Interview with Samuel Elliott Halpern, March 30, 2015

F: And rolling.

FERNHEIMER: Okay, good morning.

HALPERN: Good morning.

FERNHEIMER: It's almost good afternoon. Today is March 30th, 2015. My name is Janice Fernheimer. And I'm here with Sam Halpern, uh, to do the first interview in a series on Kentucky Jewish oral history. And it is a great pleasure to welcome Sam here from California.

HALPERN: Thank you.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, I just want to get started by asking you to tell me a little bit about yourself, where and when were you born, what was it like growing up here in Kentucky.

HALPERN: Well, I was born January 9th, 1936 in a small house, farmhouse, uh, near Georgetown, Kentucky, uh, right now there's a, uh, a, uh, the largest Toyota plant in the world. And at the end of that, uh, I was told that the little white house still exists. Uh, I don't know if it does or not. But, uh, 00:01:00that's where I was, uh, born. And, uh, there's some interesting stories surrounding that. My, uh, father at that time, uh, I expect I arrived a little bit early. It was a very very cold snowy time. And he was sitting up with a corpse, which, uh, used to be done in those days. Uh, uh, they took turns, and, uh, we were--Dad was taking his turn. And, uh, Mom went into labor. And my brother who was twelve years older than me, uh, struggled through the snow about three miles to get Dad. And by the time, uh, uh, Dad got back to the house and the--the doc got there, uh, a, uh, neighbor lady, uh, delivered me. Uh, I met everybody. (laughs) All at once.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. When you say your father was sitting up, uh, with a corpse, was he--was it part of the Jewish burial society or was it just--

HALPERN: --no, no, this fellow was--

FERNHEIMER: --something that everyone did?

HALPERN: It was done all over the South in those times. You sat up with the corpse. Uh, there's a lot of stories, uh, that, uh, surround, uh, sitting up with a corpse. Uh, one of them of course was to keep the, uh, the various animals--

FERNHEIMER: --right.

HALPERN: --away. Uh, and, uh, there's signs of respect and that sort of thing. And people would take turns. And there, uh, sometimes it was a twenty-four-hour-a-day, uh, type thing, uh, and they sat up with the--the corpse.

FERNHEIMER: So you had the full c-- circle of l-- life right there.

HALPERN: That's right.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, dad sitting up with the corpse and you c-- coming right in.

HALPERN: Right.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and what it was like growing up on the farm and--

HALPERN: --well, uh, I guess everybody would look at it a little bit 00:03:00differently. To me, I lived an idyllic childhood. We were sharecroppers. Uh, we moved from farm to farm like all the rest of them. Uh, tobacco was the major crop of course, uh, here in Kentucky. Uh, but it was diversified farming other than that. And, uh, so I was in the fields by the time I was eight years old. And, uh, you know, picking up tobacco leaves and things like that and, uh, walking behind the plow by the time I was ten. And, you know, this--we--we worked horses in those times. Uh, because it was--the land was rough and the--the tractors were not yet low enough so that they wouldn't, uh, d-- their center of gravity wasn't low enough that they could be used without turning over. So we used, uh, horses. And, uh, when I wasn't, uh, uh, working, uh, I 00:04:00was fishing and--and, uh, hunting and, uh, running around with my buddies. And, uh, I'd go barefoot every, uh, summer, you know, shoes would come off sometime around the first of May, wouldn't go back on until school started. Uh, picked many a thorn out of my foot. Uh, we, uh, even though we sharecropped, uh, and it was still, you know, Depression days, uh, or the end of the Depression days, we always had lots and lots to eat. You know, the--the old farmhouses we lived in were--were--were firetraps of course. Uh, if they d-- fire was your--your greatest fear because those things used to flame up and be gone in no time, you'd be lucky to get out alive. But, uh, my life was free. You know? There 00:05:00was never any fear of walking down the street, uh, uh, it was, uh, all my friends were, uh, other sharecroppers' kids. Uh, we didn't even know we were poor most of the time, you know. Uh, it was just, uh, an agrarian life. Uh, probably not unlike the agrarian life that existed, uh, since the Middle Ages, you know. Uh, the things that you contended with, some of which exist today, uh, the markets of course, uh, for the stuff that you raised. In the Depression nothing brought anything. Uh, the landlords, which, uh, none of them were 00:06:00exactly, uh, the warmest, uh, kindest people in the world. They, uh, it was somewhat of a feudal system. Uh, and, uh, the sharecropper of course was at the, uh, bottom of the food chain. Uh, and none of us really understood as kids the pressures on our fathers and mothers. The, uh, but everybody was kind of in the same boat, you know. Uh, it, uh, the society in those times of course was, uh, racially divided. Uh, so all of your friends, uh, you know, small friends, uh, were pretty muchly white, other--there was, uh, a few, uh, I had a few black friends. We didn't go to the same schools of course. Because it was totally 00:07:00segregated. Uh, but, uh, I didn't feel much in the way of pressure from being different from anyone else. Uh, I rarely knew anti-Semitism. Uh, the reason being that, uh, most of the, uh, the Christians were--were, uh, were very conservative Christians, uh, fundamentalists. And, uh--(laughs)--I think they thought we were, uh, uh, you know, kind of kin to, uh, to Christ since he was a Jew. (laughs) So you--you commanded a little bit of respect from--from that angle. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: When did you or how did you become aware that your family was 00:08:00Jewish and that that was different? Uh, do you remember?

HALPERN: Well, my mother, believe it or not, was from Brooklyn. She was, uh, born in Europe but she came over at an extremely early age. She was about two. Uh, she, uh, my father came over when he was sixteen. Uh, both were from, uh, around a town called Kovno, uh, which is in Lithuania. And, uh, Dad spent, uh, a couple years in New York, went to the National Agricultural School, got a couple of years of college, and then he struck out west. You know, he liked the freedom that he--that he enjoyed, uh, and he didn't have the, uh, the degree of, uh, of--hadn't--didn't have to face anti-Semitism, uh, like he did in Europe 00:09:00when he was growing up. Uh, he could just be, uh, pretty much a man. Now my mother had been raised in New York, and so she--while my father had a very excellent, uh, religious education before he came to this country, my mother had the acculturation of, uh, the Jewish social system in this country. And so, uh, she was the mover and shaker of things that were, uh, to be Jewish in the house. But, uh, uh, some would tell you that we were about, uh, as, uh, as Jewish as Patty's pig. But--(laughs)--that's not really true. My--my mother always wanted me to know who I was. And, uh, my father used to say, "He will know who 00:10:00he was." And we discussed things that were Jewish. Uh, my father had a, you know, a really wonderful, uh, Jewish education in the old country before he came here, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Was he in cheder?

HALPERN: Pardon.

FERNHEIMER: Was he in cheder? Did he go--

HALPERN: --oh yeah, he--oh yeah. His, uh, grandpa was, uh, was Orthodox. And so, uh, when he came here, uh, he had--he knew, uh, a lot about, uh, uh, Judaism and, uh, was very widely read. He was--he was, uh, a very intellectual man really. Uh, he read, you know, everything from, uh, Tolstoy to the Reader's Digest. (laughs) Wh-- whatever he--he could get his hands on. And he used to 00:11:00discuss things. My mother--my mother, uh, had as I said the social experience of Judaism and, uh, she would apply that in many ways. Uh, but, you know, as, uh, as farmers we did things like, you know, uh, we--it was diversified farming. We raised hogs, you know, uh, for the market, you know, there was--and, uh, we didn't keep a kosher home. But, uh, you know, what kosher was was explained to me. So almost all of my education until I got off on my own, uh, came from discussions from my parents. Almost, uh, none of it came from my experiences with the synagogue, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Uh.

HALPERN: Uh, or from other Jewish people. I was always the only Jewish kid in 00:12:00every school that I went to all the way through high school. There was never a school--and I went to eight or nine of them because, you know, you--we cropped all over, uh, Kentucky, uh, Scott County, where I was born. Bourbon County, uh, not too far from Paris. Uh, Fayette County. Uh, and, uh, you know, there--there weren't any--any Jews really living, uh, in--in--in those--those agrarian areas. Uh, uh, uh, they were all in the cities. I think we were probably--and I can't prove this--the only Jewish, uh, tobacco sharecroppers in the history of the commonwealth, you know. But, uh, you know, uh, I'd like 00:13:00to--to know if there was ever anybody else. Be interesting to swap stories.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

HALPERN: But, uh, we did the same kind of things as all the other folks, uh, uh, in, uh, uh, uh, other sharecroppers, you know, it was, uh, I can remember my father doing things like, uh, oh yeah. Once, uh, there was, uh, all of his friends of course were Christian. Uh, and, uh, there was a problem, uh, with, uh, the church, one of the Baptist churches, uh, uh, they needed to raise some money. And my father and mother went around just like all the other croppers went around, uh, with their Model Ts or Model As and, uh, collecting money for the church. Uh, Dad did that, you know. Uh, my--I became aware very early on 00:14:00how my father was looked at among the, uh, cropping society in which we lived. And there--there--there were distinct societies. There were the--the sharecroppers, who were, uh, you know, the bottom socioeconomic level. There were the landlords, who we always thought were rich, uh, but, you know--(laughs)--they were far from rich, uh, except for a few. Uh, there were, uh, merchants. Most of the Jewish people at that time in Lexington, and there weren't very many. Uh, there were small shopkeepers. Uh, there was one butcher shop, uh, run by, uh, a fellow who appears in this book, uh, uh, Mr. Goller. 00:15:00Uh, there were, uh, you know, dry goods stores. There were, uh, pawnshops, uh, there were I don't know what all kinds of business. Oh yeah, used parts, uh, uh, the, uh, and--and that sort of thing. Just, uh, everybody was, you know, middle-class to lower-middle-class. And, uh, we always thought we were, uh, you know, I always thought we were middle-class. Uh, and--and I never knew we were poor, you know. Uh, we didn't think we were poor. It was a state of mind, middle-class state of mind, which, uh, uh, to this day I carry with me, you know. A middle-class, uh, state of mind.

FERNHEIMER: Can you tell me a little bit about your interactions with the 00:16:00Jewish community? You said that, uh, you didn't interact that much. But on what occasions and what was it like? And maybe you could describe one of your memories.

HALPERN: Okay. The--I had very little interactions with the Jewish community. They came on the High Holy Days. Uh, my father, uh, after World War II, uh, he became at least agnostic. Uh, we lost, uh, you know, enormous numbers of people in my family. And he did not cope with that well. Uh, and so he--he was--he never criticized anyone's religion but he, uh, was, uh, he could define the word 00:17:00secular, let's put it that way. And so we went in on Yom Kippur and, uh, and Rosh Hashanah, which were pronounced Yom K-- Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah--(laughs)--and, uh, there I would meet other Jewish kids. And our experiences were much different, they from mine. Uh, and I was still a sharecropper's kid. I was--the distinctions in--in socioeconomic groups extended not just to the gentile community but also the Jewish community, at least as far as I was concerned, okay? And, uh, they--they would have almost nothing to do with me. Perhaps it was as much my fault as it was, uh, theirs. 00:18:00They--they didn't have common experiences with me. And nor I with them. And so I'm not condemning anybody. Uh, but I just didn't have any Jewish friends. Uh, the, uh, and I did feel separated from them, while I did not feel separated from the gentile kids that I lived among, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah, who were also sharecroppers.

HALPERN: Right.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, what--can you tell me a little bit about--you said your dad wanted to enjoy the freedom of being out west. Uh, how did he--when did he come to the United States? And when--when did he get to Kentucky or how did he get to Kentucky?

HALPERN: Okay.

FERNHEIMER: Maybe that's a better question.

HALPERN: That's--that's quite a story. Uh, he landed in New York, uh, at age sixteen. I had an uncle there.

FERNHEIMER: What year was that?

HALPERN: Pardon.

FERNHEIMER: What year approximately?

HALPERN: Nineteen twelve.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

HALPERN: Uh, he spent a couple years there. He went to this National Agricultural School, got caught up for a short while in World War I, and after that, uh, he, uh, when he graduated from this agricultural school, uh, he started looking for a job, you know. And someone in Oklahoma, uh, was looking for somebody to--to work. And so he went there. He worked, uh, with this fellow for a while.

FERNHEIMER: What years was that approximately?

HALPERN: Uh, early twenties. And, uh, then my--my father was, uh, was 00:20:00physically extremely strong. He was, uh, he had arms on him like this. Uh, you know, he was only about five-seven, but, uh, he was--he was a heck of a guy, uh, physically. Uh, and so he decided to join the wheat harvest after he left this farm. Uh, he was working out for this guy. And the--the wheat harvest used to go all the way from Texas all the way, you know, almost to the, uh, Canadian border I guess. And, uh, he would, uh, he worked with them. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: What does that mean, to join the wheat harvest? To travel from s--

HALPERN: --okay. They hired guys, you know, uh, hired people. They had a threshing machine. And, uh, they would--in those days you'd--you'd cut the wheat. Uh, put the--bring the stuff on in a wagon. Offload it. And you had a 00:21:00stationary, uh, thresher. And somebody would--would--would throw this, uh, the--the, uh, wheat into the threshing machine and it would thresh it and throw out, uh, the, uh, the straw. And the--the grain would go in the next direction. And, uh, they would stay there until they cleared these giant fields, uh, and, uh, today you have, uh, you know, machines that are, uh, do that. And then of course they're much more efficient. But in those days it took, uh, took young strong men to do that, uh, because it was brutal work and went long hours. Anyway he did that for a while. Then we had, uh, family in Lexington, Kentucky.

FERNHEIMER: Ah. Okay.

HALPERN: Uh, there was, uh, uh, uh, uh, a fellow th-- th-- that was his uncle, 00:22:00Uncle Yankel and his wife Malka. They lived in Lexington. And, uh, he--he bought roots and herbs from the Kentucky mountains. Th-- there's all sorts of things there. Wild root (??), ginseng, uh, sassafras, uh, all sorts of things like that grew in the Kentucky mountains. And--and--

FERNHEIMER: --and they were also Halpern or they were, uh.

HALPERN: Pardon.

FERNHEIMER: Were they also Halperns or did they have a different last name?

HALPERN: No, no, these are just mountain folks. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: No, no, your uncle.

HALPERN: Oh, uh, uh, the, uh, no. The, uh, th-- they--Uncle Yankel was, uh, uh, I don't know whether the name--last name was Halpern or not. I just--all I--I remember is, uh, Uncle Yankel and, uh, and, uh, and his wife, uh, Malka. 00:23:00And we had, uh, other, uh, uh, Tanta Neya lived here. And I don't know. I don't remember the last name there either. (laughs) Uh, she had two daughters. Uh, they lived, uh, here in Lexington. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: Who were her daughters? Do you remember? Or no?

HALPERN: I--I don't--I don't really remember their last names.

FERNHEIMER: That's fine.

HALPERN: Kresner. Kresner.

FERNHEIMER: Kresner? Okay.

HALPERN: Kresner. Right, uh.

FERNHEIMER: And the daughters' first names? I'm sorry to be nitpicky. We're going to try and track some of this, so--

HALPERN: --uh, th-- th-- dor-- w-- one of them's name was, uh, Dora and Golda.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. That's it.

HALPERN: That was Tanta Neya's daughters.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

HALPERN: Uh, and Dora had a daughter by the name of Shirley. And that was all 00:24:00the family we had here, uh, in Lexington. Uh, we had, uh, an--I had, uh, an aunt who, uh, lived in Chicago. She and her husband came here, uh, in 1940. Uh, there was an exposition here. They came over here and they stayed. They were living in France at the time.

FERNHEIMER: Who? And who are they?

HALPERN: Uh, my--her--my aunt's name was Gitta and, uh, uh, what's Aunt Gitt's last--

F: Berget.

HALPERN: Berget, Berget, Berget.

F: Sorry.

FERNHEIMER: No, that's all right.

HALPERN: They were from, uh, they lived in France. Uh, my father as I said was from Lithuania. He had, uh, a lot of brothers and sisters. Uh, they, uh, two 00:25:00came over here. One, uh, stayed in New York. And, uh, uh, then Aunt Gitt was in Chicago. Uh, from his mother's side there was Uncle Sam Schwartz, uh, who was a physician in New York City. And, uh, uh, Uncle I. J. Schwartz, who was a poet and--

FERNHEIMER: --that was from your mother's side?

HALPERN: Uh, no, that was from my father's side.

FERNHEIMER: I'm sorry.

HALPERN: My--my father's mother's side of the family. They were--they were Schwartz. Uh, all these people f-- from around Kovno. Uh, all Lithuania. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: I. J. wrote the poem Kentucky.

HALPERN: Right. He wrote the poem Kentucky. He ran, a, uh, a dry goods store. 00:26:00I met him. I don't remember much about him. I remember a shock of white hair from, uh, a man about five-six or something like that. Uh, and, uh, I remember it was always his--his wife out there working while he wrote. (laughs) She--she ran the business, he wrote, you know, and--

FERNHEIMER: --and his wife was--who was his wife?

HALPERN: Uh.

FERNHEIMER: I can look that up.

HALPERN: I can't remember. I--I can't remember. I was--I was very young at that time.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

HALPERN: I guess I was about five. Uh, but, uh, anyway the, uh, Uncle Yankel bought these roots and herbs and things like that from the mountains and he traveled with a packhorse in that time. Uh, the pack pony. Because there, you know, there weren't roads. And he got sick or something like that and Dad took 00:27:00his, uh, route one time.

FERNHEIMER: Oh.

HALPERN: And, uh, he got to see Kentucky and he really, uh, really liked what he saw. And he began working here. He went back to New York, and he married my mother. Uh, he knew her from before. They had corresponded. He--he married her and took her from Brooklyn, New York, and she'd probably never been out of New York City, to a sharecropping farm in Kentucky, which I've always thought defines, uh, uh, culture shock.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. Did her family react positively, negatively, uh, in general?

HALPERN: Uh, my--my mother was an orphan. Uh, her mother died, uh, shortly before, uh, she got here. Uh, she was raised by, uh, uh, uh, an aunt and some 00:28:00other people. Uh, and she had worked, uh, in the Lower East Side. Uh, she--from the time she was thirteen years old, uh, uh, and, uh, she used to tell Brooklyn stories of the time, you know, uh, the, uh, you know, between, you know, uh, I guess she went to work when she was, uh, it was probably about in 1908 or 1909. Uh, she was, uh, uh, working. She--she put ostrich feathers in ladies' hats. Uh, this was, uh, a big deal back then. You know, uh, uh, I know 00:29:00nothing really about it. I know she was--(clears throat)--she knew well of the Triangle fire, the disastrous fire in New York City that--that changed, uh, a lot of the industrial practices of the time. Anyway he married her, took her to Kentucky, and they began cropping. And, uh, you know, working out. And, uh, she entered into the social structure of the sharecropping community and, uh, they taught her how to--to, uh, cook Southern style. She cooked Southern style all her life except for the gefilte fish she--she used to make, uh.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) Only on holidays or year-round?

HALPERN: Uh, every now and then. You know, I used to do a lot of fishing when 00:30:00I was a kid and I'd bring home all sorts of stuff. And they used to make gefilte fish out of carp.

FERNHEIMER: Right.

HALPERN: And the Kentucky River used to be loaded with carp. And so I'd bring them home and she'd make gefilte fish out of them. You grind them up and boil them and, uh, the odor in the house at that time, I always found things to do at other parts of the farm at that time.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: (laughs) Because man, it stunk. But the end result tasted great.

FERNHEIMER: And did you have your--your friends or your fellow neighbors in? Did they also eat your mother's gefilte fish?

HALPERN: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The--the--the way--the way in which in those times, uh, you entertained, uh, you'd drop in. Anyone, uh, no, uh, it was always on a weekend because during the week you were just working like mad. But somebody'd show up to your house, you'd entertain them with food. You know, uh, you didn't have anything else. And so, uh, you'd sit around, have dinner, you 00:31:00know, and of course, uh, uh, during the harvest time the sharecroppers used to be--used to do what was known as swapping work. In short you and, uh, if you had a son would--would work and the other guy who, uh, would--he and his kids would jump in and you'd put the--both crops in the barn. Because you--you needed, uh, the extra help. Uh, tobacco is a very labor-intensive job. It was all done by hand in those times. I mean that's what you did. You know. And so you swapped work. And, uh, at dinnertime--or lunchtime. Uh, the big meal was at noon. And it was eaten quickly, you know. Uh, and in great quantity. You 00:32:00cannot, you know, you'd been up since 4:30 getting the chores done before you hit the fields, you know, uh, you--the dew had to get off the tobacco, uh, uh, or whatever you were trying to--to work on before you could, uh, work. But you'd been up since 4:00, 4:30, uh, and it was now noon. And you'd been burning calories like mad. And when--when you got to, uh, the table--and you always ate in the kitchen. Uh, that's--that's where everything existed. Uh, in the--in the farmhouse. The woman was in the kitchen. And everything would be centered around there. That was just the way the society worked. The dining room was left for special occasions. It was rarely used, you know. Maybe four, five times a year. And, uh, to what--it was--it was like sharks at a feeding frenzy.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: It was amazing, uh, how much was eaten and how quickly it was eaten. Uh, and then you'd hit the fields again. Then you worked till almost dark and, you know, you had to get the--after that you had to get the cows. And, uh, do the milking. And all of that kind of stuff. All the chores. Then you went in and by this time you were near a state of collapse. Uh, and you washed up a little bit. Uh, uh, uh, you had a tub, uh, I'm not talking about a bathtub, I'm talking about a tub. You washed up in that. And you just crashed. And then next morning did the same thing again.

FERNHEIMER: Uh, roughly what time did you guys crash?

HALPERN: Uh, well, uh, I would imagine by the time we had eaten and everything, 00:34:00uh, if it was summertime, uh, 9:30, maybe ten o'clock, uh.

FERNHEIMER: That's a long day.

HALPERN: Oh. (laughs) Talk about it. Yeah, incredible.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: Yeah.

FERNHEIMER: But you said folks would drop in on the weekends. And I presume on the weekends there was less working. Did your family have any kind of Sabbath observance? Or no?

HALPERN: Uh, we just took the Sabbath as, uh, observance when all the people around us did, which happened to be a Sunday, you know. And, you know, we never went to, uh, uh, uh, church. We went to--went to the High Holidays. Y-- Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. That was it. And oh yeah, we used to buy matzo, uh, for Passover, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Huh. Where did you buy it?

HALPERN: Uh, bought it in, uh, from Mr. Goller. You know, he had a--he sold 00:35:00matzo too. You know, it was a butcher shop but he sold other things too that were kosher for Passover. He was, uh, he was quite a fellow was this butcher. You know, you had to know him to appreciate him.

FERNHEIMER: Where was his shop roughly?

HALPERN: It wasn't too far from where we sit right now. Uh, it was pretty close to the synagogue because he was--he was very religious and, uh, he would walk of course, uh, on the Sabbath, uh, to shul. And so it was near--I keep thinking it was Third Avenue or High Street where the--where the--the Conservative synagogue was. He was a cantor there, uh, Mr. Goller. And, uh.

FERNHEIMER: I wonder if it was where Joe Bologna's is now.

HALPERN: Uh.

FERNHEIMER: Thought it, uh, the Italian restaurant is where one of the old 00:36:00synagogues was but--

HALPERN: --this is an Italian restaurant?

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. And w-- I'll walk you over there afterward.

HALPERN: Yeah. M-- maybe, uh, uh, I just don't know. Uh, there were only, uh, two synagogues. There was the temple and there was--there was the, uh, Conservative, uh, synagogue.

FERNHEIMER: Mm.

HALPERN: And, uh, he had a great big beard and he, uh, used to sing, uh, you know, all of the--the, uh, uh, holy songs. And, uh.

FERNHEIMER: You said he was the cantor at the Conservative synagogue?

HALPERN: He--he cantored. Right, uh, I mean, uh, uh, okay, wasn't J-- Jan Peerce. (laughs) Uh, or a Metropolitan Opera star like--like, uh, in New York City. But, uh, he--he was very emotional, tears used to run from the--down his face and soak into his beard. I remember that very distinctly. And, uh, he had 00:37:00a s-- the saddest voice in some of the w-- in some of the stuff that he--he would sing. Uh, and I describe it in here as--as sounding like he had a rock on his heart. Uh, it--it did seem that way. He was--he was very blunt. He was extremely honest. Uh, you know, you knew where you--you sat all the time that--(laughs)--he--he was not exactly what you would call a, uh, the kind of a guy who, uh, made the customer first. Uh, if you, uh, the--the women would go in. And they would want, uh, he would say--he'd cut everything off the same piece of meat. Steak. Steak. Bam. Chops. Chops. Bam. (laughs) Roast. 00:38:00Roast. Bam. (laughs) That was it. (laughs) He used to call, uh, uh, many of the women that came in there old yentas.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. (laughs)

HALPERN: Uh, that was, uh, but he--he loved my father. And my family. Uh, that's how I got--

FERNHEIMER: How did they--did your family go, uh, did they buy meat from him? Or how did they get to know one another?

HALPERN: No, no, uh, we--we had our own meat, uh.

FERNHEIMER: That's--

HALPERN: --uh, we were--we weren't kosher. Uh, uh, we used to bring in, uh, stuff from the farm for him. He, you know, we had a lot of chickens, a lot of eggs, we'd bring in eggs. We'd bring in milk. We'd bring in cream. We'd, you know, produce that we were growing. We always had huge--my father put out 00:39:00gigantic gardens. He always put out way way too much, uh, you know, the--there's no possibility of anybody eating that much food. Uh, but we would give it away, you know, uh, the, uh, he, uh, he was very funny about that. I never really understood about, uh, when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old, he decided that we ought to have some strawberries. And so we had a, uh, an area that, uh, was about a half acre in size. And, uh, he said to me one day this--we had our own farm at this time. He said, "Sam, go down the s--, uh, to Scothorn's store," which was a general store at the bottom of the hill. "Get enough plants for a half acre of strawberries." And so I said, "Dad, you know, 00:40:00half acre of strawberries, I mean, there's no," by this time there was only three of us. Uh, Mom, Dad, and me. Said, "You know, there's no way we can eat that much, uh, strawberries." He said, "No." He says, "Get enough for a half acre of strawberries." So I went down and, uh, asked, uh, Mr. Scothorn for enough plants for a half acre of strawberries. And he looked at me like I was crazy but he sold me enough. So we put it out and of course it just--everything Dad touched, it was, uh, grew in the earth. Just grew with incredible abundance. And so there were so many strawberries you cannot believe it. And I used to go in the strawberry patch and I would check over the strawberries. I would only eat it--eat one if it was perfect.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: It had to be perfect. Or I wouldn't eat it. I was--talk about 00:41:00spoiled. Oh. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: So what did you do with all the strawberries in the end?

HALPERN: I would eat myself silly and then I'd go in the house, you know, and Mom would say, "You're not eating your dinner. What's wrong?" Uh, I don't know, I'm just not--(laughs).

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) So did your family keep all the strawberries or did they--

HALPERN: --no, we used to give them away, just l-- like, you know, the--there were friends, uh, you know, we--we'd just give them away.

FERNHEIMER: Huh. Wow. So your dad, uh, grew close with Mr. Goller just from these exchanges, bringing the crops in?

HALPERN: Right, from the exchanges, right. And, uh, the, uh, that was--that was probably the only close, really close Jewish friend he--he had in Lexington.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. So you kind of took us through a typical working day in the sharecropper's life. Can you tell us a little bit about what a typical I guess 00:42:00Sunday would look like with folks dropping in or--

HALPERN: --well, Sunday would start with doing up the chores. You know, but, you know, we'd get up late, 5:30, you know. (laughs) To--to do up the--the chores and come in and then, uh, after that we used to go out and take a look at the stock and that sort of thing. Wander around. In my case whenever I wasn't working, uh, this is when we had our own farm. I was fishing. I used to, uh, uh, fish a lot. Dad stocked our own farms with--our own ponds with, uh, bass and--and, uh, bluegill and fish like that. And that supplied the house with--with fish. Whenever, uh, Mom decided we ought to have fish she'd say, "Uh, go get me some--some fish." I'd go down. It didn't take long because they 00:43:00were really productive, uh, uh, ponds and I'd get a couple of good size, uh, bass and a few bluegill and bring them back to the house and she'd prepare them.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about, uh, uh, I'm going to come back because I w--, uh, give you some time to let things percolate. But I want to sw-- I know you did your undergraduate here at the University of Kentucky. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about how you made the jump from sharecropping out, uh, uh, uh.

HALPERN: Okay.

FERNHEIMER: Out in yonder I guess. And coming here to the university to study, uh.

HALPERN: Well--

FERNHEIMER: --tell me a little bit about that path.

HALPERN: To begin with, I always thought I'd be a farmer, you know. Uh, and when I was, you know, fifteen, maybe sixteen, my, uh, sister, my oldest sister, 00:44:00brought home, uh, a young man for, uh, to meet the family. A man she would later marry. And he was getting his PhD in physics from, uh, Brooklyn Polytech Institute in New York City. And, uh, he was a really good baseball player.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: And I loved baseball. Oh, I loved it. Uh, and so he would get out with me and throw a ball around, you know, and he was--he was just great. And, uh, then I--he would talk about the stuff that he was doing, you know, I'd--I'd keep asking, "What are you doing? What are you doing? What is physics?" You 00:45:00know, uh, I didn't, you know, uh, the school I went to, uh, you know, I didn't--didn't have, uh, a physics course. Actually it had one my senior year. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: How old were you when you were playing ball with him?

HALPERN: I was about sixteen maybe. I was sixteen. Uh, and so--

FERNHEIMER: --and how old was your sister that--

HALPERN: --my sister at that time was ten years older. She's ten years older than me. Uh, and, uh, I, uh, decided I was going to go to the University of Kentucky and become a physicist. And I started out in physics at UK. And I found out it was hard. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: What year was that?

HALPERN: This was 1953.

FERNHEIMER: Okay.

HALPERN: And, uh, so I spent a couple years in physics. And it became obvious to me that, uh, you know, uh, even if I became, uh, a physicist, uh, I was never 00:46:00going to be able to compete with some of the guys who were really good in math. You know, I mean if you're going to go into physics you better be good in math and it helps to be really great in math and I wasn't even good. I was mediocre. And so I decided well, I took a course in archeology. And it was just a wonderful course. I loved it. And, uh, when I was, uh, very young I read a lot about, uh, Greek civilization, Greek, uh, the Greek gods and all the things. And so, uh, I decided I would get a PhD in archeology and--

FERNHEIMER: --this is when you were in college? You decide--

HALPERN: --this is, uh, when I was still at UK. And so there was a guy by the name of Dr. Buck (??), uh, who, uh, taught the course in archeology. And of course I got an A in that because I loved it so much, you know, I just really studied it. And so he used to go every year to Delphi and dig in the summers. And so, uh, I said to him, "Uh, Dr. Buck, you know, I'd like to get a PhD in archeology." And he said to me--his words were "Are you a millionaire's son?" I said, "No, I'm a farmer's." He said, "Well, my dad is a millionaire." Says, "I don't have to make a living. But you got to make a living. And you're never going to make more than about $5,000 a year in archeology. And so if I were you I'd find something else to do and keep it as a hobby." Well, you know, being a 00:48:00farm boy, when you--when you say, "Uh, you got to make a living," that--that, you know, that means something. So I decided okay, uh, I really like physiology. And so from that it--it just kept on going. And I, uh, decided to go to--to medical school and maybe get a PhD in physiology and--and that was one way of, uh, of doing it. And then my friends went on, uh, uh, to finish medical school, and I went on with them. And then, uh, I decided well, I'm going to do an internship. I can always practice medicine if physiology, uh, collapses. So I did my internship. And then the Vietnam War, uh, started cranking up. And, uh, I entered the service after my, uh, my internship and spent a couple years 00:49:00there and then went back. And by this time I--I quit with the--the physiology. And I went into internal medicine, spent, uh, three years in that, and then, uh, got interested in nuclear medicine because it afforded the chance to do research of a kind that was very interesting and kind of groundbreaking. I did a year of clinical and, uh, research, uh, uh, in nuclear medicine. And then went, uh, I got to--went to California to the UCLA, uh, Wadsworth VA system and did a, uh, a fellowship in, uh, in radio-pharmaceuticals. And then a job opened up at UCSD and I took the job and I spent an entire career there.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. Uh, that sounded like a lot of years between your 00:50:00undergraduate experience starting in 1953 and--

HALPERN: --oh yeah.

FERNHEIMER: When did you start in California? Just--and then I want to come back to UK and hear a little bit more about what life was like then.

HALPERN: I, uh, OK, well, from the time I started in UK, that was four years. And a year of internship. Uh, then did four years of medical school, that's eight years, internship is nine years, uh, uh, three years internal medicine, uh, that's twelve. And two years of nuclear m-- one year of nuclear medicine, uh, thirteen. And, uh, the year of radiochemistry is fourteen. Fourteen years after high school.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: Uh, so, uh, it was--after a while, uh, you need a job, you know. You--

FERNHEIMER: --you have to make that living.

HALPERN: You got to make a living, right. And so, uh, that was--that was the trick.

FERNHEIMER: Can you tell me a little bit about what life was like at the University of Kentucky in the fifties? Uh, did you--did you associate? Did you encounter more Jews at UK? Did you ass-- I know there was the Hillel here. I know there was a Jewish fraternity here. Were you--

HALPERN: --right.

FERNHEIMER: Did you interact with them or know about them?

HALPERN: N-- not really. Uh, a little bit. Uh, I knew a couple guys at ZBT. Uh, but I never pledged a fraternity or anything. Uh, the--my senior year, uh, a group of doctors here in, uh, the, uh, at UK, uh, had a house that they allowed some premed students to move into free of charge. Uh, and we named it Lambda Alpha Delta. I have no idea why we named it Lambda Alpha Delta. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: But we did. And so we called it a premed fraternity. Uh, and, uh, there were ten or twelve of us, something like that. Uh, but other than that, uh, you know, and--and, uh, knowing guys. Uh, I knew--I knew some Jewish people. Uh, but there weren't a lot on campus, uh, not very many. Some of the kids from, uh, New York and some of the eastern states, uh, came to, uh, the University of Kentucky, uh, Jewish kids. Uh, were interested in going to medical school. It was--in those years there was, uh, an unspoken quota on the number of Jewish kids who were going to get into medical schools. And it was 00:53:00very hard to get into one in Massachusetts or, uh, New York. Uh, but, uh, in the South it was a bit easier. And so they would spend a year or two at the University of Kentucky, uh, after, you know, they--they did a couple years back in--in New York or Boston or someplace like that. And become citizens of the state and go to, uh, University of Louisville or apply to other Southern schools and that was easier to get in. So I knew a few of them. Uh, the, uh, but mostly the class was, uh, there'd be maybe five or six or a little more, uh, 00:54:00Jewish kids in the medical school class at the University of Louisville. Uh, you'll be interested to know there were only, uh, two women in the class of about a hundred.

FERNHEIMER: Huh.

HALPERN: There was one black person.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: In the class of about a hundred. Uh, and that's the, uh, the way it went. Uh, it was, uh, it was a very difficult time for women in medicine. Uh, it's much different, uh, now of course. Uh, which at UCSD, uh, before I, uh, left there were--the class was, uh, more--more women were in the class than men in the entering classes.

FERNHEIMER: Oh wow. Just in the time that you were there as professor? Or--

HALPERN: --uh, as professor, right. The, uh, women in medicine today, they've in-- have invaded the, uh, the sacrosanct areas that were set to--would never have women in them. For example orthopedics. That was a--a man's profession. No woman was going to go in there. But they're in there now. And lots of them. Neurosurgery. There were--weren't any women. But there's a lot of them now. You know, it's a, uh, it's a different--

FERNHEIMER: --why was, uh, orthopedics known as--as, uh.

HALPERN: I don't know. I guess it had to do with muscle and bone and you think of men when you think of muscle and bone. At least back then.

FERNHEIMER: Huh.

HALPERN: You know, this was b-- before the, uh, the age in which, uh, Lindsey Vonn was, uh, going down the--the slopes at a rate which was unbelievable, you know, and--and you had women basketball players who, uh, guys got out there with 00:56:00them, uh, you know, they were going to have to strain hard to keep their rears from getting kicked. You know, uh, uh, things have changed. Things have--things have gotten much more egalitarian, uh, as far as I see in my seventy-nine years than they used to be. And at the same time, uh, problems exist that, uh, are probably more egregious now than--than back then. Uh, it's an evolving, uh, country and always will be. Uh.

FERNHEIMER: Now that you're talking about how things have changed and how they've stayed the same, uh, I wonder what--what's it like to be back in Kentucky now, having grown up here? And what--what stayed the same? What's 00:57:00changed? Uh.

HALPERN: Well, uh, uh, my remarks now will be in regard to, uh, central Kentucky where we sit rather than where our farm was in northern Kentucky. There the culture was considerably different than it was in--in central Kentucky. Central Kentucky was Southern. Uh, its roots are Southern. Uh, and as I look at it now, uh, I know that--that for example the--the place, the sharecropping farms that, uh, the one that this book is written about, uh, went down there, uh, uh, right after, uh, back in, uh, the late seventies, uh, I took 00:58:00my wife and, uh, back there and, uh, everything was dilapidated and falling down. And now, uh, since that time, uh, I've gone back there and everything, it looks like a horse farm. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: Uh, but, uh, as I walk among these--or drive among these buildings, uh, uh, new things have sprouted up. Uh, uh, Kentucky or at least Lexington is now a hub I know of, uh, of corporate, uh, headquarters. Uh, IBM used to be here. Toyota is here. Uh, you know, uh, around here. The, uh, central Kentucky when I was here was built on basically three things. Uh, uh, tobacco, 00:59:00uh, horses, uh, and just the general agrarian type of life. I--it's my perception that this has moved more away from the agrarian type of existence. Although, you know, uh, I say this without, uh, having the--the amount of data that I would need to be able to say that, you know, prove that, uh, but it's the feeling that I get. Uh, I--we walked past the University of Kentucky and some of the buildings I recognized. But it's so much different now. It's--it's 01:00:00built up.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: Uh, there were buildings back then like for example the old armory which I'm pretty sure had heard musket balls go past it.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: Uh, I don't know. Uh, you know, I was--I was looking downstairs at the pictures and, uh, you--you got to watch going past pictures as you get my age. Because you see all these pictures of people that you knew and are all dead. (laughs) Th-- that kind of gets your attention. But I recognized, uh, well, uh, all sorts of, uh, folks. Uh, presidents of the, uh, university. Uh, Dr. White (??), who was the--the, uh, uh, dean of students at that time, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: The, uh, you know, lots and lots of different things. And the pictures that you show of, uh, uh, I looked at one. And, uh, here's this--this farm. And there's a whole flock of chickens. I looked at them. Oh, these are leghorns. You know, and, uh, looked at the--the hogs this guy was raising. And I recognized Hampshires and--and Poland China, uh, different kinds of--of hogs and--and beef cattle. You know, these are, uh, that sort of thing. That's--that's what you would see. And of course the, uh, magnificent horses, uh, that, uh, uh, were on these horse farms and, you know, the--in those days the horse farms were--well, I'm sure they're still very beautiful. And you could go on them. Uh, I knew some of those horses. Uh, uh, I met Man o' War 01:02:00bef-- before he died. He--he died at a very old age. I knew Citation and Coaltown, which, uh, Citation was a Triple Crown winner and he always beat his, uh, stablemate Coaltown in--in all these races. They were contemporaries of each other. Uh, but, you know, uh, I met Ben Jones, uh, who was a great trainer. And the only thing I ever knew him as was, uh, Mr. Ben. I had no idea, you know, uh, at age ten that he was world-famous, you know, and had, uh, uh, you know, all these famous friends.

FERNHEIMER: Many--many of the things that you're talking about right now kind of make an appearance. And you've been mentioning the book in your hands the whole time. So I finally want to ask you about the book. Uh, which I know 01:03:00you've written. Uh, you said that it took you forty years to write it. Can you tell me a little bit about your process for writing A Far Piece?

HALPERN: (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: And, uh, kind of what made you make the jump. I mean you made a lot of really fascinating changes, right? From sharecropping to university to physics to archeology to medicine. And now back to--to writing and literature.

HALPERN: I used to think things happened to me. I just lived life. And things just seemed to happen to me. Uh, I've always been interested in writing. Uh, my first, uh, foray into the writing world was, uh, in red crayon on our wall when I was about four years old, which--

FERNHEIMER: --(laughs).

HALPERN: To say that it upset my mom. (laughs) Uh, then, you know, uh, I continued interested--being interested in writing. But, you know, I--I didn't 01:04:00know you could make a living doing it. And, uh, so I continued to write a little bit. Uh, when I was at the University of Kentucky I wrote a couple stories, uh, in my freshman English class.

FERNHEIMER: Oh yeah?

HALPERN: You used to have to take two years of--of--of English, uh, uh, one, uh, you--you would write what was known as, uh, they were known as themes back then.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: You would read a book and you would write a theme about it. And, uh, my, uh, my concept of, uh, English grammar was, uh, slightly better, uh, is slightly better now than it was then. It's never been that great. My wife always looks over everything that I write. And, uh, you know, corrects it. Uh, my, uh, I make all sorts of grammatical mistakes. Uh, capitalization has always 01:05:00escaped me except for the start of the--each sentence. I understand that. But beyond that I'm not very good at it. But, uh, I wrote on this book first the children's story. And I, uh, I finished it. And my research--by this time I was in, uh, practice, uh, I was a prof at, uh, UCSD. And my research started really heating up. And there just wasn't enough time to write. Uh, I used to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write for an hour. Finally, you know, you just can't do that. And as things got hotter and hotter it was just impossible 01:06:00to do. Uh, the academic career was very demanding. So after finishing that I kind of hung them up for a while. And about, uh, twenty years later--

FERNHEIMER: --when was that initially? The first foray into the children's book?

HALPERN: Uh, that was probably back, uh, late sixties I started, uh, writing on that. And, uh, I--I started. After I--after I semiretired I read the book over. It was pretty good, I thought. But a different man wrote it. You know, I was no longer the young man. I was--wasn't close to these kids like I was before. And I wondered what had happened to Freddie (??) and Sam. I got to 01:07:00thinking about it. And I decided I would write the book, the rest of the story. And I did. And then I just merged the two and honed it and was lucky enough to get an agent who was lucky enough to, uh, find a publisher, HarperCollins, was a guy at HarperCollins who really liked it. And they published it and meantime I've written other stuff. Uh, one I actually, uh, labored long and hard on and--and--and it was never published, I'll go back to it someday, and another one I'm hoping to have ready for, uh, my agent in, uh, this year.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. So it's--this commitment to writing, uh, I mean you describe it as an early childhood commitment, literally onto the walls of your parents' house, uh, that has followed you your whole life, and in fact it is your life that you write about in A Far Piece and I wonder if you could tell--talk a little bit about the way that you use this fictional representation to communicate important things or--that you've learned or that you want to take away from your real life experiences growing up here in Kentucky. Uh, Kentucky doesn't always have the best reputation as a state.

HALPERN: I know. The, uh, I like the people of Kentucky. I enjoy them. I liked them back when I lived here. And, you know, my high school graduating class, they're my closest friends. I go back, uh, I've been back to see them 01:09:00many times. We just had our--(clears throat)--sixtieth high school reunion. Never admit that. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) That's impressive.

HALPERN: Yeah. And depressing at times. But anyway I'd like--I write it in here, uh, when the kids' story takes place, uh, in the 1940s, and as far as kids, uh, young people being able to identify with that or know what that was like, uh, this is like Brigadoon.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: You know? Uh, this couldn't happen. Well, it did happen. This is--this was the life of the sharecropper. At least the white sharecropper. 01:10:00Things were tougher for the black sharecropper obviously. And this--the thing that's unique about it is of course we were a Jewish family among these people and how we were treated and, you know, how--I'd like people to be able to see that. And, you know, I take a lot of, uh, everybody who writes a novel, uh, deep down, they want to make some, uh, some comments about how they see life. And I'm no different than anybody else. The, uh, the river plays an enormous part, uh, in the book of course. And, uh, every Southern writer uses the river. 01:11:00Twain used it. You know, you just go down the Southern writers and you'll see the river, the river, the river. The river of course is life. And, uh, and one end of the river in Little Bend, uh, there's a man who, uh, once good who became evil. And at the other end of the--the river at the Big Bend of the river is a--is a man who had been evil who became--did something good. And so defining good and evil becomes very very difficult under those circumstances. And all in between, you know, you--life occurs through--through all of it, you know, as you go along, and, uh, my--my old man in here who goes back to search for his roots at the urging of his wife, uh, recognizes this. And, uh, what he finds out is 01:12:00he's--he's trying to return to Canaan, his Canaan, uh, his land of milk and honey, and he isn't sure what the land of milk and honey was, only thing he knows is ever since he left it and s-- some ideas, some concepts that he had from his youth, uh, on the farm, uh, that occurred by the age of twelve, uh, have played an enormous role in his life. Uh, he was living life by--trying to live life by precepts that he had learned as a kid and apply them to a different society. The one that he entered was much different. And the rules were not 01:13:00the same. And he was never able to deal with that. And as a consequence he was always running into trouble and to the point where he had basically at one time one friend that happened to be his wife, who was everything to him. And then of course, uh, you know, she dies. And she extracts the promise that he go back and examine what happened back there on the sharecropping farm. And that's of course part of the story. When he goes back is when the story really begins. And so the story, what I would like people to get out of it, uh, I would like for them to understand what it was like in the sharecropping farms, what it was 01:14:00like to be a Diaspora Jew among these people and actually not be prosecuted--persecuted, to be accepted as one of them. And the fact that he was--there really wasn't any difference, uh, except the cultural thing of having--of having a Jewish background from the rest of these people. He was a human just like they were. They accepted him as a human just like they were. There was no looking up or down, it was directly across, and that was the only thing this kid ever wanted, only thing the man ever wanted, was just to look across at somebody and just be a human being. And, uh, so I'd like them to understand that. Uh, and my comments of course on good and evil and what they 01:15:00are and what they mean and--and the difficulties that, uh, the human experience is in dealing with these issues. And Lord knows we got enough issues in 2015 to deal with.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah. So you have many different identities as a doctor, as a professor, as a sharecropper, as a Jewish man. What would--as a Kentuckian out west. W-- of all those different identities w-- what kind of resonates with you now in this contemporary moment? And--and h-- how does it sort of shape who--who you are, who you've become, or who you're continuing to become? Uh.

HALPERN: Well, I think what it really means to me is I'm better able to see 01:16:00myself as just a human being. Anybody--the vast majority of people regardless of whether--of their race, creed, color, religion, whatever, they're all the--all have the same degree of intelligence. And let's face it. If you--you--you, uh, all of us, uh, crawled out of the--the, uh, the--the caves of Africa, from Olduvai Gorge and places like that. And, uh, here we are two hundred thousand years later and explaining how the universe works. I mean, uh, and so everything is--it just--the human has just taken one step after another. One step after another over the last couple hundred thousand years. And we've 01:17:00gotten where we w-- we are. And, uh, so I don't see myself as--as any--any one thing in there as defining me. The--the--the--the cohort of all these things are me. I just--I just took one step after another and things happened, you know, uh, that's all.

FERNHEIMER: One of the more recent things that has happened is your son and his column.

HALPERN: (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: And so I--I want, uh, while I've got you here I want to ask you what it--what it feels like to be refracted through Shit My Dad Says. Uh, and, you know, what--how you think the personality behind your son's column has impacted the way that people conceptualize Kentucky, uh.

HALPERN: Well--(clears throat)--it would amaze you--

FERNHEIMER: --(laughs)--

HALPERN: --how many, uh, uh, I have a Facebook page obviously. Uh, uh, uh, you 01:18:00sell books with a Facebook page, okay? Uh, it would amaze you how many people have written in and said, "My dad was just like that." You know, when my--the--the story behind Shit My Dad Says. You--you--you--it's--it's really an interesting story. The, uh, my son for personal reasons one time, uh, decided to come home. He was a man already, uh, in his late twenties. And, uh, he had, uh, some problems. And, uh, he was already, uh, writing and making a living writing. Uh, uh, he was, uh, writing online. And, uh, he was doing very well 01:19:00working. He worked for Maxim, uh, magazine online. And, uh, he, uh, would work at the dining room table and I would work at the dining room table with my writing. Both of us are--are writing. And one day he says to me, he says, "Dad, uh, I got something, uh, I need to talk to you about." All right. What do you want to talk about? And so in order to understand what he's going to say in--in Shit My Dad Says, uh, the--the sayings in there, when he was about ten years old, uh, my wife went and started law school. And she was always the disciplinarian in the family. I was never the disciplinarian.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: And suddenly I had a huge amount to do with Justin. And I would tell Justin to do something, ask him to do it, and he would agree, "Uh, certainly, you know, I'll get it done." He'd never do it. Uh, you know, uh, and he would finesse me at every--every step and the kid was smarter than me, you know, and--(laughs)--he was just outwitting me like mad. And I was trying to keep an academic career going and all that at the same time. And I was also his Little League coach. I didn't know how to motivate Justin to do any of the things I wanted. One day I got there late for a practice, and, uh, there's this dugout, and behind the dugout there's these, uh, th-- this board fence. They can't see me but I can hear them. And I was listening to this language as I came up and it was atrocious.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: It was absolutely--these were kids between eleven, twelve years old, and I could not believe what they were saying. And so anyway I'd spent a couple years in the navy, and so, uh, you know, I--I knew how to swear. And so I noticed that every time some of them would launch into this language nobody else would speak, they'd listen. And so I thought I can do that.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: So the next time Justin didn't do what I wanted, I got in his face like a boatswain's mate and I used these, uh, well, I--I said what I thought of him so he, uh, we--we established a brand-new relationship. Let's put it--(laughs)--that way. Anyhow, getting back to the--where I began the story, he says, "Dad, you know, there's some things you've got to know." And so okay, 01:22:00what--what are we talking about? He says, "Well, you know, those things that you've said to me over the years?" You know, and I would, uh, use things to, uh, use statements to make points that I considered important in--in--in teaching this kid. I said, "Yeah, so what?" He says, "Well, some of my friends want me to put them on Twitter." Well, at that time I didn't know Twitter from nothing. You know, the social media completely passed me by. You know, I--that was not part of my--my existence. And I said, "Uh, oh? Uh, you put some of them on there?" And he said, "Yeah. And my--my buddies wanted me to put them on, so I--I put, uh, some on." And I said, "Oh." He said, "Well, there's quite a few people who have read them." Oh? Uh, how many is, uh, quite a few? He 01:23:00said, "Quite a few." Said, "How many?" About two hundred thousand.

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: (clears throat) So she comes home.

FERNHEIMER: Your wife.

HALPERN: My--my wife, uh, comes home, and--

FERNHEIMER: --Joni--

HALPERN: --we--Joni. We--we--we, uh, she figures out how we're going to get on Twitter and, uh, see these things. And as I look at them I think oh my God, all my colleagues have--have read these things. The language that I used is--oh. And so anyway there--there I'm stuck with this, you know, there's couple hundred thousand hits, uh, you know, people following it, uh, and so, uh, uh, Justin 01:24:00says to me, says, "Look, you want me to--you want me to take this down? I'll take all this down." And, uh, I thought about it and I thought why now, you know, uh, the whole world has seen this, why--why take it down now. I said, "No, go ahead." You know, I thought maybe it'd help him in his career. And sure enough, uh, a while later he's--a whole bunch of agents descended on him and he picked one of them and they, uh, he wrote up Sh*t My Dad Says, uh, using many of those aphorisms and, uh, they published it and it was a runaway best seller, it was wild. You know, everybody, uh, st-- had read this--this--this book. You know, and so, you know, organizations tried to get ahold of me to 01:25:00find out what I had to say about the book and things like that, and I always refused to make any comment. Uh, I mean this was Justin's thing, he--he could take it as far as he wanted to, and so, uh, then there was this television show, uh, that, uh, Warner Brothers bought it, you know, and from that it went to, uh, a, uh, sitcom, uh, that starred, uh, William Shatner, you know, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Who lives in Kentucky.

HALPERN: Uh, r-- right. He--he spends--he's got a farm in Kentucky, right.

FERNHEIMER: In Lamfrage (??).

HALPERN: Uh, and, uh, anyway, uh, it was--it was fascinating to--to see this man, uh, uh, portraying me on television. Uh, uh, especially since, you know, 01:26:00when Shatner was young, uh, one time in--in the office there--there was some women's magazine we had lying around there. And there was an interview or something about William Shatner. He was voted one of the ten sexiest men in the United States. And I've always been as homely as a mud fence. And here this--this guy who was so--so, uh, so famous and handsome is portraying me. I got a big yak out of that. That--that I thought was really funny, you know. So anyway that's how the thing came about.

FERNHEIMER: So from your great-uncle I. J. to you to your son it seems like--

HALPERN: --right--

FERNHEIMER: --there's some writing in the family.

HALPERN: Right. And I have a, uh, a niece, Eileen Rendahl, uh, Eileen writes. Uh, she's been published a lot. Uh, and, uh, my dad, uh, wrote his memoirs. 01:27:00Uh, he didn't publish them. Uh, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, do you have them?

HALPERN: Uh, uh, we have a copy at the house, uh, he and Joni sat down--

FERNHEIMER: --wow--

HALPERN: --and worked on them. Uh, and, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Did you read them in preparation for writing Far Piece or--

HALPERN: --no, no. Uh, uh, I--I read that, uh, uh, uh, it didn't have anything to--to do with--with that. It was basically, uh, things that happened, uh, in his life, uh, mostly as a--as a sharecropper, you know.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: Uh, he had a very interesting life, lived a very long life. He lived to be ninety-nine.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: And, uh, he was a heck of a guy. Yeah, he really was.

FERNHEIMER: Wow.

HALPERN: He was--interestingly enough, uh, he had more education than any of 01:28:00the other croppers around. And there were times in which, uh, you know, there'd be disputes, uh, and, uh, they would come to Dad. Nobody could afford a lawyer, you know, this was back in the Depression. And they would--would ask him to adjudicate and he would tell them, "Look, I'm no lawyer, I don't know, I'll listen to what each of you has to say and I'll give you my opinion. You, you know, this is what I would--this is what I think. And, uh, nobody's bound by it. Okay?" Uh, but they would be bound by it. Uh, and he for years carried the nickname of Judge. That's what they used to call him. Judge, what do you think about something? You know, uh, and, uh, uh, you know, it was, uh, he was 01:29:00quite a guy, uh.

FERNHEIMER: So almost the exact opposite of--of anti-Semitism and ostra-- ostra-- if I can say the word we'll be in business. Ostracization. Uh, he was looked up to as a pinnacle of the community it sounds like.

HALPERN: Yes. Yes. Yes, he was.

FERNHEIMER: And that was mainly because of his education? Or also because of his interactions with his fellow sharecroppers?

HALPERN: It was a combination of things, one his education, the other the fact that he was known as an extremely honest, very decent person. Somebody who, uh, whose friendship you valued and whose decency you valued. And I, uh, it affected my life a lot. Uh, I learned from that. Uh, probably the most 01:30:00important things that he taught me.

FERNHEIMER: And that--so and did that reputation follow him? I know that at one point you stopped sharecropping, right? And your father became what you refer to as a man of property.

HALPERN: A man of property.

FERNHEIMER: Can you tell me about that transition? When it happened and--and what that meant?

HALPERN: It happened instantaneously. When you became a man of property in Kentucky in those times right off the bat you were--you were different in the social structure. Immediately. I mean that's--that's part of the--the human psyche I guess.

FERNHEIMER: And where was the farm that your family purchased?

HALPERN: Northern Kentucky, uh, it's called Boone County. Uh, the county seat 01:31:00of Boone County is Burlington. And, uh, to place it for you, you know where Covington is, you know where Cincinnati is.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: Covington is right across the river and we were about, uh, twelve, thirteen miles from Covington. So it was up close to the--to Cincinnati.

FERNHEIMER: And you were how old when you all moved there?

HALPERN: I'm sorry.

FERNHEIMER: How old were you when you moved there?

HALPERN: Uh, I was within three days of my fourteenth birthday.

FERNHEIMER: Oh, when is your birthday?

HALPERN: January ninth.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. So you started up, uh, right before you were fourteen. Did you have a bar mitzvah? Did you become bar mitzvah?

HALPERN: No. No.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. Uh, and did your family interact with the community up there any more than they did while they were sharecropping or no?

HALPERN: Yeah. Uh, we, uh, we became friends with a family that escaped the, uh, you know, lived through the Holocaust.

FERNHEIMER: Huh.

HALPERN: Uh, so we--we knew them. They were--

FERNHEIMER: --they were also farming?

HALPERN: No. He ran--they ran a dry goods store in a place called Erlanger, which is, uh, in northern Kentucky. It's about, I don't know, seven or eight miles from Covington, something like that.

FERNHEIMER: Do you remember their names or--

HALPERN: --uh.

FERNHEIMER: You can think about it.

HALPERN: I'm sorry, I'm blocking.

FERNHEIMER: That's okay, it'll come back. Uh, but, uh, I know--the reason I'm asking these questions is because you were saying that there was, uh, a noticeable difference in the way that you were treated when your family would come in for the holidays. And you attributed it to your status as sharecropping.

HALPERN: No. W-- we--we never, uh, uh, the--in--in Kentucky when we were 01:33:00sharecropping, uh, th-- there was a noticeable difference. Uh, but we didn't get close enough to w--, uh, any, uh, group. And we went into Cincinnati--

FERNHEIMER: --mm.

HALPERN: --uh, for the High Holidays. And we didn't, uh, know any--I didn't know anybody there. And they didn't know us. And so, uh, there was nothing, uh, to set us apart.

FERNHEIMER: Maybe, uh, uh, one last question kind of. What's your most vivid memory from your experiences, limited as they were, with the Jewish community during that time?

HALPERN: You mean, uh, as a--as a--a sharecropper?

FERNHEIMER: As a young man here in Kentucky either as a sharecropper, at the University of Kentucky, just your most vivid memory.

HALPERN: The most vivid memory w-- was--wasn't a nice one. Uh, it was a, uh, a 01:34:00moment in which I was excluded from members of my own ethnic group.

FERNHEIMER: Huh.

HALPERN: Uh, at the synagogue. And Yom Kippur. It's in--in this book. That--I remember that one more than anything else. Uh, the good one--good memories, uh, centered around Mr. Goller. (laughs) I, uh, he was--he was such a wonderful guy, you know, uh, and, uh, he really loved our family and we really loved him, you know.

FERNHEIMER: So the--the experiences in Far Piece, they're loosely 01:35:00fictionalized? More autobiographical? How would you describe them?

HALPERN: Okay. The--the sharecropping experience is exactly the way it was. That's--that's what it w-- what it was like. And the, uh, the work, incredible amount of work, and, uh, the, uh, unfairness of the system.

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: Uh, that's all true. Uh, there's no question about it. The, uh, the old man's experiences, having been colored by his youth, uh, is true. Uh, it 01:36:00did affect my--my later life, all of my life. And the way in which I--I look at people. Uh, I find myself, uh, to this day looking straight across. I--I, uh, never looked up and I never looked down. Uh, and so it's--it's colored my view of humanity although I will admit that, uh, I have some, uh, sad feelings about our species, uh, similar to those of Stephen Hawking, uh, the other day when he was asked about, uh, uh, our, uh, human race. Uh, the fact that we seem 01:37:00hell-bent on destroying--

FERNHEIMER: --hm--

HALPERN: --ourselves. Uh, he didn't put it in exactly that way but that's exactly what he meant. Uh, and the--the fact that, uh, you can have an animal that is capable of doing cosmology, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and going to another, uh, going to the moon and--and the--and the other planets maybe and at the same time being barbaric enough to do some of the--the hideous things that we have accomplished, uh, over these, uh, the eons, uh.

FERNHEIMER: Hm.

HALPERN: That, uh, that bothers me a lot. Uh, when that will be--when that will change and what it will take to change that I don't know. You know, I keep telling myself, you know, we've only been around couple hundred thousand years as--as a species and of that only about ten thousand of it is really, uh, civilization. And so, uh, you know, give them a chance, you know. (laughs) But things are moving at a rate now technologically--

FERNHEIMER: --um-hm--

HALPERN: --scientifically so fast that no one can--can, uh, grasp it. Even people working in a particular field can't get their head around all the stuff 01:39:00that's going on. And the ability to disseminate it throughout the world at the speed of light is there. And it just feeds upon itself and it goes faster and faster and faster. And meanwhile socially we can't go no faster.

FERNHEIMER: Yeah.

HALPERN: W-- we--it--it's--it's almost as though it's holding us back. Uh, I've seen things that--that really bother me. Uh, I was, uh, uh. (laughs) At a Starbucks one day. And I looked at--at a, uh, one of the little tables. And there were two, uh, young women sitting there, probably about sixteen, seventeen years old. And they weren't talking, they were texting each other. Sitting at the same table. They were texting each other. I mean humans--are we going to 01:40:00touch each other anymore? Uh, speak to each other anymore? Uh, the things that make us human are not technological. Uh, th-- they come from I guess you'd say a more primitive time. Uh, and I'm not sure when that time begins. But those are the things that seem to touch the--the social conscience of, uh, of the being, of--of the human being. And somehow that has to be brought to the fore.

FERNHEIMER: Mm.

HALPERN: Uh, we have to start seeing each other in the light of all of us being 01:41:00in the same pot together, uh, all 7.2 or 7.3 billion of us. And if we don't, Hawking is going to be right.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. Well, I, uh, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to ask you so many questions and--

HALPERN: --it's been my pleasure--

FERNHEIMER: --not just once but twice today. Uh, but I also want to give you the opportunity if there's anything that you wanted to touch on that I didn't happen to ask you about, uh, that you think is really important to have recorded, uh, about your experiences as a--as a Jewish person in Kentucky, as a sharecropper in the Jewish community, as a sharecropper in Kentucky, any of those, as a student here at UK. I gave you a lot of options.

HALPERN: There is one thing I would--I would like people to consider. When 01:42:00you--when you listen to the television, see movies, listen to, uh, read the paper, read whatever, I would like people to think. Don't take things just rote, because you can go from one thing to another as--as happens from a sharecrop to a professor. Uh, when you--when you read something, uh, when--when you--when you see something, don't take it at face value. Think. Think about it. Is it really something that you want to exist, uh, not just in our--our community but in our country and in our world? Uh, what--what do you want 01:43:00our--our world to be? What do you want humanity to be? And how does what you read or saw affect that? You know, think it through. And if somebody's trying to--to lay some trip on you that's, uh, the antithesis of that, reject it.

FERNHEIMER: Spoken like a true professor.

HALPERN: (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: (laughs) Thank you so much for your time, Sam.

HALPERN: As a true human being. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: That's right, that's right. Thank you so much.

HALPERN: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

FERNHEIMER: My pleasure. So a couple follow-up questions about your family, Sam. Can you tell me how many, uh, members of your family did you live with here in Lexington in your house?

HALPERN: Well, there were four kids. Uh, my brother, uh, who's deceased and 01:44:00one of the sisters deceased, uh, so it's just me and my oldest sister who remain. She's in California and so am I.

FERNHEIMER: So you're the youngest?

HALPERN: I'm the baby of the family.

FERNHEIMER: Okay. And your siblings' names? The oldest was--is--

HALPERN: --uh, oldest was Bob. He was--and then came Debby and then, uh, Naomi and Sam.

FERNHEIMER: And what--how many years were between all of you?

HALPERN: Twelve between Bob and me.

FERNHEIMER: Okay, so he was twelve years older than you.

HALPERN: Than me.

FERNHEIMER: Who--and Naomi? No.

HALPERN: Uh, Debby was--

FERNHEIMER: --Debby--

HALPERN: --ten years older than me. Naomi was seven years older than me. But she lied about it and said she was six. Uh. (laughs)

FERNHEIMER: (laughs)

HALPERN: Then there was me.

FERNHEIMER: And, uh, what did they go on to do? I'm just curious.

HALPERN: Bob was an engineer. Uh, my, uh, two sisters are--were nurses. And, uh, I wound up, uh, doing the stuff that I told you.

FERNHEIMER: Wow. So--so everyone sort of went on and moved out of the, uh, agrarian life and into, uh.

HALPERN: Yes, although I still, uh, like to get my fingers in the dirt. I raise a garden. A lot of the stuff that we use. Joni is a phenomenal cook and she, you know, I--I grow all sorts of herbs and things like that plus, you know, everything from lettuce to, uh, zucchini, uh, eggplant, uh, uh, potatoes, uh, peppers of all kinds, uh, you know, uh, we've got orange trees and lemon trees and lime trees. Uh, apple trees, uh, pomegranate, uh, fig.

FERNHEIMER: So that's really stayed with you.

HALPERN: I don't--I don't know what I've left out. But anyway I'm--I'm always digging around in something.

FERNHEIMER: So, uh, it's--it's clear that that part has stayed with you through all these different aspects of your life. I wonder if you could reflect on the way that your Judaism has impacted all these different aspects of your life.

HALPERN: It has. Uh, a lot of it from my reading. Uh, in, uh, since I--since I left college actually. I read quite a bit of, uh, of, uh, books on Judaism, history, a lot of history. And, uh, trying to figure out, uh, who we are and what we are and why we are and, uh, I think that, uh, Judaism has a way of 01:47:00looking at life from, uh, kind of a humanitarian standpoint. Uh, uh, an intellectual standpoint. And I think that has stuck with me a lot. Uh, uh, I'm less likely to make snap judgments about things. I--I tend to think things through. Uh, or at least to an extent. The, uh, it--it definitely has had, uh, an effect on my outlook on, uh, on life. Uh, I learned a lot of stuff that 01:48:00we've done, uh, that, you know, uh, when you take a look at--at, uh, our little ethnic group, I don't think even at the maximum we've ever exceeded twenty-five million people. I don't think so. You know, uh, uh, you'd have to look that up. But, uh, so we're a tiny sliver of the world's population. And we have had an effect on the species far exceeding our numbers. Uh, we really, uh, have been, uh, we've had our fingers into everything. Everything from theology to 01:49:00cosmology. (laughs) You know, uh, medicine, whatever, you know, uh, uh, why we are, uh, why we've--(clears throat)--been involved in so many things, uh, I think probably goes back to this--this interest in--in--in education and--and considering, uh, what life is like, what life is about, that sort of thing. So yes, it's had an effect.

FERNHEIMER: So I want to go back to that uncomfortable moment that I know you described in the book, but I wonder if you could describe it right now. You said the m-- your most vivid memory from the Jewish community is a painful one. And that moment of exclusion. Could you describe it in your writer's way for us 01:50:00now, what it--what it is and kind of why that stands out as the most vivid?

HALPERN: I was excluded. That hurts. It hurts. It doesn't make any difference whether you're Jewish, Hispanic, black, Islamic, what you are. When the dominant society--and at that moment in time the little--little, uh, synagogue congregation was the society. At the moment I felt excluded. It hurt me. I think that to be excluded like that hurts every group. It's, uh, and it's hard to--once trust is lost it's hard to get it back, you know. I have 01:51:00gotten it back because I, uh, I've read a lot. Uh, and, uh, so I see Judaism not as those people, uh, who excluded me at that time.

FERNHEIMER: And what--

HALPERN: --but something much different.

FERNHEIMER: What did they exclude you from? Was it services? Or--

HALPERN: --their society.

FERNHEIMER: W--

HALPERN: --their--their group.

FERNHEIMER: Mm.

HALPERN: And so I felt like they don't want me, I don't belong. And that's what hurt me a lot. And that's the reason that--that--that's so vivid in my mind. And, you know, I--I--I thought when I answered that question, You really 01:52:00going to say this? I thought, Yeah. Yeah, this is you. You're going to say it. And so I did.

FERNHEIMER: And yet those values from Judaism have stayed with you your whole life. How do you--

HALPERN: --yes--

FERNHEIMER: --reconcile that tension I guess?

HALPERN: I'm not sure that, uh, how that, uh, plays out. I think over, uh, a long lifetime you begin to, uh, get a feel for, uh, for things. Uh, uh, there's no--it's hard to single out any one single thing and say, "This is the be-all and end-all." Uh, things, you know, I don't remember who said it, but things 01:53:00are never black or white when you're human, they're just varying shades of gray. You know?

FERNHEIMER: Um-hm.

HALPERN: And so the scale slides. You know, just--just like a camera.

FERNHEIMER: Well, thank you.

HALPERN: You're very welcome.

FERNHEIMER: I'm very--

HALPERN: --thank you for having me.

FERNHEIMER: It's really a pleasure. Oh yeah. The cover of it.

HALPERN: Absolutely.

FERNHEIMER: It's a beautiful cover. Yeah, they did a nice job. Yeah. Great.

END OF AUDIO FILE