, a future you know, listening to this tape, you know, 5-10, years from now, of how they should approach their undergraduate-

SW: 1:23:50
I would say liberal arts. Take, take, take, English literature, foreign literature, world history, American history, science, just take, take as much varied material as you can. When I went to law school, all took was law, you know my friend who is now my friend again, Ira. You know, medicine, science and medicine. But in college, you could take everything, do it. You know you could, do not take pre-law and just take poli sci or pre-med and just take science, take other things, because that will make you better at everything.

IG: 1:24:33
And for-for our politicians, for example, listening to this interview 5-10, years from now, do you have a message for them.

SW: 1:24:41
Yes, invest in education, unless you feel that the only way you will stay in office is to have an uneducated society. But if you want to make society better, then you invest in education. You know, then you realize, look, when Obama made the statement, you did not build this. Remember, he made that statement. When he was trying to convey. And he conveyed the people who understood him, educated people that, you know, the transcontinental railway, the highways, the telephone poles, all the things that people did for next to nothing made it possible for the wealthy people to have their wealth. It did not just come out of nowhere. So wars that people fought, the good wars and the bad wars, or, you know, the infrastructure, everything that existed, that people got paid nothing, or that slaves built. So that is what he meant when he said that you did not build this. He did not mean, you know, you did not build your grocery store and it is not yours. He did not because they turned it on him, like Romney turned it on him. But an educated person would understand that and would appreciate it that if I am wealthy, I mean, that is great, but, I mean, why should not other people participate in the wealth of a nation that is wealthy? Why should it just be limited to excuse me as it could be my office? No, it is not okay. So that is what, yeah, so, so for politicians edgy, if you really believe in this country, then-then education. That is the thing to invest in the most, not take away from teachers' unions and-and get and not, you know, not have, like, charter schools, where with something, we have to compete for a good school, otherwise you are stuck. I mean, I told you my public-school education was great. I mean, I it was really good. I had good teachers who were, you know, got paid well or no standards, and were respected. They were not demonized. Like, like the governor Wisconsin demonized teachers. Of course you are going to demonize a teacher if, if the only way to keep your power is to have uneducated people, like-like, like Trump said he bragged about uneducated people voting for him he bragged about it, which is true. So that is preaching to the choir.

IG: 1:27:06
Well, that is, it is preaching to the choir, of course, but other people may not be the choir listening to this. So and do you have any words for President Stinger?

SW: 1:27:18
Right now? He is the president of Harpur.

IG: 1:27:21
He is a president of the university. Would you like to impart any, any of your thoughts to him or a future president?

SW: 1:27:32
Well, he should do his best to bring, bring back true community, learning, small classes in depth learning, having faculty and students meet in each other's places of residence, like we did at barbecues. And the barbecue is not just, you know, just eating and drinking, but the barbecue is also talking about your subject and other subjects and relating, relating economics and literature and science. I mean, when you get together to barbecue, talk about all sorts of things, I think that that is the key, and that is what made it so great. Like you said, it is like a small private college, although it was not, but that is the key. Small classes, intimate settings and the environment that encourages questioning and debate, you know, so it is not my country right or wrong, it is my country. Make it better. But you know, there is no right or wrong. You should not do it that way. And you know, your emotional baggage, you know, you know, I had a lot of emotional baggage, but when I got to college, I was able to put it in the overhead bin, in a little chair, and go about my business. So, you know, so that that is, that is the key, you know, learn to be able to the baggage away.

IG: 1:28:50
Maybe it allowed you the freedom.

SW: 1:28:53
Yes.

IG: 1:28:53
You know, freedom from the emotional baggage.

SW: 1:28:57
Yes.

IG: 1:28:57
You could come back to it a different person.

SW: 1:29:00
Yes, but I have a certain but, like my wife said, I am like, I am a happy idiot, and I get happy I just do, like, Vasilew was wrong. He said, You know, he thought that I would never, actually thought I would never be able to have I-I went out with a lot of girls than in life, and I did not. And I was somewhat mean. I mean, I was nice, but-but-but, you know, like, if when I was-was not interested anymore, that was it.

IG: 1:29:29
Yeah.

SW: 1:29:31
But, yeah, that is not the way to be. But the thing is, but I learned from it and- but then I evolved. I mean, I said when I got married, I mean, you know, I very happy with it, just he would, he did not think it would ever work, but it really did. Actually, I [inaudible], my wife and I actually visited him.

IG: 1:29:52
And what did he say? Did he Did you remind him what he said?

SW: 1:29:56
No, I do not talk about that. No, you know, he said, he said, "I see you are a successful lawyer." I said “Yes,” and we talked about that, okay, no-no, I was not going to. There is no reason too. No. And then they, you know, no, but that is, that is the price I would give and have other artifacts I could show you when, once we finish talking before you go.

IG: 1:30:22
Well, I you know, do you have concluding, you know, thoughts, remarks, anything that you would like to explore? I think we covered a lot of ground.

SW: 1:30:30
No, I think, no. I think it encouraged students, no, just encourage student involvement and student involvement in politics and make-make it known that why education is important. You kind of invest in education, small classes in education, or there is no guarantee that this country will remain a democracy.

IG: 1:30:51
Yeah.

SW: 1:30:52
That is not guaranteed. It is not guaranteed.

IG: 1:30:54
There is no guarantee.

SW: 1:30:55
No, and they could very well not. And with overreactions, with-with, you know, people like Bush taking us into Iraq and-and torture becoming a norm again. You know, Guantanamo indefinite detention when lunatic Trump becomes president. You know who, who brags about, you know, fondling women and talks about arresting his opponents and egomaniac and having these Republicans love him and the Christian right loving him. I mean, yeah, a real danger here.

IG: 1:31:33
Yeah.

SW: 1:31:34
And it could happen here.

IG: 1:31:36
Yeah.

SW: 1:31:36
And it might very well happen here. So the key is just that education to get the educated people to expand like, like, we sent people from Harpur College down to the south, as I said, I personally did not go, but I know people who did, and people from SDS went, send them out to do things. I am going to a bar association meeting with us tomorrow night. One of the things we are talking about is working with the Alabama and other bar associations to get ID cards. The voters will have trouble getting ID cards, getting photographed and paying for their ID cards so they and making sure they vote, because there is voter suppression, obviously in these states. So we are thinking as a Bar Association project, almost like a school project.

IG: 1:32:19
That is wonderful.

SW: 1:32:20
Yeah. So we are thinking of doing that. So we are talking about that tomorrow night, after which we are going to go to the Algonquin hotel and drink scotch. So you-you know, lawyers find that the more Scotch they drink, the more interesting other lawyers become. So-so we do that too, yeah. Yeah. So-so that is the key to get, to get them to go out. I mean, keep the have a close community, and when you are close and secure, then you could go out.

IG: 1:32:50
Well, that is exactly what happened to you at the college, the close community. And once you-

SW: 1:32:57
With that security.

IG: 1:32:58
-security.

SW: 1:32:59
Then you are able to go out when you are insecure and you look, you know, then it is hard to go forward.

IG: 1:33:06
Yeah.

SW: 1:33:06
But so that is what you need. And then have them go out, having to, you know, help with small things, voter ID, getting out to vote, getting people to vote, you know, they suppress it by I mean, when I go to vote, I wait. I wait for one minute. I do not wait. We have, we have, we have more voting places here than the small fee community than, you know, there they have one black communities down there. They have one book, one polling place. It is open from, you know, 9:00 am on a work day to 5:00 pm they went online for three hours. You are not going to want to do that. Well, you have to make them do they have to go out there. You give them food, you know, bring out coffee. Just do it. We went that, you know, I, as I said, I did not go down south, so I am not going to say did, but people went down there and, you know, and help you got to do that. You got get a mat so you made him secure. Then come out and expand, because we are all in the same boat, right? You know, saying that, you know, I am in a lifeboat with you, and I start drilling a hole under my seat, and you say to me, what are you doing? I said, Well, same boat. Yeah, so that is my word of wisdom. Anything else?

IG: 1:34:16
I think? I think not. I think it is a great interview. Thank you very much.

SW: 1:34:21
My pleasure. I will show you like one artifact.

(End of Interview)

2017-11-27

Irene Gashurov

1967

Stephen Norman Weiss

Stephen Norman Weiss is an attorney in New York specializing in Litigation, Patent and Trademark and Intellectual Property cases. He is managing partner at Stephen Norman Weiss Law Office, but currently semi-retired. He pursued a liberal arts education at Harpur College, which he believes was on par with an education from an elite private college. His JD is from New York Law School.

Audio

Harpur College – Seventies alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in law; Harpur College – Alumni on Harpur Law Council Board; Harpur College – Alumni in New York City; Harpur College – Alumni living in Connecticut

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Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in law; Harpur College – Alumni living in Tenafly, NJ; Harpur College – Alumni working in New York City.