Barb & Melvyn Bernstein
Melvyn Bernstein was born September 3, 1945, and Barbara in 1943, both in Brooklyn, New York. Melvyn's parents were Meir and Esther Bernstein, and his family moved from Brooklyn to Bayside, Queens, where he attended Francis Lewis High School and later Queens College, studying theater and communication arts. Barbara's early life was more difficult; her father left the family young, and she became a caregiver, helping raise her younger brother Jeffrey while working in New York City. She had fond memories of her grandparents George and Anna Smith, who owned a candy store in Brooklyn. Melvyn and Barbara met at a bar in the Hamptons over a jukebox and married on December 10, 1967, at the Bayside Jewish Center. Melvyn's family embraced Barbara as their own daughter.
Together the couple became lifelong entrepreneurs. Melvyn trained as an actor at the Neighborhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner and became a member of the Actors Studio, while Barbara worked at Columbia Pictures. He appeared in commercials and worked on guerrilla films with friend and NYU professor William Charles Reilly. The couple started numerous ventures, including seashell shops called the Chambered Nautilus in Amagansett and Cedarhurst, Long Island, where Melvyn's shell mirrors were recognized by New York Magazine as among the world's finest shell craft. In 1979 they began a personalized-newspaper business. Their businesses had many ups and downs, and Melvyn readily acknowledged both great successes and hard failures, including bankruptcy.
In 1987 the family moved to Dallas after being recruited to open stores at the West End Marketplace, an opportunity that came through their friends Joanne and Steve Levy. In Dallas they ran several businesses, including Headlines (later PersonalHeadlines.com), a watch company, and Poster America. They raised three sons, Josh, Jed, and Jesse; Jed passed away, a great sorrow, and Jesse survived a devastating brain injury against doctors' predictions, going on to study film and build a career in Los Angeles. Through decades of joy and hardship, the Bernsteins credited love, forgiveness, and their Jewish faith and community as the glue that held them together. At the time of the interview Barbara had Alzheimer's, and Melvyn spoke movingly of caring for her with laughter, music, and love.
Full Transcript
my name is Elizabeth fader on today is May 9th 2018 on a Wednesday morning I am here interviewing Melvin Bernstein and along with him we have Farber Bernstein as well so the first question I'll go ahead and ask okay is your full name and you know Andres your wife and talked about idioms your parents and any children you might have as well well my name is Mel Melvin Bernstein and my wife's name is Barbara Bernstein my parents name were Meir and Esther Bernstein parents I need to interject that Barbara has Alzheimer's and I love her to talk but when she doesn't remember I'm gonna chime
in and help her out so Barbara's parents named Ruth and June okay okay um but any children you guys huh yeah I had a brother but he's mm-hmm but our children who do we have our children okay so we have Josh so many now only only three about three oh we have Josh and we have Jesse and Jesse is California and yet one more challenge yes I have one more child I had another child GI Jed and he passed away sorry yes the way he was an incredible athletic athletic person and he had I'm so sorry to hear that so he he's the only one
that we lost thank God um when and where by the way our lives have been extremely dramatic and that's not to say that everybody's life doesn't have drama in it but we are kind of in the 99.9% I love drama um when and when our were you born well I was born if the date doesn't get out I'll tell you I was born September 3rd 1945 both born in Brooklyn New York [Laughter] and how did they go from New York to Brooklyn to Dallas Texas how did that yeah and my mother always brought me back to Flushing New York I went to school in flushing
high school and then I kind of left so I was just really at that point I was just I had a lot of friends and you know everybody was very very nice to me so Barbara was born in Brooklyn spent some time in Brooklyn where her grandparents owned a candy store which he loved and he worked in the candy store she didn't do much of anything but she got paid in candy and she loved her grandparents George and Anna Smith and they were wonderful people and then her parents her mother her father left early moved them to Flushing and her and her brother Jeffrey lived
in Flushing for many years through high school father went to Flushing high school and what Barbara was a young woman already working in New York City flushing is only a couple of subway stops away in New York we met by I I was born my parents or my ernesta Bernstein he moved us from Brooklyn to Queens Queens at that time was like plana was 25 years ago just starting out and homes were very annex so we bought a home in Bayside Queens and I went to high school in Queens francis Lewis High School it was the first year of the high school and I graduated
you know then I went on to Queens College Bob also spent a semester at Queens College I went to Queens College and I graduated with a theater & Communication Arts & Sciences program and I'll stop there and let you ask another question so you wanted you make your way over to the Dallas air to Texas New York in Texas is pretty far away out so how did you jump from New York all the way to Texas oh yeah I actually met her in a bar all of the story in a very beautiful story the way Barbara and I are married over 50 years we know
each other 54 years it took her three years to land me and because I was in college at the time and I needed to graduate college before I even thought of marriage and what was what was the thought oh how did we get to Dallas Texas well we immediately became entrepreneurs I for some crazy reason did not want to work for anybody I think it was because I watched my father work so hard and this was in the you know the 40s and 50s and my parents of beautiful people that are not with us anymore and extremely generous people and you know as it as
a high school or my father says why don't you come work in the printing business in New York on 6th Avenue and 17th Street and I'll teach you the business well I went there as a messenger that's where you started off I would bring samples of printing all the way up to Madison Avenue which is where the advertising of the world was in met on Madison Avenue in New York City but many times I fell asleep on a curb and he would have to say to me why did it take you three hours to deliver this and come back and I was fired very quickly
and and we became entrepreneurs farmer and on and the odd thing about it is that everything that I suggested to her she went along with and I I think the the true definition of an entrepreneur is you get an idea and you do it and you fail but the failure motivates you to do another idea and and you form that idea and hopefully it gets to a point where it becomes a business at the time of about 1985 we had a retail store in a town called cedar Hurst Long Island it's on the South Shore of Long Island we were already married and we had
three sons and they were all ago either public school junior high school and high school in and no Hewlett yes and we had a famous store we called it the chambered nautilus after us famous sea shell and the reason why we did that and please Liz stop me because I am a talker okay and the reason why we named it the chambered nautilus is because we had just the previous year opened up a thatched roof store on the ocean in the Hamptons a town called an Amagansett blowing on and what we did was one of the way we just started businesses is I would just
say I would love to have a business here I would go into the owner and say can I sell seashells on your front lawn for the summertime and this was at the farmer the famous Farmers Market in Amagansett there was only one and everybody from every hand in town Southampton stamped in Bridgehampton monto they all came there because behind the market was their farm and everything was fresh farm produced and they had a family of cooks and bakers and it was an extraordinary extraordinary place and people came who were just average people and people came who were the stars of the world because out there
ralph lauren's had a home here Steven Spielberg over here Clint Eastwood over there was crazy and it was very very exciting for us and we know the owner Pat struck said yes that would be a great idea so I came back to the car and I remember telling her because she said don't do what you'll embarrass yourself she'll only say no and she'll think you're an idiot and we did that we did that for three summers and it was the zenith of life we were young we didn't have care a care in the world our children were healthy we which we were healthy I hired
some high schoolers to run the run dirty shell business and and we sold sea shells and coral and I was a craftsman I made seashell mirrors in there and the whole deal was when someone was going to dinner ie Ralph Lauren he would come and buy a beautiful piece of coral because he was going to Clint Eastwood's house for dinner and then when Clint Eastwood would go and reciprocate to let's say Steven Spielberg he would come in and buy a piece of coral or a beautiful shell so we had a famous shop there right out of the box we were it was great we had
Fame and we became friends with all these people yeah and they all lived on a compound that was owned by mrs. Tyson she was the owner of Ken tile floors back in the 50s and 40s every floor was a plastic they have them today two plastic tiles but they had a brand name called Ken tile so it wasn't called a plastic tile is called a Ken tile and we made a whole ton of people because they bought a product from yeah we were the only shell shop in town and this was in the late 60s to early 70s then the school system was very poor there and so we decided we could not live there and didn't want to live there because everybody at that time left
the Hamptons to go back to New York City or Jersey or wherever and and work but skipping many years we opened up another chambered nautilus on Street called Central Avenue in Cedars which was the mecca of shopping in Long Island and we started off as a seashell store but we ended as a gift store for both children and adults a fund store and in the 70s there was a fad that a child had to have his name on everything shoelaces a baby's bracelet barrettes t-shirts and we had that store yes Barbara what Barbara was the buyer she was such a superb buyer and we went
all over the United States so we heard about a craftsman let's say in Rhinebeck New York we went there too or we went to Santa Fe who he heard someone had gourds was making these incredible gourds and we visited them because we were kind of in the money then the shop was very successful and and so we know actually we did only the we did only Amagansett in the summertime and then we moved back to New York and I was wanted to be an actor and I got married in 21 and Barbara was 23 and we had three children immediately so I was a child
who had three children and we literally and you've heard this before we literally rose him by the seat of their pants or the seat of our pants or the seat of someone's penance and we did an okay job and that remains to be seen I'm critical of myself now in my later years but all three children were very successful and I'm sorry Liz please shut me up no I don't want to it and and so I had already told you at Barbara you chime him please I had already told you that when we was in college I took theater and then when I graduated college
I entered a place called the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York the teacher was Sanford Meisner he was a member of the group theatre in the 40s which later became the Actors Studio only the Actors Studio was the place for all great actors went to experiment on their art so I started off at sandy meissner's class and he asked me to teach so I started teaching at sandy Meisner class and then I had no idea how to enter the industry as my parents were workers and my brother was in the garment center and my sister was already married to a girdle manufacturer in Brooklyn a very
successful girdle manufacturer they used to call them foundations not girdles and so she was set in life I also have to say that she was a beautiful beautiful woman with a heart of gold and most generous who also passed away very early in life she was the greatest person and so losing her was how our first hole in our heart what was her name her name was Sandra Bernstein sandy sass sass was her nickname Burger King did you two belong in a congregation or synagogue what in New York well yes the name of the synagogue was Bayside synagogue and my father helped build that because
in New York in 1950 there were not many Jewish people Queens at that time was in fact a melting pot our neighbors were Greek Italian a Yugoslavian Jewish and it was a beautiful atmosphere because all your friends were of different religions there was no such thing well there was an enclave in New York but it was in the Lower East Side and then in Manhattan the very very rich Jewish people lived they always lived there as a matter of fact the very rich of the Jewish people started off in Harlem because it was kind of contra fide and George and Ira Gershwin who lived in
Harlem and wrote porgy and bess somewhere in Harlem you know in a beautiful beautiful home but when you moved to Queens or he moved to Staten Island I'm sorry Brooklyn was an enclave Brooklyn was a Jewish Enclave in the 40s and the 50s was not it was a brand-new borough I started acting at the at the Neighborhood Playhouse I went out to try to get commercials and I landed my first national commercial and that was Eric the red cigars they was people with smoking cigarettes and I was a Viking on a Viking ship going down the Hudson with a blonde lady at my back and
I was no words simply smoking my cigarette anyway the commercial and it was we were we did that to fight Marlboro there was the mall barrel maker and everybody smoked Marlboro and my compact campaign was quite successful it was renewed three times and that's really I became lazy we would open up the mailbox and there'd be residual checks in there and and so I faltered at a commercial in the commercial industry although I did several I did great tank I did a lot of new products and then I decided I have to get into this oh then I went to acting school everybody goes to
acting school I studied with Oona Hagen a study would again Sanford Meisner and then I studied with a couple of oh and I have to stop and say my wife worked to support me and what job did you get oh I got a great job what was it I got a job for my first job yes to go to go to send [Music] it's a movie studio what was the name of the studio she worked for Columbia Pictures yeah yeah you're the vice president Eli Horowitz yes at 555 Fifth Avenue yes and again he was very very popular this this president that was he was
the president of the vice president of New York of the New York Chapter you know LA anyway he said you know this is what this is the way it's going we have people with all the actors and actresses come up through up through us and so I said okay don't worry about me I'll be fine and what was your job like as we came in Liz and everybody asked us if we wanted coffee or soda or water what was your job you met Natalie Wood I loved but anyway I got into getting just a little bit more into some friends you know when you start
like that you get friends when they come up you know because we were on like the second floor they had to come up so anytime they came up I was just I had told the the girl that was waiting downstairs she had her that was her job she Toni someone so Tony Curtis and you greeted everybody everyone and why were they up there because it means well that's true that's absolutely true but what would what was the second reason why they were up there for a specific reason something well you they were going to see a screening of their film and privacy and they all
came up there to see the screening event of the film and this most beautiful luxurious screening room and it was her job to sit there just in case they needed something and I was invited to every screening by Eli Horowitz I used to come to pick Barbara up and we became fat not friends but I was so in awe of him and he knew that I was wanted to be an actor so he did everything in his power to make me comfortable and to help me and he did he did he opened up doors for me which I immediately closed for whatever crazy reason I
closed them you know but I started getting very friendly with a lot of it you know not just the actors but just friends ex would coming up and because they weren't didn't meet them do ya did you work from young lawyers I did one of which opened a company called HB oh yes and every lawyer up there became someone extremely famous in the industry and which is a wonderful wonderful experience let me go back a little bit because I wanted to be an actor but I was very unsuccessful and across the street from 5th Avenue there was a bookstore called Rizzoli Rizzoli was the most
famous book store in the world for printing an entire soft covered book of Rembrandt with 20 or 30 magnificent 18 by 12 pictures of Rembrandt and Van Gogh and Picasso and Miro and every great artist that you could think of so while I was waiting for Barbara you still walk around Rizzoli and I said I'm gonna make something with these books and I went home and I experimented at that time and distressing and decoupage was in everybody did decoupage which was the covering of a picture with an old finish or a shellac so it looked old and looked more authentic you could also a fixative
that would make it look someone like a canvas it made it look a little bumpy so I took these pictures and I mounted them on a board a little bit bigger than the picture so it had like a frame and then I distressed the board by banging it with an axe and a hammer and a chain I stained the board and then I glued the picture centered it on the board and then I put upholstery tacks around the picture so we knew of a place in Greenwich Village on 6th Avenue and 8th Street I don't know if you know anything about that but that was
the center of the hippy world in the 60s and we used to drive down there and there was one fence that you could hang your whereas on and the policemen wouldn't bother you but if you yeah the action started at sundown because everybody was home from work and they took a walk or in a Greenwich Village and so you had to get there around 3:00 in the afternoon to get a spot on the fence we got a spot on the fence and I hung up these van Gogh's and all these things and the first night we sold every single picture we sold them for like
$12 a picture so there were 20 and we made 240 dollars at night which was a ton of money at that time and we went back and that's the way I contributed to her salary as a I don't want to call her secretary she was the vice president assistant assistants and so then I said boy people are buying them in new you in Manhattan why are we getting the car I'll load up the car 100 pictures and drive to the seashore and I'll look for a restaurant or a gift shop and that's what we did for many years and we sold out every single time
so that was truly our first successful venture and somebody saw your work oh well that's a different story I'm sorry my god you could be picked the wrong people because because when we had when we had our well first of all when we weren't working our parents bought a home in Florida they would call snowbirds at that time and the winter they would go down to Florida and in the hot summer they would come back to New York so our generous parents had called him our because they were truly truly Barbara and Barbara's parents also they were not her father alone from the mother they
were a father and mother and that was one of the that was definitely some of the glue that kept us together because it was like she would be divorcing her father and her mother to get rid of me which he wanted to do many times and but we always settle every problem we had we settled every problem and I was not an easy man I was volatile I was an are I was artists crazy I literally only had one side of my brain it wasn't it as if the other were weak I only had a craftsman artists brain and I had the temperament to go
with that and while we were selling see oh so my parents bought this home in Florida I went down to Florida I said what are we going to do to make money and I got a job at a company I don't know I don't remember how called tropical biological and she was a seashore seashell importer and I got the job of opening up the containers these huge containers that are on a ship the size of this room my job was to put on heavy rubber aprons heavy rubber gloves a big mask cover my whole body because when I opened up the container it was full
of seashells but the animals was still in there and the smell the smell I cannot even a picked them up I had to clean him I had to acid I said I had to claw I had to dip them in claw of coral I learned how where the brain was in each shell that were you you hit the brain the the animal actually dropped out so I had that job and I was outside doing it and at that time the Sun cancer was not even in the vernacular and I was I was as brown as I was just brown and everybody was brown everybody was
sunbathing at a time and so this woman came to me mrs. M and she said she's divorcing her husband she took us out to dinner one night Barbara didn't eat she got said why because you were pregnant with Josh and she ordered shrimp and she ate one shrimp and she got sick oh I'll never forget opposite in this fine restaurant no just me you and mrs. M okay then forgive me again I'll apologize a thousand time for digressing because I gotta tell you that our life I really believe that our life is a unique life it is true I don't know why I don't know why oh I actually haven't even begun yet and and so we went to my ok well and forgive my arms because I work with driftwood huge pieces of driftwood lending company correct with whom with your printing company well I have a printing company that's besides that but I've gotten into driftwood and sometimes in order to get it I banged my hand and I take LASIK so
I can just do this and get a mark so that's not that's not an infectious disease anyway we went to my parents house oh we came home from New York and we were in New York and when you're passing a store and I forget the name of the store and he had the most beautiful loved antiques we loved old-world things and you would have nothing new in our home and we started collecting little atoms not Tiffany we couldn't do it for Tiffany but we could afford handles and pear points and Bradley and hübner and these were magnificent leaded lamps or ballon lamps so we passed
a store one day and I see a mirror the magnificent shell Mira and I said I can do that I can do that if I only had the shells so when we move down to Florida I said I'm going to find these shells and we found them and I went to a coffin to store and I said I'd like like you to make me a carpenter's shop I'd like you to make me an oval frame with like a six or 8 inch face and make it out of one piece with a bevel in the back so I can fit a mirror up and I made
a frame and I sold it we sold it to one of the large department stores furniture stores called Blum's and then freed was in Florida so I made a second in a third frame and we sold those we sold every frame we made and Barbour was of my partner and assistant and she would choose shells that she thought would go together because later on in her life as we found out she was an expert designer that dealt with CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and hooked them into allowing our small company to provide art for their 500,000 square foot facility when they moved to Dallas Texas
and so the story that she's talking about is I had mirrors in the back of my tub in in Amagansett a block from the beach and a guy comes in one day and I had a really beautiful oval mirror of flamingos - teeth which are a beautiful orange and I had yellow tree snails and I had white coral and I had Texican deeps which are this beautiful brown color and i was excellent at coloring so he came in and he said that frame can you get it to New York by Monday mornings I am from New York magazine and we are writing an article a
summer article about the world's best shell craftsmen and I'm not guaranteeing you that your mirror is going to be in there because we have mirrors coming in being shipped in from all over the world the most famous of which was a man called William Redmond from England and he made rooms out of shells the M was of shells the chairs were shells everything was shells and I'll make this long so well I'll skip the way I got in she was pregnant so I could not take the car and so I packed this shell up this frame up and when I packed it up it looked
like an enormous turtle shell and I strapped it to my back and I walked from our house which was in a place called the Springs to Montauk Highway and I put my thumb out and a trucker stopped where are you going I said Manhattan which was on it and 50 miles away I said qisas hop in I said where can you take me you know and it had I he said I'm going through the tunnel I'll tell drop you off you know at the tunnel I said fantastic there'll be a couple of miles away I brought the thing up and of course I made it
in the magazine and I made it as one of the world's finest shell crabs in New York Magazine in 1970 I have not been able to get a copy I wish I had a copy where well you moved to Florida when did you move from New York to Florida well Florida was only a couple of months out of the year because it was just you know just several times yes and we didn't have children yet but we knew we couldn't spend our life there because it wasn't our home and it was a very lazy way of living and another way I earned money for us
was they used to have coconut heads with I don't know if you've ever seen them with faces on them carved faces and they would have a certain shell as their eyes and earrings as shells and the malthus shells well that was called a chestnut Planum so I went to the guy and I said where do you get your chestnut clan he says I am I are Pickers you just wake up at five o'clock in the morning when the tide is in and this literally millions of seat of the chestnut clamps I said where do you pay a gallon he says I pay $13 a gallon
I started getting up at 5:00 in the morning and filling bags and bags and shells and that's another way we made a living while we were making the frames because the frames took literally weeks to finish deliver get paid then we left Florida for Flushing New York yes and I wanted to become oh I was then she started working at Columbia Pictures and I started trying to act I made a couple of commercials I wasn't really that successful I wasn't emotionally built to be an actor I hated someone to say no to me I hated someone to say thank you which was it's the same
as no and and I used to get very nervous on stage and nervous at the audition and and so I stopped that for a while and then I I said oh and then I started acting school again and I did a scene it in school Rick Rick Perry Rick Chevy Rick's heavies acting school everybody started in acting school who knew anything about acting so I went to Rick's SEVIS one night in Manhattan we were living in Flushing and I said do a scene and I did a scene and he said well you could have done this and this and this and this and the scene
I said you know to me a scene is whatever the life of it is you don't add anything to it because to me acting is just living onstage you know all of a sudden a curtain curtain opens up because the curtain opens up or the cameras rolling it doesn't mean you you you know you speak like that you just continue living it anyway I never went back to that class but a fellow followed me and out whistle Tunisia finally I turned around it's a guy goes and he was a big man his name was Bill Reilly and he was the narrative William child's Reilly making
rest in peace and he was the narrative film teacher at NYU film school the most famous film school in the world at that time and and we became very fast friends and we became partners we went out and shot guerilla films all over New York City one of the reasons why we did that is our cameraman was in New York City policeman so no one ever stopped us he knew had a tie-in to electricity to every light pole in New York City so we had electricity everywhere in the city and never needed a permit and we shot all over New York's and and then Bill's
thesis was to shoot a film and film the name of the film was the watchman I was a star of it I got my brother to act in it we got all kinds of people street people to act in it it was in the South Bronx which was as dangerous as Aleppo is right now he could lose your life because you're on someone else's turf but we had catered we had we had a crew so you cater for the crew so anytime we saw people coming towards us bill who was a master being a human being said hey you guys come on he have something
to eat so it became every night we we would have all the natives came to eat and they became our protective friends no one else would hurt us anyway bill and I fell in love we loved each other dearly and he had trouble in life in marriage and he came to live with us and he was always very ill and Oh before bill died I said bill I'm gonna audition for the Actors Studio I'm going to write my own scene which is not allowed but I'm gonna give you the credit I'm gonna say they asked me who was his scene written by I said it's
written by William Charles Reilly at New York Film School everybody knew and and I chose my brother to act in it because it was a one of those sibling rivalry scenes which literally goes into boxing match we usually go to this place to box and he's late and he's a garment center person and he's a buyer and he and I'm late and I won't tell you more than that but he brings in this schmatta we called them in do you know buddy schmata is a schemata is a piece of clothing and the schmata is literally the definition is a rag yeah so that's why when
the Jewish people when they were in the garment center they were in the rag business the schmatta business so I'm waiting their half-hour for him and I have my hands taped and of course that's the the audience is over there the audience is Lee Strasburg on a Strasburg pen Shelley Winters I'm sure these are people that you don't know Al Pacino and those were the those were the you don't see anything because you're on a stage and it's dark so anyway the scene isn't like my brother and I grapple and that was easy because if we gravelled off home life but we choreograph the scene
to such to such a dimension that it looked real and you get a five-minute chance you could be stopped at for five seconds you're not allowed to do is soliloquy and you're not allowed to do Shakespeare you have to do an original scene and they said thank you in the interim while we were waiting then we move down to Florida and I started making seashells and that night mrs. M offered me her business and the next day in the mail comes a letter saying you've passed your first audition to the active studio you have one more to go and it's on this date and we had to go home and I had to rehearse with my brother again and we rehearsed and the next letter we got were was you are now members of the Actors Studio you are the first brothers to ever make the active studio and then we were officially on the map but we closed that door too I won't get into that story but I am a lifelong member of the Actors
Studio I I know I have to stop abbreviating this story let me just go now by oh how did we get to Texas we were famous in New York and I was doing the newspaper and Barbara was doing the newspaper and I said to Barbara I want to create a newspaper card a car that you can personalize and not just give a Hallmark card so I created a personalized card and I created a point-of-purchase display and we rented a booth at the Jacob Javits Convention Center it was their initial show and that's a million square feet of gift people trying to sell their products and
we had booth let's say number 100 and then there were both 950 2000 and how do you get around and we were selling a newspaper card but I was also printing newspapers personalizing newspapers you know personalizing store the chambered nautilus in Cedarhurst so at that time our youngest son Jesse who is now a famous actor in LA he's been there 20 years and he's successful and he was always an active from birth as a child if we were taking a picture he would immediately get in the front and go like this and he won at 2 & 5 at 7 at 12 he would be
in the front going Here I am and and so he was about ten at that point it was twelve you're right dear thank you I think I got right thank you and we dressed him up as an old-fashioned new boy news boy with a news bag and we printed up 500 newspapers which was easy for us to do sing extra extra read all of a vet ballad visit booth 100 and I directed him and I said show me how he gonna do what he said extra extra read all that I said no no you gotta go extra extra read all about it 100 see the
newspapers and he did it perfect he loved it because he was independent he went all around the million square feet meeting everybody everybody stopped him he brought back gifts from that samples from everybody they said yes oh great take a sample so his bag was full of samples and with him was a lady from the Ted Dallas Texas who was opening up never met her who was opening up a festival marketplace called the West End marketplace which was in 1987 you may not know about it because it's now closed and she said we need you at in Dallas for this useless newspaper use and we
refused three times but we befriended them their name is Joanne and Steve Levy they're wonderful people Steve is a famous dentist in town and Joanne is a famous entrepreneur in town she has opened up restaurants and businesses and they became our fast friends to make that long story short I mean I moved Oh I said no no no no no and then they said well how about two stores on the first floor I said no how about three stores on the first floor I said now you're talking I said but I don't really have the money to fly there and build we'll build them for
you we won't charge you X amount of rent for six months I said okay Barbara let's give this a shot so I can meet it on the weekday I came home on the weekends it became so successful that I moved everybody to Texas and however when you're an entrepreneur success is short-lived and it lasted only a year and a half because management was poor and there was some fights down there and the police couldn't stop it it closed we were in Texas without a job without an income what to do for the next idea oh oh I know I remember I'm sorry was it cause
no I just met her wait a minute bar that's okay yeah right and so we became friends and he said to me you know okay what do you do do you look or anything like that was sitting I said no I am NOT walking gee I need somebody like you well can you come and work for me I said yeah this was a person that I came to work for before I went back anyway I worked for him and it turns out that he got together the two of those of us may be losing my throat and he said you know I need somebody that
can talk and show and talk and show not just drink beer or something like that as it turned out he he was very he didn't he he's the one that opened the door for me actually I can't remember his open the door and everything would be able do that okay I do don't remember what door that was well it was not being facetious yeah yeah okay it was I don't know what you call it but he had friends that needed some helpful so and we were going to try to do a call it's called something very well here's the sequence that I would never good
sequence in I remember we had three stores we had headlines around the world which was the printing novelty newspaper we opened up a business called high-techs watch company and that's a whole interview in itself and then we opened up a business called poster America there was not one place in Texas where you could buy posters Marlon Brando Marilyn Monroe Easy Rider rock groups etc anything that you could and so when the mall closed when the West End marketplace closed this turned out to be a good business so we opened up several mall stores called postive America we chose all the wrong moles we chose prestonwood
mall which is now no longer there we chose Valley View Mall which is no longer there we chose town East Mall which is for East Texans which is not for us they didn't know who where oh and then we were invited in to you probably never have heard of a mall called North Park and it was too expensive for us and we we didn't think that our posters could pay the rent and but we also at that time and we had a three year run three four year run and then things started going downhill things always go downhill I am a terrible businessman she's a
very good businessman I have ideas but I think that my ideas are living children how can you abandon a living child let's invest money in it it's going to be great someday I believe in this child let's invest more money in it and by the time we were through we were bankrupt I mean really bankrupt and so with all this stuff that sounded so exciting in the beginning he wanted to hire me and he said he let's let's do some things together and network network that's correct he put me into a network you know and I was very familiar with networking and it became just
incredible did everything you know like like I was in charge of whatever I was in charge with you in charge of art all right that's right but let me tell and you're absolutely right the reason was she was invited in is because we had these stores and we were we were you know when you're seen every day and people a famous person would come in and buy a a watch or or thingy become friendly with them because we we're both very talkative and she's so nice you want to be her friend and and and we were the first store first store to carry fossil watches
I mean every story has a side story we had a kiosk in the in the mall as you walk in we had the best locations at the West End marketplace a guy walks in one day says I am importing the most beautiful watches from China and I have them in shoeboxes in my garage in Plano and he says won't you please look at the what you're selling is selling swatches selling gets the selling tag Oya we sold really good watches he says won't you give my watch as a chance because we were getting a thousand visitors a day we go up to his place in
Plano and in his garage our I'd say a thousand shoe boxes but not the shoe boxes just gray boxes with a with a number of you know just from Florida ceiling I said where did you get all these boxes he says I go to China and I investment I said what's the name of your company he said fossil I said man you're gonna go out of business and you look at all the stock you have I mean come on I said of course yeah I said come on put him in our shop put as many as you want in our shop he put him in
the shop they walked out everyday and that's the story of fossil watch what was his name I don't remember his head no I don't I don't remember his name but on what I'm saying is then I got into a certain business because I had to tip it this man that wanted me to help him with with whatever he had I was able to go into certain places and tell them Who I am and you know this is what we do and you know I sell this I sell that I sell this I sell that and bingo she she was great I only said I don't
say that what's the word you know when you say someone's great what is the word it's like I'm not being I'm patronizing yeah thank you yeah I am NOT patronizing my wife you know why she has a left and she sometimes hits me with a left and I don't know it and I'm on the floor so I never patronize her here did you both me III and I've learned so much and I love this but I'm just even it took three years for you guys to get married or I finally get together when did you oh by the way I must interrupt first of all
the medication for Alzheimer's there's only one really the others just the disease yeah but the one essential is laughter music and music and love and so I am the silliest person I could possibly be all day long because that's another Apple that's another little piece of lettuce that's another you know in her system so so I had it go on in NC I asked this guy you know what do we need we need somebody hook that can do telephones talking about creating an office creating a business they need telephones they need carpeting they need furniture they need lighting and you when you're sitting there and
you're talking you have to find somebody that you can bring in to do that and so whenever I was in this with this guy we went together and whenever I said my guy brought in and then I brought in this person and I was able to bring in that person and we had a we had like a monthly you know or weekly you know meeting and every time that I because I was the art person I was the art person know the art they had the teeth they had to tell not the television they had the phones they had the the what he called so
many things I need so many things Bobby I'm gonna change the sequence in when this happened and I'm gonna tell everybody and I want to tell you two stories and then you could end this session if you'd like to know you asked about when we met yeah I and my friend Matt he had a brand new Impala red it was called sherry red at that time Impala convertible the ultimate car so he got me a blind date and he had his girlfriend and he said let's take a ride out to West Hampton from Queens which was a hundred miles and he loved to drive his
car so me and this girl very nice girl but we didn't get along and I don't remember why and he and his girl so the time we get out to the Hamptons it's late it's like 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock in the morning and we go to a bar called the point house which was where everybody hung out from New York and mostly Jewish people because you knew you could meet Jewish people there and that's the way it wasn't it in the 70s and that's just the way it was and and so we go to this bar and he's sitting at the table with his
girlfriend and we're all having a drink and I said I'm just going to go play some music in the jukebox and it was three plays for a quarter and I go up to the jukebox and I put my trying to put my quarter in and it slips and falls on the floor I bent down to pick up the quarter and someone steps on it I look up and I see her and I said quote what do I have to do to get my quarter back and what did you say music that's correct your song and what was the name of the song by you tell
me by Joe Cuba because there was a real Latin influence in New York you know because it was such a melting pot we were always doing Latin dancing we wrote either disco disco at the Ginza roll at Studio 54 or we went into Harlem and took a chance and did Latin dancing I said I'll do that I'm gonna play yourself I put them I put the quarter in and I play to be with you by Joe Cuba which I had never heard of and it was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard and I actually fell in love at that moment I knew I was
going to marry her and coincidentally she knew she was gonna marry me she went over to her girlfriends and said give that guy I can't go over again and one of her girlfriends I think it was Ricky whoever it was said she's embarrassed and I took the number and I said thank you very much and I didn't look at her because I didn't want to be that obnoxious to the other girl and I went home and the next morning I called her I said would you like to go to the beach I'll teach you how to body sir that was a little sexual I mean
it was actually a lot sexual because in order to teach somebody her body surf you know you had to hold on to their body so she didn't say no to anything so I meet her I go to her house and flushing and how was I dressed he would dress okay like he was going out for sorry yeah you rolling today is jus twenty two thousand eighteen and we are continuing and in the interview with Melvin and Barb Bernstein and we left off I believe talking about your first date when you open the door you opened the door and you he was what he was wearing
something that was quite out of the ordinary but he was dressed up like he was going to it I guess a party support he was all dressed up you know and he but he was going to the beach to the beach oh I couldn't understand why he oh hey he had the beautiful shirt on he and pants on and it was innocent this was in the morning and he had beautiful shoes and everything like that I said where are we going so he told me that hey we're going to the beach the beach and which Beach was it Jones Beach Oh Jones Beach okay so
we were going to Jones Beach and I said well okay you know I didn't Jones Beach is a great Beach so anyway what else I mean that's basically it if you want to be more specific how how long did we date before we before you pop the question before you asked it America oh that's a different story Barbara you go with that I don't know he did Bob I dated her for three years I was still in college and I said I can there's no way I can get married before I graduate college and get a job she was already a working woman and that
was fine for a while but we had many many breaking up meals special meals State meals they were to date meals or state we had steak at this one place and garlic rolls and I don't remember the name of the place but I said listen I've got to talk to you let's go to Charlie's and you know because she said oh that's great let's have a steak and we always wound up crying we never ate the steak I said if you need to go away you need to go away but I you know I love you but I cannot get married I'm still in college
and she would be sobbing and wouldn't eat the steak and I never ate my steak and we did this many times so Einstein says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results negative results anyway do you remember what you did to cement that I would ask you to marry me no dear this was three years later okay um I said well it's time you know it's um we've been together quite a while and I think we're ready to call it a day and you said well I can't because I have too much too much out
to do in school still you you had something going on something finals Oh finals that's what it was any Kree had to be there and do that and all that so I said okay and said so I said okay when you're done just give me a call and let's see if we can get together so what that was probably another day or two do you want me to tell the real story here's the real story Liz barber gave me an ultimatum she said let's get married or I'm moving to California with Roberta her best friend I did and Roberta had just broken up with her
boyfriend and they made a vow we're going to California we are not calling them let's wait to see if they call us and sure enough they moved to Sunset Strip and they were both gone and I missed her terribly so I called her one night I had a few beers that is an understatement and she was glad to hear me and uh Oh Oh actually Liz let me let me let me retract that Roberta her best friend says I'm going out to get pizza pie do not under any circumstances call Mel because it was her first chance to be alone and make a telephone call
sure enough she called me it was a Saturday night I was home and my home in Bayside Queens I was still living at home and she said hi I said hi how are you I miss you he says I miss you too she says let's make this a quick call because if Roberta comes back and she'll never speak to me again and I said I love you I want to marry you she says to me you sound drunk call me tomorrow morning and say the same thing to me needless to say when Roberta came back she had egg on her face and Roberta said you
called him I couldn't hide it and she said yes and Roberta was so insulted they didn't speak for years and years and years I love the girl she was she she was sick she got sick she had she got ms/ms and she really was very sick because her husband she had a husband at that time Harvey Harvey I took her anyway everywhere everywhere in the United States to find out how she can get better and she couldn't they couldn't go in any anything for her and so I so I I was so upset because I was so sorry that you she was so sick speak
a little out of here I know just because there's other stuff going around is a little bit up you're doing great now I I loved her I really did and so we had such you know we were we were where where was her parents they lived in Florida probably Fort Lauderdale they were wealthy they owned barbecue the barbecue pit which was a very famous place in Florida and every time she she when she came we were together we were together we couldn't leave each other and then when she got really sick I stayed I went with her when her her husband took her to New
Hampshire and went voting well not when she was really sick but when she was still doing okay they had a barbecue pit in Lake Winnipesaukee New Hampshire and wherever Harvey and Roberta were they had two girls and our boys loved those girls because they were like a year or two older and there were beautiful sweet girls and Harvey was affluent he had a plane he had a big boat Lake Winnipesaukee is a huge Lake and and we would just go up and every night the families would stay together I did I did and she said yes I said come home and she came home I
don't know whether it was a day later or two days later but that was it I said I think I said are you sure are you sure you're whatever I asked you I don't know and you said yes I'm sure you know and so I I don't know what what I said after that you said I'll be home oh but I couldn't have this I couldn't when did we get married in we got married in December December December what's December 10th right what year 1967 that is correct where did you all get married we married my father and mother were very very special people let's
establish a tall father and mothers fathers and mothers mean their best and they do the best they can and however my father and mother were very very special people barber did not have a family to speak of her mother was a working woman her father left the family very very early just disappeared and barber became a working girl very early in life and Barbara literally brought her brother up Geoffrey who was several years younger than her and so barber was a barber was a caregiver at a very early age you know we will not get into personalities but Barbara's mother Ruth meant well but she
needed companionship and she became a boyfriend of this man who was a very powerful man in the garment center industry and he would what's the word he would furs jewels the best restaurants New York the Copacabana going away and so Barbara was that Barbara was the woman of the house and so when Barbara and I got married my parents became her parents they accepted her as a daughter and that was that was one of the why we stuck to have stuck together so long we've had we had the same parents and we got married at the Bayside Jewish Center in Bayside Queens my father was
a working man and he worked for this huge company printing company I guess it wasn't huge it was huge then but not in the standards of today though probably a hundred and fifty people that worked in this offset printing planet and so my father invited every person that worked at the printing plant they had a huge family everybody was alive all the children were together everybody was together he invited all of those my parents had friends a whole clique of friends and Bayside Queens he invited all of those and on and on and on I think there were 300 people at the at the base
I Jewish Center it was this and you know I didn't even know then you know looking back on it I'm embarrassed that my father spent so much money on our wedding and but that was just the kind of guy he is was still is probably up there you know he's probably made a thousand friends I don't know how that works and my mother if there's food to buy or make my mother's making it she made I made the dinner for the win it no no this was a super catered affair but my mother used to search out in Queens or Brooklyn the best fried chicken
kosher fried chicken the best latkes the best of everything and because the best cakes images Avengers cakes were famous so she would buy five six cakes why because when her sisters who lived everybody moved near her and they had several children everybody got wind that has to just went shopping for the weekend so all our cousins would come over by the time they left there was nothing with chicken bones and empty images boxes and she loved that that was you know that was the joy of her life you know I was so young Liz that I was looking at my girlfriend in this dress and
I did I didn't view her you know I knew the word wife I knew we were getting married I wasn't completely living under a rock I knew there was a rabbi there that we would be saying but I saw my girlfriend the girlfriend that I had been going out with for three years and we had been doing great fun things that really made us bond I would take her to crazy strange places in the United States of doing things that people don't normally do climbing mountains riding rivers Barbara and I have written most of the major rivers in the United States your rapid rivers with
levels and when I when I came back with the pizza no she came back with the pizza oh we're going back now Roberta came back with the pizza right now I don't know about that tell me did you eat the pizza well or did you both just cry or was the pizza ruined tell me what you remember I remember that Roberta started crying and I started crying because we you know she knew that I loved you and she and she knew that I loved her and it was so hard when she came back so hard but anyway we like we lasted we rented an apartment
feel like a day or two because we knew we weren't gonna stay and so when she came back we had to make a decision she said if you can't do this something like that if you if you don't do what you said I'm gonna go home she said I'm gonna go home as it turned out she did go home and I did not go home and I did not go home right away because I was there and I was having a good time I felt good because everything was just going right right for me and did this wimp we went through this but but yeah
and then that was that and so I kept the half of the apartment you know for two or three more days and I came home and and I called you with you you called me wrong we spoke I picked you up at the airport okay you pick me up at the airport and I mean I can't remember that but and so then I said to you I don't know where were we what about the the Oh what he called the sit the song the song I think I told Liz about the song this very special song that she asked me to play she asked me
to play without your song of the wedding I know this no one who would have known that they would have said what day because this was a very very hip Latin song you know and slow our song was to be with you know dear our wedding song was a Billy Joel whole don't go changing da da da da and that was our song for the wedding just the way you are yes yeah so when did you guys have your first child they came pretty quickly you were so in New York correct yes yeah in Brooklyn I think I know did I know we were in
Queens when we had our first child Joshua and I guess what we married about two years and I don't know where we want to go with this you know but there's there's a lot of bumps in our road how many tradition you just have Joshua when you guys move to Dallas or one oh no we had three grown men so when did you move to down what year you move to Dallas remember Bob 1967 no it was 1987 we got married in 67 why did you guys decide to move to Dallas Barbara because because we were offered in a friend of mine made me an
offer to open up what what's it called a store a store it wasn't a store but let's say a storm that's loot use that and because she's she wanted me to run it oh my god you know I didn't know so well here's how it happened we had a very famous store that we were running on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst Long Island Nassau County and it was called the chambered nautilus the chambered nautilus is a seashell and it's a very famous seashell a lot of architecture math thinking Archimedes Michelangelo so many things have emanated from the inside when you split a chambered nautilus in half
its profession if they say there's no perfection in life the chambered nautilus is the closest thing the inside it swirls and that's the closest thing to profession that man has ever seen architecture is built on that premise math is built on that premise balance you know building rooms and stuff is built on that premise it's it's an extraordinary sea shell and we had a seashell store out that's how big for us but I know she's a filmmaker anyway we opened up the store you know our we're really you can think of us as gypsies please going here going there wherever the weather was good wherever
this the opportunity was here we went there I would go in and I would say to the person here's what I do and they would say you're crazy get out or that is a fabulous idea I want you in my store to do what you're doing and so we opened up our first seashell shop in Amagansett Long Island and it was called the chambered nautilus and then when we left there we opened up a bona fide store in Cedarhurst Long Island call the chambered nautilus and oh and so we started printing headlines in the chambered nautilus in 1979 that's over 40 years ago I've bought
a press like what the letters someone I went to Times Square where the old-timers were doing it and I kicked some guy's brain I said do you mind if I watch you print and he's down absolutely not you know it was really old and so I learned the trade then I brought it to the store and then I had an idea that I wanted to make huge greeting cards that I could personalize to have I told you this Oh huge greeting cards that I would personalize that we would personalize we're partners we did everything together however I had no knowledge of the greeting card industry
and a large card was an automatic failure because everything in the greeting card industry is based upon how many cards this size you can sell in that bin and that's the way the greeting card industry is calculated to have a big card takes up three or four spaces not economical and no one would buy it but anyway we invested in point-of-purchase displays and we rented a booth at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York with our newspaper cards we dressed our baby up Jesse he was 12 at that time he dressed him up as a newsboy in knickers our newsboys had with a news
thing and I printed a hundred two hundred newspapers at red extra extra read all about it booth one hundred headlines around the world and I I said to him I said listen let me see let me hear how you're gonna do it and right off the bat he's an act he's an actor today successful actor he went extracts to read all about it got the book I said perfect just go wherever you want and do that and he brings back this lady from Dallas Texas I don't think I should mention her name no I can mention her name good Joanne levy yeah and she was
the head a rental person she says I need you to bring this to Dallas Texas we're opening up the West End marketplace I said no we said no thank you she said why don't you come for a weekend you know on on me and we went and we had a fine time because they were wonderful couple and they took us everywhere and her husband Steve was a dentist who's our dentist now 30 years later and we refused to call us again she's why don't you come one more time she said absolutely came one more time they took us to different places showed us different areas
of Dallas Texas and I said Joanne I cannot do this I can't you know New York is New York and Dallas's to us stranger and stray Angele Leon Russell Syl so then she finally made us an offer we couldn't refuse she said why don't you open up three stores at the West End more in place I'll put you all on the first floor and you'll have the best spots in the marketplace and I said that's a good idea so and they built it out for us I didn't have to invest the penny and they gave us free rent so we discussed it and I commuted
from Dallas from New York to Dallas Texas for about five months and I said this thing is amazing it's thousands of people every day they've never seen a festival marketplace every day yeah because they've never seen what we put up yeah well the Dow it's our retail uses we did the headlines we did a watch company and we did post to America they had never seen any of that in the historic district of downtown Dallas there are historic is still the historic district but everything is closed and retail down there is zero at a zero points when the market was open the West End marketplace
was open everything was fantastically crazy and and very successful and so that's how we got to Texas through someone recruiting us and Jesse bringing this person to our booth and her inviting us to Texas well we had three businesses the printing business at that time was called headlines around the world but we changed it when dot-com came in because that was too long so we made it personal headlines dot-com what kind of events have you done with like with this Cup with the company what kind of different venues or different like bar mitzvahs we've done we've done from one headline to having a headline on
Mount Everest someone folded it put it in his thing and in one of his ski pockets and he made it to the summit and it was in magazines and so on and so forth to dealing with Fortune 500 companies who do you back weathers no no it wasn't it wasn't it no this is just the climber who found out about us and so we've done fortune 500 companies where we printed thousand newspapers when we do that I don't print them I then subcontract a real newspaper company who sets everything up and then I sell it to the client and we've done that for many companies
many bar mitzvahs many weddings many pot mitzvahs but the the the the bread and butter of our business is the one headline that is ordered by aunt Molly out in out in Florida wishing her 90 year old sister a happy happy birthday and you know either calling us or ordering it online we printed and we mail it to her sister and our motto is we sell smiles when you receive one of our products you either laugh or you smile the smile is a big smile and we're still doing that as we speak in short girls we are now located in my garage allegorize because we
moved about five years ago from a really nice house in White Rock Lake we just couldn't afford it to a townhouse which has a really big garage at the bottom level so I do all my work now out of that garage if there's one thing this marriage your marriage is over 15 years what is one piece of advice you could give to people about making a successful like having a successful marriage like through the ups and downs through you know all bumps in the road what's one thing you could always tell somebody like just for their futures I like how to make how to make
a marriage successful and just to keep going through it and how to keep how to keep it on the right track well I don't know exactly but I'll just throw a couple things out okay well when that happened we had we went out we were in we were in when when did we win when did the the what do you call it so on I wanted you to play oh to be with you yeah yes what about it what time was that oh that was in 1964 in the summer time but the question is what do you attribute to the fact that we've stayed together
through thick and thin what do you tribute to that could be one word it could be ten more I don't know we were just very which is easy with each other which is easy you know actually that's not true I was much harder on her she was the easiest woman to live with I was so lucky a god sent her down to me I was a difficult man and she was an easy person but you were also a wot person what yeah what goes through your soul what goes through your heart all the time love that's correct she's a loving person and help and you
know the Beatles song may be very correct all you need is love yeah but there's so many bumps in the road sometimes love is gets covered it just gets covered it swept away because of the difficulties so I would say you know it's a complex question you can't live without love but for me forgiveness is the biggest word and I have to forgive and forget and so at my age I am still living I'm still learning and growing I'm getting better at it each day to to to forgive and forget when you you know you both have been through are extremely successful and all the
businesses you guys have gone through from starting with your father's business to opening up your own shop opening for your business and shops in New York what's one piece of advice you would give to future entrepreneurs in regard to competition and remarks to rejection when it comes to you know if a pitch getting rejected to think like what one piece of advice you would give to a future entrepreneurs and future generations when it comes to this when it comes to the struggle of businesses and being a business man oh okay well everybody has an idea you know that and everybody probably has many many ideas
through the course of a day a week a month a year and what you really need to do is if you if you have a partner you got to run it past your partner and then the both of you will either say yay or nay or if the partner says nay you need to discuss that why don't you think this is a good idea I have been quite frankly overruling Barbara on the idea scale forever and what I mean by that is excuse him I'm going to sneeze you can cut this out or I'll leave it in and what I mean by that is I
say to her I've got an idea and it could be passing I know a true entrepreneur entrepreneur is kind of like a though one of those things that what are those things in the springtime that you blow on them no not a bubble it's a plant and the white things it's a wildflower but it's got white things make it caught in the wind okay maybe it is a wildflower yeah yes and they go floating in the wind and they'll pass a hundred trees and a hundred this and they'll land somewhere so once you preneur have that kind of that kind of whimsical wispy thoughts in
their head they have millions of ideas they need to run it past people but in our case we needed to run it past each other first and Baba would say to me for example I would say to her I am going to stop in that store I'm going to meet the owner and I'm going to ask the owner if I could set up tables on her front lawn during the summertime to sell seashells because it was a farmers market and there were hundreds and hundreds of people shopping and it was the only farmers market and Barbara said to me what I think you're making a
mistake you're actually stronger about it you said you're wasting your time she'll never and this example goes for everything this one example you know it's an umbrella and I went in and it was a busy Saturday because everybody goes out to the Hamptons for the weekend and I said where where is the owner Pat struck she came up to me I said Pat my name is Mel Bernstein and I sell seashells could I rent your first your front lawn and put up some tables she said that is a great idea when can you start I went back to the car in four minutes I said
we're in business that goes that umbrella covers all entrepreneurship you have to have the courage to ask a question make a presentation open your mouth if you have to research at first make a make a business plan if it's if it's that complex but if it's a simple thing where two people can make money and a lot of people a lot of young entrepreneurs don't understand that there's a symbiosis involved that if you make money someone next to you is going to be making money if you make a lot of money someone next to you is also going to make a lot of money and
so the network of being an entrepreneur is not a single person it's definitely a team player you get the idea and again everybody has ideas but I guess 1/10 of 1% of young entrepreneurs or are truly an entrepreneur begin to try that idea and we were lucky we were lucky when we she said yes and the look I don't know when Jewish should say they say it's B shares you walked in yeah but be honest on the on the street that we did it on in mind and Montoya and Montel I'm against it I'm against it came I don't they both the same okay all
right it's just a one single one single Street one single Street so if you go up and you're gonna stop it at the store you're gonna come back and you're gonna stop this store it again it was a wonderful thing because they had it they that's the only person that's that was the only one that was back and forth and that's a very important point also look at the logistics of the thing we've learned that we failed a lot less don't don't say that everything we've done has turned to go we failed a lot and we have started over from scratch a lot so if
you're not that kind of person who can pick yourself up dust yourself off and start all over again you you don't be an entrepreneur because that's exactly what you're gonna have to do and so the logistics of it Barbara's absolutely right Montauk Highway went out to the end of Long Island and you'd have to come back the same way but logistically this was the only farmers market in 1960 1969 when we introduced in 1970 I'm sorry 1970 and so the idea comes first the spark comes first and then you begin to think about it and then you can't sleep and it builds within you and
then you share it with someone else and if you have partner you share with your partner and your partner will sometimes say that's just not a good idea I don't agree with you but then if you really if you really sure about it and you can afford to do it and really the affording of it really is how much is it going to cost you to start this and do you have an equal amount in the bank if you don't have those two don't start it work at another job make you saving save save save and if the idea still doesn't go away go for
it well we were very lucky because that one at one road when they went out they bought when they went aim back they bought again they just skip because there was no place else and so that was great and so and that also helped me get Roberta back on I meant remember I told you I met this guy that that's a fascinating story why don't you tell Liz okay so my best friend MS okay this is the friend at left and they hadn't speak spoken I'd say for ten years I haven't spoken to her let's say three or four years longer than that but that's
okay that's a long time too so I was very upset and I was just standing outside one day and this one guy came over a few store that's your thatched Hut yeah okay and I I waited on him and we got into a conversation and I don't know how it started but you remembered each other from school or from the garden center or somewhere you knew you knew each other I knew himself up somewhere right so I had to find out where from and then I I said he said he said to me oh no he said to have you seen Roberta's yeah that's what
he said I said to a burden you know Roberta he said yes yes I said where is she and he said well heshes home she's sick her husband is taking her all over them all over the world to try to get better a cure for MS and that's exactly what he did but she never got but she never got better and done and so that was very very hard for me to get but because but anyway the point is she then called her Berta and they both cried like babies over the phone when they when they spoke to each other and that was the beginning
of a new friendship for us they immediately invited us out to Florida to stay as long as we want that was the way Harvey was and that was the way Roberta was he was so they was so open and generous it was wonderful just wonderful so when I decided after I when he told me I asked him well I guess so I said do you know Roberto he said are you friends with Roberta I didn't know who asked why but anyway he told me that she is sick and I know where she is she's home with her husband and she's sick and I couldn't ask
any more you know and so as it turned out I went out with wouldn't when we went home I called her from home and I had to find out how she was and that's when Jessie Bernstein was in a coma that same time when he was in a coma um because I know I think your sequence is a little I think your sequence is a little off but you might tell Liz about that if she doesn't know about that one of our sons got very ill and he had a car accident and it wasn't him he got hit until we had a we had it
was very was very hard on us but we were told he wasn't going to live yeah he was he was going to UT and his older brother Josh was at UT law and so you know we talked about bumps in the road and know your sequences off this is when she was passing she was in havi cold and said he would pick you up with his plane Roberta is passing and she'd like to see you this wasn't when you met Roberta first and you said to Harvey our son is in a coma in the hospital in Austin Texas I can't come okay yeah but what
I'm saying is we had good times before that happened I'm sure with the children didn't happen when you first called her you know we spent many times with her seeing her disease progress from someone who couldn't walk well to someone who walked with a cane to some of her walk with a walker to someone who finally had to breathe and have one of those chairs that had her whole life you know and so but in terms of our thing Jesse got in a terrible accident and we spent about eight days in the ICU with him he was a uh well he was responsive within his
within his wherever he was you know he had seizures and you know he was they tie you down with with with a sheepskin so that it doesn't tear your hands and that's a thank God Jesse made it in Jesse's a sick success you know I mean that's how crazy life is a doctor says he's not gonna make it and the reason why he said he's not gonna make it is he showed us a picture of his brain and he said you see all these white things in the picture that those are parts of his brain and he's had many many parts of his brain just
separated because it's not one accident it's several accident the head keeps on I mean I'm sorry that I'm we internet yeah I mean our lives have been negative - we're glad we're here today talking to you were joyful yeah and so he said he was very kind about it but he said it the odds are against him because he has so much lost brain loss do you want to tell Liz what happened when you were in the room with him alone yeah it was my turn to just get into was stand and watch him down for a little while he had not gotten up yet
so I just was waiting and waiting and just praying and all of a sudden all of a sudden he stood up he's not know in his bed and I said oh my god my Iowa's had a heart attack because no one said that he was going to make it you know and I you know you gotta listen to the doctors but it was just amazing it's truly amazing he said mom and that's what scared you know you were in there alone but yeah he said mom and that was it he was up and and of course then you have to go through the how he's
going to be what he did what he's lost and so on and so forth then the then the then the the prognosis begins you know he was very lucky that it was oh he was he wasn't lucky he was blessed God wanted him to live no God God wanted him to live did the Jewish community were in doubt like anyway did you look firmly so lost what the rabbi did you talk to anybody to keep women in prayers like we were in Austin and a rabbi came by every day and this neurologist who told us that he wasn't going to live actually it's even stranger
than that one of the hospital guys the neurologist satins showed us the picture and he said you see all these spots those are pieces of Jesse's brain that doesn't look good and then through the grapevine a Jewish neurologist came from a synagogue in Austin and he sat with us and he commiserated with us and a rabbi came and they saved prayers over Jesse and then I called him one night and they had invited us to Sabbath and back then I didn't understand I didn't realize the importance of the Sabbath that it's the Queen and and you don't say no to the Queen and so he
had his hand over the phone and he was talking to his wife about inviting us over he said honey I have the Bernstein's on the phone she says who the Bernsen he said remember the kid I told you it wasn't going to live I heard that on the phone but he really made it out he made it out I mean he he got well he went from Brackenridge to st. Davids to HealthSouth and he relearned how to walk here II learned how to swim he relearned how to talk yeah he couldn't talk he couldn't walk and I have to tell you this he was a film major cinema major at UT and even in his brokenness he said to us at HealthSouth can you get you know the speed learning at all he said can you get me a camera I want to film some of my friends here and make a documentary about what happens when you have a closed head injury and even then he had the filmmaker in him so we felt fabulous about that
and when he recuperated he missed a year of UT's and it didn't want to go back to UT I said where do you want to go he said I'd like to go to Sydney Australia and go to the University of Sydney film school and we sent him there yeah and he went to film school in Sydney at that time was they said the window is this open and it closes very quickly and when the window closes that's what you're left with in your brain they were completely wrong you can always continue to rebuild a broken brain and they told us the window is very the
window will close you know a month from now or two months from now whatever jesse is left with is what he'll be left with and they were completely wrong medicine was completely wrong because he decided to go out to Hollywood and remember scripts and because he had when he when he right after the accident he had no short-term memory whatsoever none zero the agency the guy here Bob Phillips he's got a general bob Phillips's Bob fellows is the country Phillips is the country girl reporter he's been on TV for 40 years and he goes all around Texas and does exactly what you want to do
he makes he's short I mean he's very famous and Jesse was doing something and something and he said and I watched on TV I said Jesse you have to call Bob Phillips and tell him you just had a brain injury and you're a filmmaker and you're coming back Bob Phillips hired you went around with Bob Phillips yeah I mean this is the way our life has been on the radio oh well he was on the radio before then I mean I don't know what to say to you Liz you've heard one pin the head of a pin of what our lives have been like and
so so we've we've I mean no I know I I wanna everything that you told me I mean I mean do you think I mean last question but do you think that you know having you know being Jewett I mean having that sort of like culture behind you has helped you through those tough times I mean had to have some sort of so loss with Jude having the connection with Drew dam with husha using this that does helped you I mean you thought around I came to comfort you guys that was Jessie do you think that's giving you other the hard times and just through
mines in general you think Judaism and Jewish community have been there to have her back a thousand percent and really in thinking about my answer of marriage you said marriage he said not like the Union the Union is you know God has a lot to do with that but the most religious people and Orthodox people get divorced also so they talked to God every day my relationship with God is I wrestled with him I fight with him I've had very difficult times with him I've called him every name under the Sun and yet he still forgives me he still loves me and so as I
grow older I am first learning the the beauty I guess that word isn't even enough the beauty of being of Judaism the glue of Judaism the spark you know people used to say to me you don't go to shul I said well Baba bah I always eat to get I said but I have a spark in my heart it's called a pen till the end it's a spark deep in your heart and no one even if I don't go to shul can ever take that away from me I'm a soldier for God and I truly believe it's great to go to shul it's great to
learn it's great to bring you children up religious which we didn't after their Bar Mitzvah it was over but my children every one of them have a spark in their heart they watch that grandpa they watch their uncles and then watch them in amazement these people who danced all night and drank all night and hugged them every time and pinch their cheeks and and asked them to show me how you dance you know I mean it was they loved children and they loved their family so I am so proud to have been born a Jew I can't even I can't even fathom in the world
that I live it being anything else for Jewish thank you all so much for coming back today and continuing this interview it was fantastic and I can't thank you all nothing we can't wait to share a story with the Jewish community in consideration of the Jewish community great thank you so much Liz and when you're ready I'll introduce you or the t2