Interview with Adrienne W. Weissman

Interview with Adrienne W. Weissman

Weissman, Adrienne W. ; Gashurov, Irene

Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in education; Harpur College – Alumni from New York City; Harpur College – Alumni living in New York City

Adrienne is a retired New York City school teacher.

2018-02-23

In Copyright

Adrienne Weissman.mp3

2018-02-23

Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni

60:42 minutes

Alumni Interviews
Interview with: Adrienne Weissman
Interviewed by: Irene Gashurov
Transcriber: Oral History Lab
Date of interview: 23 February 2018
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(Start of Interview)

IG: 00:01
Okay, Hello. This is Irene and Adrienne Weissman, and it is Friday, February 23 at 11 o'clock. And Adrian, I would like you to introduce yourself and tell us your name, your age, and where we are and what we are doing.

AW: 00:25
Okay? My name is Adrienne Wolfson Weissman. Um, I am 75 years old, and we are in my apartment in Manhattan, and intend to discuss life at Binghamton University when it was not Binghamton University in the 1960s.

IG: 00:51
Okay, thank you. So where did you grow up?

AW: 00:57
I grew up on Long Island in Franklin Square, and then in North Whitney. And before that, I lived in Brooklyn. Before I went to Franklin Square, started, I guess, the fourth grade in Long Island.

IG: 01:17
So, you were born in Brooklyn?

AW: 01:19
Uh, yeah.

IG: 01:19
As was I.

AW: 01:22
Most people were. [laughter]

IG: 01:24
Most people were.

AW: 01:25
Yeah.

IG: 01:26
I agree. So, who were your parents? Who were your parents? What did they do? Where were they from?

AW: 01:34
My parents were born in Brooklyn. My father was a CPA, a lawyer and a college professor.

IG: 01:45
Where did he teach?

AW: 01:47
At Queensborough Community College, he taught law and trying to think what- accounting and my mother was a school teacher in Renton square.

IG: 02:04
I see okay, and were they just give us an idea, you know, first, second, third generation-

AW: 02:11
College?

IG: 02:13
No Americans.

AW: 02:15
Oh. My mother's mother was born here. My father's mother and father came over from Russia in 1917.

IG: 02:29
Do you know where?

AW: 02:35
Actually, I somewhere- I have the manifest from the ship that they took over, and I looked it up online, and-

IG: 02:45
That is so interesting, because, you know, it is my background, that is my background as well. And so, I know a lot about the different immigrations. And so, they came right during the revolution.

AW: 03:00
Yes.

IG: 03:01
Do you know if they lived in in Russia itself, or in Ukraine, or what was then known as the Russian Empire?

AW: 03:10
I do not know.

IG: 03:11
You do not know.

AW: 03:11
No.

IG: 03:12
Well, that is okay.

AW: 03:13
They came with their oldest son, and then they had five more children.

IG: 03:19
Five more children, and they-they came to New York City?

AW: 03:23
Yeah, they lived on, I guess, various places in Brooklyn. But when I knew them, they were living on Easton Parkway.

AW: 03:24
Okay, I know where that is.

AW: 03:30
Yeah.

IG: 03:31
Okay, so, you know, I would assume that your parents expected you to go to college since they were very educated themselves.

AW: 03:44
Yes, yeah, it was never, it was never a question. It was-

IG: 03:49
It was never a question.

AW: 03:50
No.

IG: 03:51
So, education was valued in your family. Were you the only child?

AW: 03:59
No, I have. I had two sisters; one is deceased. All three of us went to college.

IG: 04:07
All three. So, you know, tell us, what were your reasons for going to Harpur College? Why did you choose that above others?

AW: 04:21
I wanted to get away from home. My parents wanted me to go to Queens College or Douglas College, which is part of Rutgers, and I was accepted at both, but I really- my parents were very strict, and I wanted more freedom.

IG: 04:49
Wanted more freedom.

AW: 04:51
And they allowed me to apply there, and I got in. I never saw the school before I got up there. It was not like it is now, where the kids go to all these different schools and take tours and everything. I never saw the campus until I arrived.

IG: 05:15
But you probably heard that it had a certain reputation. Then draw you. That drew you-

AW: 05:16
[crosstalk] the only state school that did not have teacher education courses. It was a liberal arts college.

IG: 05:31
And that is why you wanted.

AW: 05:32
And I wanted for that.

IG: 05:34
Were you on scholarship? Did you get a regional scholarship-

AW: 05:36
Yes.

IG: 05:36
-or anything?

AW: 05:37
Yeah, regional scholarship.

IG: 05:39
So did that factor into your decision?

AW: 05:42
No. I- my parents both worked. We were not the only families with two cars back then, and we lived in a private house. So, I do not, I do not think money was a real issue.

IG: 05:57
Right.

AW: 05:58
So.

IG: 05:59
Right. So, you never saw a campus before arriving.

AW: 06:08
No, most of my friends had not either.

IG: 06:11
And most of your friends had not either. What-what was- what were- do you remember some of your first impressions of this very different kind of place, because it must have been a lot more rural than Long Island at the time, or?

AW: 06:30
I do not remember noticing that much about the surrounding area.

IG: 06:35
Right.

AW: 06:35
It was more the fact that I was going to be sharing a room. I had my own bedroom at home, and now I was sharing a room at the college. Was not a very large room, and we did have contact with roommates before we went up, we were told who our roommate would be, so we were able to coordinate. Did we want the same bed spreads, things like that? I remember that, and I remember meeting everybody. We did not really have the kind of orientations that they do now, because I remember when I went up for my daughter's orientation, they did role playing to see what it would be like to be away from your family for the first time, things like that, and I do not remember doing anything like that.

IG: 07:39
So, did you have an easy or difficult adjustment?

AW: 07:45
I was so thrilled to be away that it was a pretty easy adjustment back then, you know, no cell phones or anything. So, I would call home on Sunday uh, every week, and that was my only contact, really, with my parents, was the-the weekly phone call.

IG: 08:10
Did you miss them very much? Or were you too excited to-

AW: 08:14
I was excited [crosstalk]

IG: 08:15
You were excited, you were not-

IG: 08:17
I was not.

IG: 08:18
-to aware of being homesick.

AW: 08:20
No.

IG: 08:20
Okay, so-so [crosstalk]

AW: 08:21
[crosstalk] people who were and some people, I remember, dropped out and went back home because they really could not handle being away. They did not want to be away.

IG: 08:34
Were these people- do you think there was, I hear from others, a separation between town and gown, and there were people from the City and Long Island, and then there were students from upstate-

AW: 08:51
Yeah.

IG: 08:52
-so, they had, there was a little bit of a cultural difference, from what I understand.

AW: 08:56
There was a cultural difference also because some of them had never met a Jewish person before, and mostly the kids from upstate.

IG: 09:08
Right.

AW: 09:09
And I remember talking to one of the girls, and she said to me, she really thought that Jews had horns because she did not know anything about Jewish people.

IG: 09:23
Were you insulted?

AW: 09:26
I think I was fascinated that, because, you know, you grow up in Brooklyn and you do not have any kind of feeling that you are different or anything like that. I did have that kind of feeling when on Long Island, because we moved to an area where the older homes were German owned, and then the new, the new development, and there was some prejudice there, but I was just, you know, how could you have been college age and never have met a Jewish person. It just-

IG: 10:03
Or even more to imagine that they have horns. I mean, she was this person. Was saying this in jest.

AW: 10:12
Sort of, yeah, but-but she had never talked to a Jewish person before. So.

IG: 10:21
Have you ever talked to a person from, you know, a very rural upstate environment? What-

AW: 10:35
Probably not.

IG: 10:36
Yeah.

AW: 10:37
I-I knew, just cosmopolitan.

IG: 10:43
Right.

AW: 10:44
I mean, I went into Manhattan by myself from Long Island and used a library in Manhattan, things like that. But I do not think I ever met anybody from upstate either. [crosstalk] What I found strange, was that some of the people I met from upstate, they had just gotten indoor plumbing. You know, they lived on a farm, and they had outhouses and things like that, which was so far away from anything I knew.

IG: 11:23
So, you know, it was very different. It was very different and, but I-I would imagine that in time, you found some commonalities with-with these people, or did-

AW: 11:35
Yeah, we were all studying.

IG: 11:37
You were all studying and-and somehow, you know, the differences may be leveled, were leveled out.

AW: 11:45
Yeah-yeah. It is funny, because my husband and I just took a trip to Florida--road trip, and on the way back, I got together with somebody who had lived on my floor at Harpur and I had not seen her since Harpur and she was from upstate, I guess, Syracuse area maybe, and she struck me as very small town at the time, and we got together with her for dinner. And, you know, she has got a PhD. She was teaching at the University of North Carolina you know. And when she was at Harpur, she was known because she had been a cheerleader in high school, you know. So, Harpur changed us, I think.

IG: 12:46
It sounds very much like it did. So, you know what-what was your experience of I mean, there were many questions. What was your experience of academics at Harpur, when you, when you, you said that you wanted to get a liberal art a solid liberal arts education? Did you have any notions, any ideas of where this liberal arts education would take you?

AW: 13:15
I think that I always intended to be a school teacher.

IG: 13:19
Yeah, like your mother?

AW: 13:20
Yeah-yeah, or a librarian, you know, that type of thing. And, um, uh, so I sort of had a goal. I knew that I would go to graduate school to-to do the uh the teacher education part of it. And just, you know, I-I did not realize how hard it would be, because I did very well in high school. But then when I got up there, I realized everybody there did very well in high school. It was not. I mean, everybody was valedictorian, so yeah, and I found the that I did not. I had not really learned in-in high school how to write a paper or anything. I had to learn that at Harpur

IG: 14:24
And so, did you take? What kind of courses did you take? Did you take English creative- probably there was not creative [crosstalk]

AW: 14:29
Well, I majored in Spanish and French and minored in English. So, I took a lot of literature courses, Spanish language, French language. And then we had a lot of basic courses that we had to take back then

IG: 14:52
Like what, for example?

AW: 14:54
History 101, geology um, music, because I noticed when my daughter went that there were many more courses that were not requirements. You know, like their history course was "A History of the Future," which was, I thought, a strange title for a course, but that is we had, you know, 101, 102, 103, 104 for a lot of the courses. So, you ended up with four semesters of history and science requirement and all kinds of things.

IG: 15:43
So, are there any courses that stand out? Any-any professors that stand out in your memory as being exceptional?

AW: 15:53
Yeah, I remember Dr. Locke, who was my I think he was my French professor, and he was good.

IG: 15:56
Why was he good? Because he was an adapted at teaching language or literature or?

AW: 16:14
Well, he was fun. We did a lot of conversational skits up in the front of the room, and he was-

IG: 16:26
So, you were conversant in French?

AW: 16:29
Not really.

IG: 16:30
Not really.

AW: 16:31
Because it was taught with a lab. You know, it was not done the way it is now. So, I knew grammar and vocabulary, but not really-

IG: 16:45
It was more for reading. It was more for reading. It was more- Um, so you liked his course. What were the history courses? You know, did you learn American history? Did you learn a world history? Or was it-

AW: 17:00
World history.

IG: 17:01
World history.

AW: 17:01
I remember the final for the World History. One of the essay questions was, trace the role of the papacy from like 1500 to the 1900s?

IG: 17:18
That is so interesting. I mean, it is so, it is so, you know, out of your field of-of-

AW: 17:25
Right. And, but all encompassing, but-

IG: 17:28
It is all encompassing, yeah, it really, I think, you know, it gives you a certain kind of overview world of Western a Western European history. Um, so, did you study American history? Do you- I mean, you, you were studying in what years, in the-

AW: 17:54
(19)60 to (19)64.

IG: 17:56
To (19)64 so, you know, Vietnam was in the air, and people were concerned about draft.

AW: 18:08
[crosstalk] anything about it, except the- there was a group that were protesting that type of thing. But I do not remember-

IG: 18:21
Student activists.

AW: 18:22
Yeah, yeah.

IG: 18:23
Did they protest on campus? Did they go march on Washington? Do you remember?

AW: 18:32
No, I do not think. I was not really a part of all that.

IG: 18:38
What about with, you know, your fellow I mean, classmates were they-did they talk about-

AW: 18:45
I dated-

IG: 18:46
-the draft.

AW: 18:47
I dated one guy who happens to be a professor at Columbia now. Oh, well, Ronald Bayer, B, A, Y, E, R.

IG: 18:57
I interviewed him.

AW: 18:58
Oh, you did. I went out with him.

IG: 19:02
He is very impressive.

AW: 19:04
Yes.

IG: 19:04
He is very smart.

AW: 19:06
He is married.

AW: 19:06
Yes.

IG: 19:06
I am sorry [inaudible]

LW: 19:12
We- I met a few times, and so lost touch. She also lost touch with him.

AW: 19:17
He lives up here.

IG: 19:18
I know, yeah, I mean, I interviewed him, yeah. He was, yeah-yeah. I interviewed him. That is- it really is a small world, yeah. So he was, he was very much, you know, politically active, yes.

LW: 19:32
[crosstalk] Chicago [inaudible]

AW: 19:36
And he, in fact, I remember-

IG: 19:39
That is so interesting. [laughs]

AW: 19:40
He was very, he was very impressed, he had met Eleanor Roosevelt.

IG: 19:44
Yeah. He mentioned Eleanor Roosevelt, yeah. So-so outside of, you know, you were really not kind of, were you- were there any- um, political issues that were particularly close to you, or were you just focused on your academics, do you think?

AW: 20:07
I was focused on social life and-

IG: 20:10
Social life.

AW: 20:11
Yeah, and academics.

IG: 20:12
Okay, so what was social life like? I mean, you studied very hard, but there was a residential life. Did you participate in that?

AW: 20:21
Mm-hmm. Yeah, what I remembered most is this disparity between what the boys were allowed to do and what the girls were allowed to do.

IG: 20:32
Okay, so tell us about these restrictions on your- on the freedom of girls.

AW: 20:37
The girls had a 10:30 curfew during the week, and the boys did not.

IG: 20:45
Do they have any curfew?

AW: 20:46
I think they did, but it was much later than what the girls had. The boys could live off campus after their sophomore year. The girls could never live off campus.

IG: 21:01
Could you have boys in your dormitory rooms in your-

AW: 21:08
Not-not that in the beginning, but by our senior year, yes, and there was the rule was four feet on the floor, and the door had to be open. And when my daughter went, of course, it was co-ed-

IG: 21:23
Yeah, of course.

AW: 21:24
And yeah, very-very different.

IG: 21:26
So, did you mind these restrictions? Did you think about them, or did you just excite them?

AW: 21:31
I accepted them. When I think back now, why did not we question it? But no, we did not, yeah, we did not even question for Sunday dinner. We were not allowed to wear pants. You know, it was pretty cold, right? And we had to wear a skirt or a dress to Sunday dinner. And we just accepted everything. We did not protest anything.

IG: 21:58
Right. So, you know, I am just thinking, were there any sororities that you belong to? Did you- I mean, how did you spend your free time you dated, Ron Bayer but-

AW: 22:18
I do not remember um there being sororities when I was there. The boys had social clubs that ranked them, but it is possible that there were, but I was not in that type thing. I hung out mainly with the people who lived on my floor. I am still friendly with the two girls who lived across the hall from me. We get together, you know, with the husbands and everything we see them.

IG: 22:55
Could you mention their names?

AW: 22:57
Sure, Harriet and Stu Rubin. They both went to Harpur and Grace Hirschdorf was her maiden name. Now it is Grace Rinsler. She and her husband live in New Jersey and Harriet and Stu live in Columbia, Maryland.

IG: 23:19
Maybe these are people I can visit in the future. We will see.

AW: 23:22
We get together with [crosstalk]

IG: 23:25
That is very nice.

AW: 23:27
My roommate, Judy Castanea, who lives here in Manhattan.

IG: 23:31
Okay.

AW: 23:32
Who I see?

IG: 23:33
You see her? Oh, you see her. So how do you recall those years when you get together with your friends?

AW: 23:41
I do not know that we really talk about just the- what I have discussed with them is the randomness of our being friends. If they had not lived right across the hall from me and had lived in a different dorm or something, I probably would not be friendly with them. It was just circumstance, but it has endured all these years.

IG: 24:09
Yeah, so it was a fortunate circumstance.

AW: 24:11
Yes, yeah.

IG: 24:12
So, you know, how would these friends remember you? What would they say about you back then? How would they describe you? Do you think?

AW: 24:28
Wild a little bit wild, I guess.

IG: 24:30
How were you wild?

AW: 24:31
Sexually.

IG: 24:32
Okay.

AW: 24:33
You know, I was feeling my oats, because I, as I said, my parents were very strict.

IG: 24:40
Yeah.

AW: 24:40
I had to account for everywhere I was when I was not in the house-

IG: 24:45
Yeah.

AW: 24:46
-and feeling my oats.

IG: 24:52
Yeah-yeah.

AW: 24:53
I mean, I remained a virgin, but everything else was-

IG: 24:57
Okay within-within this [inaudible] kind of a restrictive environment, you so-so where did you go out with, you know, your friends or your boyfriend?

AW: 25:10
Went to Binghamton.

IG: 25:11
Yeah. What was that like?

AW: 25:13
We- there was a bus, yeah, that took us right campus, right into Binghamton.

IG: 25:19
Yeah.

AW: 25:19
And we would go to the movies, or we would go out to dinner. I did not have much money. My allowance was $7.50 a week-

IG: 25:30
Yeah.

AW: 25:30
-from home, and I got a job in the post office on campus to make some extra money. [her husband talks] What? Oh, yeah. Oh, another friend that Alan Zublat, who lives in New Jersey, oh, we remain friendly all those years too.

IG: 25:54
So-so you, you know, how did you- you had this job in the post office. You would go to Binghamton. You know, were you- did you feel happy? Did you feel supported during those years? Or there were periods of questioning? I mean, tell us about your sort of emotional arc during those four years, and how uh, you noticed that you were changing?

AW: 26:26
No, I do not remember changing.

IG: 26:29
You do not remember changing?

AW: 26:30
No. I mean, I have felt that I was being exposed to things that I had not known about before. I had not listened to classical music before, and then I took a course there. So, I realized I liked classical music.

IG: 26:50
Did you, did you listen to it in the library, or did you listen to- was there-

AW: 26:57
In the class.

IG: 26:58
In the class, and listen to the club in the classical music rather than, you know, going to a language lab or, you know, sometimes the music lab.

AW: 27:07
No, we listened to it in class. And I remember I had to write a paper, and I got an A on the paper, and I was thrilled. It was on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and I tied in the choral section of it with the rest of the symphony. So, I guess that meant something to me, because I still remember.

IG: 27:35
Yeah-yeah. So, you do not, you do not think that, you know this kind of that it, that it was that it sounds like it was an enlarging experience.

AW: 27:46
Yeah [crosstalk]

IG: 27:48
Do not you think that was changing? I guess it did not change your essence, but it changed kind of-

AW: 27:57
Well, my-my liking of things, my knowledge certainly.

IG: 28:03
Yeah. So-so I am just thinking about um, the external world, outside of outside of Binghamton. You know, what were some of the events-- Kennedy's assassination-

AW: 28:21
That-that, you know it is one of these, you remember where you were.

IG: 28:26
Yes-yes.

AW: 28:27
It was, well, it was the day before my birthday. And a group of us went out the next night for my birthday because we had planned it, and I remember we were just so depressed and unhappy about what had happened, even though we were out. We went to a restaurant; we just sort of sat there.

IG: 28:54
Were you afraid after that?

AW: 28:56
Initially, yes, we were in the cafeteria and they were announcing over the loudspeaker. You know what was happening.

AW: 28:57
Over the loudspeaker?

AW: 28:57
Yes, in the cafeteria.

AW: 29:05
Who was announcing? Do you remember? Was it [crosstalk]

AW: 29:18
[crosstalk] radio or TV announcement may have been Walter Winchell [inaudible] I mean, Walter Cronkite, yeah, Walter Cronkite announcing the President is dead. And I remember we were all sitting there just we could not believe it, and we were concerned about what would happen next.

IG: 29:45
Right. You know, was there any conjecture about what that next would be?

AW: 29:52
I do not remember.

IG: 29:55
You do not remember.

AW: 29:55
No. I remember the first time I heard about it. Somebody on campus had a convertible, and they had the radio blaring, and I wondered why there was a crowd around the car. And when I walked over, they said the President had been shot. And then I just remember being in the cafeteria listening to what was going on.

IG: 30:29
So let us just think of you know, you were not really involved in student activists direct- activism directly. Were outside of Ronald Bayer, were any of your women friends involved in politics? Or did they talk about it?

AW: 30:55
I-I do not remember them talking about it. We were concerned about writing a paper.

IG: 31:06
I see.

AW: 31:07
You know, school work and social stuff.

IG: 31:11
And social stuff. So, you know, the women rights movement happened really, much later in the early (19)70s, you were not really touched by it.

AW: 31:14
No.

IG: 31:15
But you were touched by it because you said that you were sexually experimenting, or, well, [crosstalk] you were sexually this was the early (19)60s. So-so, you know, so what was it? Was it the youth movement that was, that affected you? Was it rock and roll? Did you listen to that? Or what do you think, what do you think, kind of, because it was, you know, a different time than the kind of strait laced (19)50s I would think, or the time of your parents, you know, they-

AW: 32:00
Yeah, to me, it was just, you know, it was getting away from home, and, you know, I dated a little bit when I was in high school, but I guess I was ready to experiment a little bit.

IG: 32:20
So, what-what lessons do you think that you learned from this time in your life? What- how did this open your eyes to yourself and to the world?

AW: 32:38
Hmm. I do not know that it did. I did not, I did not become interested in politics and the world until much later, after, I guess, after I met him.

IG: 33:06
And because so tell me about him and how you met.

AW: 33:11
We- he was avoiding the Vietnam War.

IG: 33:14
I see.

AW: 33:15
And he was teaching.

IG: 33:17
And when was that? When did that take place?

AW: 33:19
(19)68.

IG: 33:20
I see.

AW: 33:22
He was teaching in Bedford Stuyvesant as was I.

IG: 33:25
So, you went back to Brooklyn after graduating?

AW: 33:29
Uh, not to live. I lived in Queens.

AW: 33:33
Where?

AW: 33:33
Briarwood and I moved back home and went to graduate school at Hofstra, and my parents were not happy having me home. My father was controller for a real estate company, and he got me an apartment, a studio apartment in Brooklyn. I mean, in Queens in Briarwood, and I taught first on Long Island, Plain Edge, right for a couple of years, and then I got a job in Brooklyn, in Bed-Stuy. And I met Lou there.

IG: 34:14
Right. So, you said, you know that your eyes to the bigger world opened as a result of this meeting so.

AW: 34:24
Well, he-he is left of center, yes and-and cares a lot about what is going on in the world. And by osmosis, I became more aware of what was going on and cared more.

AW: 34:43
So-so did you said-

AW: 34:46
But I did not at college.

IG: 34:47
You did not at college?

AW: 34:49
No.

IG: 34:49
You did not at college.

AW: 34:50
It was not- here was a very small group, yeah, that was active. You know, Ronnie Bayer and his friends. And I was on the fringe of that, the rest of us-

IG: 35:04
But you do not remember that he talked to you about any of this or what-

AW: 35:05
Yes, of course he did.

IG: 35:06
So what-what do you remember anything that he would tell you, or that he was involved in, or what the feelings were, and what were your reactions to them, or you did not really-

AW: 35:21
I listened, and I certainly did not disagree with him.

IG: 35:28
Right. So, did he go against your ideals?

AW: 35:31
No. I mean, my-my parents were very liberal.

IG: 35:37
I see, I did not know.

AW: 35:38
And my father would tell me that during the (19)30s, he was almost considered the communists, things like that. And they were always Liberal Democrats, yeah, my family. So, you know.

IG: 35:56
So really you came from that [inaudible] year you came from [crosstalk]

AW: 35:58
Yeah, and I did not really think about it, because it was just part of my DNA, I guess liberal in my thinking, and I did date somebody at Binghamton who was a Republican.

IG: 36:19
And what was that like?

AW: 36:22
Uh, my parents- my father was very upset about it. He said, you know, "How can you?" I said, "Well, we do not discuss politics."

AW: 36:32
[crosstalk] from Bronx.

IG: 36:32
Right-right-right. And did he also come from a New York City Long Island, or was from-

IG: 36:36
From Bronx. Yeah.

AW: 36:40
And Jewish yeah and but a staunch Republican.

IG: 36:46
Yeah, well.

AW: 36:48
And we were pinned you know, like to be engaged and his parents-he brought me to meet his parents, and I guess I was too outspoken, because he eventually broke up with me and said that his parents did not approve me. So that so that ended.

IG: 37:17
Yeah. Was that-that probably was disappointing at first, and then maybe a relief or?

AW: 37:25
Well, you know, I moved on.

IG: 37:27
You moved on.

AW: 37:27
Yeah.

IG: 37:28
You moved on. You moved on. So-so tell me about your life, production trajectory after Harpur College. So, you met your husband in the late (19)60s.

AW: 37:43
We got married. We went cross country in the summer of (19)68.

IG: 37:49
Yeah.

AW: 37:50
After knowing him for a couple of months.

IG: 37:52
Yeah.

AW: 37:53
We drove cross country and we got married in Las Vegas on the way back.

IG: 37:57
Wow.

AW: 37:58
And [Adrienne's husband speaks]

IG: 38:01
What?

LW: 38:03
[inaudible]

IG: 38:03
[laughs]

AW: 38:06
And we will be married 50 years.

IG: 38:10
That is wonderful.

AW: 38:11
Yeah.

IG: 38:12
So have you- did you live, did you continue living in the broughs or-

AW: 38:22
Well, we lived in Briarwood. Um, because after we got married, my father got us a one-bedroom apartment. And then a few years later, when I had my first child, we got a two-bedroom apartment. And then we moved to South Brunswick, New Jersey, and we were there seven years, and he could not stand the commute because he was working at the Board of Ed.

IG: 38:52
Yeah, that is a hard commute-

AW: 38:53
To downtown Brooklyn.

IG: 38:54
In downtown Brooklyn.

AW: 38:56
Yeah. And so, we moved to Staten Island.

IG: 39:00
I see.

AW: 39:01
And we were there for 37 years.

IG: 39:03
Oh, wow.

AW: 39:05
And I hated every minute of it.

IG: 39:07
Yeah, you hated every minute, yeah, I am surprised. I am surprised that you moved there, but yeah, you know, it makes sense, because of the commute.

AW: 39:14
And the schools were decent for girls to go to. And then we, five years ago, we sold the house.

AW: 39:24
Right.

AW: 39:25
And we bought in a retirement community in Monroe Township, which is right near right Brunswick.

IG: 39:35
Right.

AW: 39:36
So, you cannot go home again.

IG: 39:38
Yeah-yeah.

AW: 39:39
Yeah.

IG: 39:41
So, you know, you know, so tell-tell us about, you know, looking back on, you know, your-your life, what-what do you what do you have to really, what were some of the more important lessons you have learned in your life that you would like to share with future generations of students listening what is important as they go through their studies as they think about what, what course of study to take, course of you know, in their life to take. What are some [crosstalk]

AW: 40:33
I firmly believe in the liberal arts education, rather than learning a trade. I think it is important to broaden your horizons, so to speak. And then, in fact, both my daughters had liberal arts educations, and then for graduate school went on to do a specific thing.

IG: 41:05
So, tell me. Tell me which family members went to Binghamton University.

AW: 41:11
My- both my daughters went to Binghamton and my older daughter went on for an MBA from George Washington University, and my younger daughter went on for a master's in Hotel and Restaurant Management at University of Massachusetts, and my son in law became an attorney, and his sister is a CPA.

IG: 41:48
I see, I know you said that your grandchildren are considering Binghamton as well [crosstalk]

AW: 41:53
My grandson who is fifteen is considering Binghamton, so.

IG: 41:58
Right. You know, looking back at that experience, what do you think that Harpur College gave you?

AW: 42:08
It opened my eyes to various disciplines, I guess, that I was not aware of, like music and better understanding of history, things like that, but to me, the relationships I made there-

IG: 42:28
Are most important.

AW: 42:30
-are the most important, yeah.

IG: 42:35
So, you know, when you meet with your former classmates, you do not really talk about Harpur. You talk about [crosstalk]

AW: 42:41
We do, we do yeah.

IG: 42:44
So, what kind of things do you remember?

AW: 42:47
People reminisce about the restrictions on us as women back then and the fun we had will if we find out about one of the classmates, you know "Oh, I ran into so and so, went to Harpur with us. You know that that type of thing.

IG: 43:17
I am very curious to know if you have any photographs of yourself from that time?

AW: 43:24
Yeah, I do close at hand. No, in a box.

IG: 43:28
Okay, no, do not worry about it. So do you think that your generations experience sort of, you know, you were in between. You were on the very beginning of the stage of the 60s, and you know all of this. But there was ferment there-there that-that was-

AW: 43:55
Just starting.

IG: 43:55
Just starting.

AW: 43:55
Just stating.

IG: 43:57
And how, but how do you think that you are this even, even this experience, even this big generations experience shaped your sort of responses to the world today? Do you think?

AW: 44:13
I think I think that the way I was brought up had more to do with it-

IG: 44:24
More to do with it.

AW: 44:25
Yeah, then-then Harpur, because I was not part of the activist group.

IG: 44:34
Right. Well, it is not only the activists. So-so what was your education at home--your very liberal minded education at home um, teach you what were some of the lessons that you know-

AW: 44:51
Tolerance.

IG: 44:52
Tolerance.

AW: 44:58
I do not really know. It was just, it was always there, you know, voting for Hubert Humphrey.

IG: 45:06
Right-right.

AW: 45:08
Disparaging things that were not liberal in thinking it was just, I grew up with it. I did not give it a lot of thought.

IG: 45:26
You did not give it a lot of thought. What do you-

AW: 45:27
The people that I was friendly with at Harpur felt the way I did.

IG: 45:34
Did-did your professors feel the same way that you did? Did you feel, you know-

AW: 45:40
I do not think that-that they were opinionated that way.

IG: 45:45
They were not.

AW: 45:46
They focused on teaching the particular subject, and they did not digress into their process-

IG: 45:55
Even-even the history professors?

AW: 45:57
I do not remember them doing it.

IG: 45:59
I see. Okay, so do you have any outstanding memories, you know, a very, a very positive memory that you would like to share from your time at Harpur. What were some of the happiest memories?

AW: 46:21
Uh, on Friday nights, we would go to the theater on campus to see serial movies that were fun. I cannot remember that, but I remember, you know, with Shazam, I do not remember what-what the character was, but it was a regular thing on Friday nights that we went to the movies. I remember the theater group putting on wonderful shows, musicals-

IG: 46:59
Campus theater group?

AW: 47:01
Yeah-yeah.

IG: 47:03
There is still a very, a very strong theater department.

AW: 47:07
Oh, there is?

IG: 47:07
Yes. Oh, very much. So, in fact, well, this is not about me. This is about you. Well, I am I am interested. I am interested. I am taking a course in playwriting, which I-I really, really enjoy.

AW: 47:21
There was one guy I was friendly with, Tony Manionis. I have no idea where he is now, but I remember them doing on the town.

IG: 47:30
Yeah-yeah-yeah.

AW: 47:31
It was great.

IG: 47:34
It was great. So-so that is how- these are the positive experience. Any-any-any, anything that-that was any I do not want to conclude on this note, but I am just wondering, anything that really stands out in your memory is something that you did not like about this college experience.

IG: 48:05
No.

AW: 48:05
No.

AW: 48:05
No.

IG: 48:07
It was all very positive.

AW: 48:09
Yeah, well, the weather-

IG: 48:10
The weather, the weather you did not like.

AW: 48:12
Yeah. I remember-

IG: 48:14
Wearing skirts on Sundays.

AW: 48:16
Yeah, eventually they did away with that. But I just remember lots of snow, and cold.

IG: 48:22
Yeah, it is still, it is still like that.

AW: 48:24
Yeah. And, you know, we did not have- if I came with a clock radio, a portable typewriter, it was a lot. When my kids went, you know, it was a microwave, this and that, you know it was sort of very basic living.

IG: 48:45
Yeah. So do you have any- I am just wondering- so you went back to Binghamton a number of times since graduating. And how did you notice that the you know, campus was changing apart from your kids bringing more appliances?

AW: 49:12
Well, [inaudible] co-ed. They were living in like a suite with a lot of common area, rooms, and as my husband said, I walked around like I was a tourist for the seeing the big city for the first time. "Oh my God, look what they built."

IG: 49:34
So, the campus has had really expanded. You go back when-when- what were the years that you went back?

LW: 49:43
Let us see our daughter was born (19)71. And she was 18-

IG: 49:49
Right.

LW: 49:50
-when we first went back.

IG: 49:52
So, in the late, late (19)80s.

AW: 49:54
Yeah, first, and then four years later, when her sister went.

IG: 49:59
Yeah. So. The Campus must have really transformed.

AW: 50:03
It exploded.

IG: 50:04
It exploded.

AW: 50:05
Yeah.

IG: 50:05
It exploded.

AW: 50:06
When we were there. We had one--we had a little post office, and we had the cafeteria. We had the science building; we had the library. I mean, you know, pretty basic. There were no tennis courts or things like that. But, uh-

IG: 50:29
Did you use a library when you were there a lot?

AW: 50:32
Yes-yes. Yeah, well, I did not have a computer or anything like that. So, research was done in a book-

IG: 50:41
In a book. I remember, I remember. So, any you know outstanding memories that you would like to share with us, anything that you would like to add, any concluding remarks about this very important experience in your life.

AW: 50:59
We used to line up for dinner, down the steps and around and the dessert was always lime jell O. So, I remember that.

LW: 51:14
That a favorable memory? [laughs]

AW: 51:16
No, I just remember that,

IG: 51:18
Yeah, lime jell O.

AW: 51:19
And I remember when the parents came up for Parents Weekend, they would give us a wonderful dinner, and like pretend that this is what they served us all the time.

IG: 51:19
So, what was a wonderful dinner? Do you remember, and how did that differ from your everyday meal?

AW: 51:40
There is no salad bar. There was no, I mean, the food, rice, whatever was there that night. And there were no choices. The food was not wonderful.

IG: 51:51
The food, the food was, what meatloaf and potatoes, that kind of thing.

AW: 51:57
Yeah, I think so.

IG: 51:58
So, there was no ethnic food. There was no health food to speak of,

AW: 52:05
No-no.

IG: 52:05
Nothing like that.

AW: 52:06
And we did not question that either.

IG: 52:10
You did not question that either.

AW: 52:12
We questioned nothing.

IG: 52:14
But now you but, but then you learned, as a result of meeting your husband, you learned to question a lot more.

AW: 52:21
Yeah.

IG: 52:22
And for example, what, what kind of things would you question? I am just, I mean, this is not about your Harpur, but what, what did you learn to question?

AW: 52:30
The-the way the world is, you know. Um, who our elected officials are, you know, things like that.

IG: 52:44
Okay, so do you have anything to add to say to people listening to this tape, future college students? Advice.

AW: 53:01
Enjoy those four years, because you can work after that for many, many years.

IG: 53:06
Yeah.

AW: 53:07
I mean, I taught for 27 years.

IG: 53:11
You taught which grades?

AW: 53:13
Uh, eighth grade, junior high school, English, all that time, I retired in 2001.

IG: 53:23
And your husband retired. He was also for the Board of Ed.

AW: 53:30
No.

LW: 53:30
Well-

AW: 53:31
No, he had a lot of different jobs.

LW: 53:33
I worked for the city, New York City, a variety of different jobs for 32 years, and then I retired from that until the job of not for profit. Oh, and did that for 11 years.

AW: 53:45
All financial jobs.

LW: 53:47
And I retired in 2011--for real.

IG: 53:54
Yeah, for real, for real. Okay, so-

LW: 53:58
[inaudible]

IG: 53:58
Yeah.

LW: 54:00
I think what you what she got out of school, to some degree, is lifetime friends. It is lifetime friends and relationships.

IG: 54:07
Yeah, I get that.

LW: 54:09
That, um, is something that students that should be aware of and should relish.

IG: 54:19
Yes, I think so. I think so.

AW: 54:23
Because he has, he has been pulled into those [inaudible] too.

LW: 54:28
That Binghamton does provide. I am guessing 85 to 90 percent of the students at Binghamton are from the state.

IG: 54:36
Yes-yes.

LW: 54:38
So, there is a maintain some type of proximity within the geographic area, as opposed to Virginia or Michigan, North Carolina-

IG: 54:47
Right-right.

LW: 54:47
-that you can maintain relationships with people in lifetime, friends, which she has done probably more than most people.

IG: 54:56
Yeah. Well, anything-anything left to add? [inaudible]

AW: 55:06
No.

IG: 55:07
No-no, well. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your thoughts and your time. Okay, so this is- please introduce yourself.

LW: 55:18
Louis Weissman, Adrienne Weissman, Adrienne Wolfen Weissman's husband, guess, pushing 50 years sitting here listening to the interview that she was doing as a graduate of Binghamton, which I am not, sorry that I probably was not, but I am not, anyway, Adrian, I have been talking, you know, obviously the shooting in Florida has led to a lot of discussions, and the students, the high school students that have hopefully beginning what will be a long term, permanent movement of protesting and effecting change, which I believe that the college students in the (19)60s really led the movement, the anti-war movement, led the civil rights, the women's movement, and it changed things. And hopefully that the students in high school now who are being directly affected by the shootings that are going on gun issues will have the same impact long term, I hope. Although, given the politics in this country at the moment, I am not always sure that the movement is going to be in the right direction. So, you would not we have a president who wants to arm teachers rather than regulate and limit guns. But-

AW: 56:37
I did not want to be armed.

LW: 56:39
-but, so I so I am not sure, but I really am. Maybe for the first time since the shootings in Columbine and Sandy Hook, that I am [inaudible] getting a little bit hopeful that maybe these kids will lead a movement that will change things.

AW: 56:54
He said after Sandy Hook, nothing is going to change.

LW: 56:57
So now-

IG: 57:00
But just if you could repeat, you know, and what you said about the difference between your generation in the you know, your your class,

LW: 57:10
Oh, the period of time?

IG: 57:11
In the (19)60s, and Adrienne's.

LW: 57:14
Adrienne graduate, what was in Harpur College from (19)60 to (19)64 I entered college in (19)68.

AW: 57:24
No, you graduated-

LW: 57:27
-in (19)68 so I started in 64 when she graduated. Um, she was in school at the beginning of the changes that were occurring in terms of civil rights, anti-war, women's movement that was just beginning then, and I think took much greater hold the second half of the (19)60s into the early (19)70s, not only in terms of the movements, but in terms of the impact music had, protest music had, which is interesting enough. Sandra and I do not share the same music tastes of the (19)60s. You know, I also remember, I also think the second half of the (19)60s had much more of a drug element to it than the first half of the (19)60s did, somewhat influenced by the music and and-and the people in it.

AW: 58:22
[crosstalk] was very into the protests.

LW: 58:24
-and the protests were much more visible and much larger, sometimes more violent than they needed to be, but nevertheless became part of the culture because became part of shaping college students, who I think in many cases, still keep the same values that they had then, in terms of an openness, acceptance of people, and make you sort of had a still had a foot in the (19)50s, at that point, to a greater degree than I did who was in school four years later.

IG: 59:10
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Just a few more minutes. Okay, so, what did you say?

LW: 59:20
She says slept of through the (19)60s in terms of music. I am not sure [inaudible] Nash and so on so forth. I guess the folk protest songs, yeah.

IG: 59:37
[crosstalk] Mary

LW: 59:40
Judy Collins, those types of things.

AW: 59:43
That I learned from Ronnie Bayer.

LW: 59:45
[crosstalk] the Beatles were an influence, but I think the music was an integral part of the second half of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, much more so than the Doo Wop stuff from the (19)50s into the early (19)60s. You know, listen to Sirius radio in the (19)60s. And some of the stuff I just cannot stand listening to some stuff in the (19)50s is unlisted from Frankie Avalon and [inaudible] pop singers. So, I really think that the music did have a major influence in the second half of the (19)60s, much more so than the first half, and helped shape the thinking and the views of a generation.

AW: 1:00:35
So, you got to marry someone younger than you.

IG: 1:00:41
Well, thank you very much. Thanks.

(End of Interview)

2018-02-23

Irene Gashurov

1964

Adrienne W. Weissman

Adrienne is a retired New York City school teacher.

Audio

Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in education; Harpur College – Alumni from New York City; Harpur College – Alumni living in New York City

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Harpur College – Sixties alumni; Harpur College – Alumni in education; Harpur College – Alumni from New York City; Harpur College – Alumni living in New York City