Max Pactor
Max Pactor was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 27, 1907, the firstborn American child of parents who had emigrated from Russia around 1904. His father was a tailor who worked long hours in the sweatshops, and Max was the middle of three boys, often wearing hand-me-downs until he received his first suit of his own at his bar mitzvah at age 13. The family was raised in Coney Island, then largely a summer resort, where Max lived almost like a country boy along the seashore. He attended public school through the eighth grade and cheder until age 13, and though he was one of only a few Jewish boys in his school and faced frequent fights, he retained much of his Hebrew learning throughout his life. His home observed the Jewish holidays even if it was not strictly kosher.
Max took his first job at 14 and worked at many things, beginning as a clerk for a wholesale tobacconist and confectioner. He met his future wife on the beach at Coney Island, and they married in April 1928. The couple settled in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and raised two children, a daughter named Arlene and a son. Max spent most of his working life in the ladies' ready-to-wear and dress business, often as a contractor working alongside his father, but he grew weary of the harsh treatment in that trade and had long disliked New York. In 1949 he moved his family to Texas, where his daughter had already relocated.
In Dallas, Max briefly co-owned a nightclub that was later sold to Jack Ruby, then returned to the clothing trade, working for a time for Abe Zapruder before moving through several other garment businesses. In retirement he embraced his lifelong knack for making things and became a dedicated self-taught artist, producing sculptures, oil paintings, wood carvings, and intricate metal-inlay-in-wood pieces, including a series of scriptural works. Two of his creations, Jacob's Dream and a Magen David formed from Hebrew letters, were placed in the synagogue at Golden Acres, the Jewish Home for the Aged. Motivated by a wish to leave something meaningful behind, Max valued his art as his legacy. An active member of the senior club at the Jewish Community Center, he enjoyed playing pinochle and offered his descendants the advice to live by the golden rule and to work hard for what they wanted.
Full Transcript
I am interviewing a very good friend of mine this morning by the name of Max Pachter. Good morning, Max. Good morning, Marian. Max, I have been doing a series of interviews in which we've been taking the lives of the members of the senior club for future perpetuation. So someday when your grandchildren or great-grandchildren come in, they can go into the library here at the center and they can say, Max Pachter, take out this tape, sit down and listen. So therefore, I'd like them to know a little bit. So let's begin at the beginning. Max, where were you born? I was born in Brooklyn, New York City on June the 27th, 1907.
Where were your parents from, Max? My parents were both from Russia. I was a firstborn child in this country. I had an older brother who came here at the age of one. Okay, what kind of family situation were you born into? Poor, middle class? What did your father do? How did he get into the American family? Well, mine was the usual immigrant family. My father probably got here about the year 1904. And my mother had a stillborn child before me, so I guess in 1904, but they were the usual immigrant family. family. My father, as he always said, worked only one hour a day from 6 till 7.
That is 6 in the morning from 7 to 9. What did he do? But he was a tailor and worked in the sweatshops that we heard so much about. And he always made a living, Chris Family, that is, we were never in want. We didn't have too many toys, and I was a middle child of three boys, so I never had any new clothes. You got the hand-me-downs. So did I all my life. My younger brother had the new clothes. My older brother had the new clothes. But at the age of 13, I got a suit on my own. For your bar mitzvah? For my bar mitzvah, that's right.
All right, what do you remember about growing up in the street or near bar mitzvah, going to school? My growing up is very, very vivid in my mind, because Brooklyn, New York City, has a certain connotation on it, but this is different. I was raised in Coney Island. So I was raised pretty much like a country boy because Coney Island was a summer resort All habitation there was for summer only summer bungalows that were rented out or owned by people And we moved into one of the first five houses that was built for winter habitation So we had the seashore and the driftwood to pick up all winter long and make up all kinds of fantastic stories.
We were pirates, and this hulk that washed up was a pirate hulk. And we were great dreamers, and we had the whole island to work with. What about school? What kind of school? Did you go to Hebrew school? Did you go to public school? I went to Kedah. I went to Kedah. I went to public school. I went as far as the eighth grade. That's when school ended in those days, and you went to high school. So I graduated grade school, and I went to Hebrew school until the age of 13. And it amazes me today that I can remember so much of what I learned, because I didn't like ball more than Kedah.
Well, you're normal like any other young Jewish boy. But I can even read a little bit, write a little bit. Did you go to cheder after public school? Cheder after school, and I used to get two beatings a day. One when I left school, because I went to school where they're mostly Irish and Italian, and we were only three Jewish boys in that school, and we used to beat up every day at school. And then on the way home, cheder, the same kids used to wait for us, and we'd beat up again. And now I've got three beatings a day, because then I got home and my clothes were all torn.
Your mother would give you? So my mother was so happy to see me that she beat me again. Well, listen, that's good training for you. Okay, so you didn't live in a particularly Jewish neighborhood, obviously. Oh, yes. If there weren't any Jewish kids in your life. Well, it wasn't as though you were living on the east side. Now, this was a step above the east side. You see, all those people who lived on the east side of New York, They had great ambitions to move to Brooklyn or the Bronx, or as we went to Coney Island, which is Brooklyn. So we were a step above the east side already.
Okay, what about the Jewish observances in your home? What kind of family were they that way? I'd say there weren't too many. My father himself observed all the Jewish holidays, and when he became a businessman, soon later contracted him, which was no more than a job for yourself, All holidays were non days and he went to shul on all the holidays and insisted that his three sons always meet him on Yom Kippur Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur after the shofar was blown And we observed those things My mother did not run a kosher house that I remember but everything else in the house was Jewish.
And we were raised in it. Did you belong to any Jewish youth groups, or was there anything like that? No, I didn't belong to any. Yes, I belonged to the Boy Scouts for a very short period of time. There were no Jewish youth groups, to my knowledge, in the area when I was there. In later years, there was a community center in later years. Right. Okay. What do you remember about, you remember your beatings. What about your bar mitzvah? You said that was the first time you got a suit of your very own. I remember that very vividly, too. Because my father was a man who rose very early in the morning to get to work very early.
And as a result, he woke me very early. My father used to, it was the first one in the house, made breakfast for everybody, made everybody's lunches, and then went to work. And now I had to get up the same time that he got up. So I got up pretty early, and he grabbed ahold of me and a bottle of schnapps under his arm, and we went to shul. And I remember him talking to the, to the chevger there, to put me on right away because he's got to go, you know. So they got me up there, and I said those things that I had been taught and learned to say, and my father passed the schnapps all around before I knew that he was gone.
So your bar mitzvah was certainly different than the hoo-ha-shtick that they made you. Oh, it was a tremendous ceremony. It took at least, I should say, without question, a minute and a half. Your mother was not even in shoo? My mother was not even there. Then I can recall that she was not there. Okay. All right. Then you say you went to school until eighth grade. What did you do after that, Max? I took my first five-minute job after I got out of school. All right. So at the age 14, I was already working. What did you work at? Oh, I worked at so many things.
The first job in particular, I remember, I worked for a wholesale tobacconist and confectioner. And I was a clerk waiting on the trade, selling him cigarettes or candy to shopkeepers. And that was my first job. And then I went on to many other jobs, but I also remember this vividly in my childhood. And you haven't asked the question, but I'm going to answer it, all right? Go ahead. Max, what did you like to do when you were a little boy? What did you like to do, Max? I was a fixer. I used to love to fix things. And I always liked to make things And whenever something was broken they would wait for Max to come home or Mendel I was very often told And my cousins and aunts and uncles they used to bring things to the house for me to fix And I'm not having any toys.
My parents never could afford to buy me toys. So I used to build my own. And what is today called a skateboard, my God, I had one 65 years ago. Sure, you put wheels on them. I built my own. I took a skate and took it apart. put half of the one skate on the front and half of the one skate on the back, and there was a little piece of rubber that fit in there that allowed the wheels to turn a little bit. I took that little piece of rubber out so I could turn a six-foot circle with my skateboard, but it was smart enough.
In those days, parents weren't told to observe what are your child's traits and lead them in that direction. because I think if I were born today, I think my parents might have been inclined to have a study taken, an aptitude test or something, and I probably might have leaned to architecture or engineering or something. Tell me something. I have a son that likes to fix things, but he also likes to take them apart. Did you used to take them apart? I used to take them apart. And I always made sure I never had a piece left over. That was the important thing. And when I took things apart, I always got a cigar box or something.
And as I took them apart, I placed them in boxes so nothing should fall to the floor. And if I had a piece left over, it meant only one thing. You forgot. Start all over again. Right. So you start from the beginning and find out where the nuts grow actually and the growth. Okay, Max, you went out into the working world. What do you remember of your young manhood years, your teen, older teen years? Easy question. Okay. Chased girls. I figured as much. You look like the guy you chased girls. What things did you do with the girls besides chasing them around a table? Oh, Miriam, I can't tell you that on this tape.
What kind of social things did you do? Well, remember, I said we lived in Coney Island. Yeah. So summertime, it was all beach. Those days that I wasn't working. And girls were looking for boys and boys were looking for girls. And we, the young men who lived in Coney Island, we had formed a club and we had a social room, meeting room, club. So in the evening we would invite the girls down. We used to dance and socialize that way. Was it mixed? Was it Jewish and non-Jewish? Or was it only Jewish? No, no. It would be all Jewish. We kind of clung to our own, very much so, particularly in those days.
And of course things were very much different in those days than now. And now I get into something, I'm going to open up a can of worms. Don't, don't. Don't? No. Okay. So we just socialized and I took the girls home. We're lucky we got a kiss goodnight. Oh boy. Okay. So that's how you socialized and you worked. So how did you meet your wife? On the beach. Oh, she was one of the... I met my wife on the beach. We were about eight boys and about six girls passed by. And we tried to talk one thing or another. and that evening they were invited down to the club.
And I came down to the club, and we had a phonograph, and we played records, and we danced. And then I dated her, and she had one living parent who lived with a stepfather, a stepmother. Her father died immediately after I met her. And when I kept on seeing her, my mother said to me one day, the case, how's the hell made it? So I said, yeah, I think so. She says, the first house did. because she was in my house most of the time anyhow, she was already in the orphan so she says, why wait? So I met her in about June, July of one year and we got married April of the next which was 1928 so you see I'm married 53 years already 50 50 what?
It doesn't matter Alright, after you married, where did you live? We lived in Brooklyn an area known as Bensonhurst and it was apartment living, it was very nice living. In most cases, I was in business for myself. I was going to say, what business? Ready-to-wear business with my father, contracting. But I never, from the time I was a little boy, I never liked New York. I can't tell you why. But I didn't like New York, maybe because it was a constant, the people around me constantly talking Jewish, Yiddish, which was probably my first language, and getting out on the street and talking English only. And I remember on our street, there was one boy whose father was American-born.
And this boy, he had the only football and the only basketball and the only baseball. So early in childhood, I told myself that I was going to get married young and, you know, raise myself with my children, you know, at the same time. Nothing seems to work out exactly like I wanted to. But I knew I wanted to get out of New York, and immediately after I was married, we made an attempt. My wife had a sister in Frackville Pennsylvania who went out there to see if I couldn locate there But that didn work out so I was back to New York And I remained in New York till 1949 and that's when we came to Texas.
I was sick and tired of the business I was in, which was the dress business in those days. It was just about people who were treated like scum by I was a contractor. The boss man treated you that way, and everything was copied down the line, right to the porter. When the porter opened up the door for you, he sneered at and spoke to you that way because it was permitted. So I felt like I was kind of, even though I was in business, I was kind of less than a man. Everybody looked down on you, you know. And I told myself I was going to get out of this business, not New York.
And you had children by then? Yes, I had two children, a boy and a girl. The girl was the first, and Arlene, who is... Very active here on Andrews. Arlene, who will be... Don't tell how old she is. She won't want that. She's past 50. And my son was 45. Okay, so you had both children by the time you moved. They came six years apart. Oh, yes. In fact, by the time I came to Dallas, my daughter was already married. So, in living here or in... No, she was married in New York. Okay, now wait. Before we jump a little, let's turn back a little to the time when you had your children and they were growing up.
Did you ever, or could you afford yourselves, did you ever take vacations or family trips, or what do you remember about those growing up days? I was a great father, and the respect that I loved going out with my children. People tell me my children were very beautiful. They were. They are today. and I used to love wheeling them but here I was now about 27, 28 years old and I was still shaming her once every two weeks so I looked like I was 14 years old and people used to wonder when I'd go wheeling the baby buggy which is a common thing in New York but everybody has a baby buggy and we went away every summer half of the time I'd say we went to Catskill Mountain Hotels and the other half of the time we'd rent a bungle over the entire summer where we had to provide our own dinners and things like that.
And we spend the whole summer there from before the 4th of July or the end of June till Labor Day Okay So that how we spent our family Our family was the inside All right so your daughter you said married a boy from New York and moved to Texas New York boy And moved to Texas. Yeah, and she was married to him just, I think, two years, that's all. And she soon saw that he was a very lackadaisical person and he was going to run their life his way. This was here in Texas? This was here in Texas. Okay. And she was kind of a woman to put up with this, so it was a divorce.
Okay. So is that the reason you came to Texas? I came to Texas to get away from New York. But your daughter was here, so that helped you? My daughter came with us. I see. They came with us. When I decided, I had come here first, kind of. I had a brother-in-law here who called me out, heard that I had gone out of business, and said, you've got to come here. And I loved my brother-in-law dealing. I came out here, I was here a month, and didn't seem to find anything. And then something turned up the day before I was going to leave. And I thought it would be all right.
What was it? It was, I can't remember. We opened a nightclub. The part that we owned, the nightclub across the street from the Dolphins Hotel that was extremely successful. H. Conley Club, and I thought it was successful because he was a good businessman. I found out differently. So we opened up a nightclub, and we were starting on the bottom and ending on the bottom. So I left it. And eventually this nightclub was sold to Jack Ruby. Oh, my. of Kennedy assassination fame. Isn't that something? And we sold it to him, and I got nothing out of that. So where I came here with what I thought was ample money to carry me, I soon found I'd better get to work right now.
So that's when I left the club and left it to my other two partners. And they eventually, they tried many things, and eventually had to get rid of it for about 150th of the price. And I went out and got a job in what I knew best, and ladies ready to wear. And strangely enough, the first job I took was with a man named Abe Zapruder, who was the only man who had motion picture film of the candidate's assassination. That's a strange connection here. It's Myrna's father. Did you know that? Huh? Did you know that Abe Zapruder is Myrna's father? Sure I did. I know Myrna.
We speak now of someone who's on staff here. And I knew Mina when she was a small girl. Alright, so you worked for Murda's father? I worked for Mina's father. Okay For how long I think I worked for him about two years But I think my difficulty was there I showed too much of my talents And like some people I know were doing a whole lot more than they were getting paid for And then it became a demanding thing than anything I knew he wanted me to do. So we had kind of a mutual part of the ways. I wasn't hired out to do it.
I was hired out as a production man, and I was becoming everything plus that. So where did you go from there? Don't you ever cut that off? No, we're recording your life. All right, so you had various jobs until you retired. It's pretty hard to remember 73 years of a person's life. All right, so you went to many jobs. From there, I went to work for a man who was a money man backing a woman in a business, skirts and blouses. And he was ready to fold this business when a friend of his says, I know of somebody who's just available right now. That was me.
And he says, give it one more try. He gave it some more tries. Give it one more try. So I went to see this man. He hired me. And in a very short period of time, I turned around the complete operation of the place and took it from the red into the black very quickly. That's nice. So the woman who was running the place, the silent park, so to speak, she came to him one day and said she was going to fire me. So he says, he told her, I know this from his own words, he told her, if you fire Max, then I'm going to sue you for not working for the best interests of the corporation.
So instead he paid her out, and from there on he turned down, he was a man that had another business, an underwear business, and it was a very successful operation in Spring City, Tennessee, where it was a lateral operation. They made their own fabric, dyed their own fabric, made their own lace, and that way he devoted all his time, and he was selling that fabric. So this business here was more or less an investment. So he turned the whole thing on me, lock, stock, and barrel. And I was signing the checks and everything else, and he would come in just once in a while. And the story as to our parting is not a pretty one, because we talk about the personal character of some people.
So we'll just skip that part, except that six months after there was a parting, he asked me to please come in as a half-partner. 50% and 50%, not 49, 51. But I couldn't come up with money that I would have been fine. That's a shame. Okay, so you were really in the clothing business most of your life. All my life. Until you retire. You might say all my life. Okay. And you have now children, grandchildren? I have three grandchildren. Janice is the oldest. She lives in Los Angeles. She's 29 years old. Louis lives here in Mesquite, and he's 26 years old. And David, who's 23 years old, lives in Holland.
So I have my whole family. And my son is here. He's not married. And your daughter's children, are they married? Yeah, they're all married. Oh, okay. Very good. They're all married. Now, she married three of them within a ten-month period. Isn't that wonderful? Wow. Isn't that expensive? It's expensive, and it's wonderful. All right. Now, the end of the tape, what we have left, I would like you to sort of tell me a bit. I know that you are a talented and creative person, And I wonder if you can remember when in your life you began doing this and why you began doing this creativity. I know that when you were little you took things apart and put them together.
That was the beginnings of what was within you. How long ago did you begin this, what was a hobby, I'm sure, of creating these beautiful works of art? These things came many years apart. I think I would have to start with that immediately after my marriage. I had built a table which was about 18 inches square, but constructed in such a way that this table, the leaves could be opened up into a bridge-sized table. Not being smart enough, I never had it patented, but somebody else patented this idea and made tables like that. I had another such experience, which I'll speak about later. But I had friends who bred tropical fish.
So I thought, gee, and I always thought an aquarium. It was so pretty. So the first thing I did was build an aquarium. I wasn't going to go out and buy one. So I went out and bought brass angle iron and some glass and made a 20-gallon aquarium. And when we needed bookcases, I built bookcases. And I went from one thing to another. Anything that we needed in the house, I made. But everything came years apart. I would do one thing, and then seven years later, I'd think something else and do it. But I never went out, or if I saw something pretty and liked it, I would duplicate it And now I going to skip quite a piece here Oh yes let me start with this When my daughter was 13 years old and she needed clay in school we had to provide the clay.
So I went to Mason's and bought about 20 pounds of clay, I guess. She couldn't even carry it. At the end of the semester, they sent her home with the clay. And when she brought it home, she said, Derek, what should I do with this? I said, oh, my God, throw it away. And you're going to have to throw it on the side. It's okay. I just throw it. I said, oh, no, Dad, use it. You can do something with it. So she started prodding me that way, and I said, well, all right. So I thought I'd make her head in clay. I soon found out that I didn't have sufficient, so I had to make it about, say, seven-eighths normal size.
I made this head, and I had it in a clay form like that for several years until when showing it to someone, someone says, well, why don't you make a cast and cast it? in the plaster or something. So it was then that I found out, going to the library, found out that you can buy such a thing as liquid, rubber, and you can make a cast out of liquid rubber right over the plate. So I did that, and the end result was I started casting. I can make as many as I wanted now. So when my wife told me, either you or the mold, so I decided, well, I'll do it so long.
So I threw away the mold, but I made one more casting and this was made in concrete and that's the one I have today and it will be shown at a one minute show that will soon be shown here at the JCC and she was 13 then and now we jump to 16 years further and she now, this same daughter now has 3 children and she went out and bought me a Hanukkah present a 295 oil painting set And from this, my first effort was a portrait of my older grandson. He was, well, five or six years old, I don't know. I had a little black-white wallet-sized picture, and from this I blew it up to life-size and tried to make it in color.
But everybody said it was quite good. In fact, my younger grandson, who was two at the time, which would have made the portrait He came in the back door one day and as he walked in the door you see that picture hanging on the wall and he said Oh Lewis you know So if he could recognize it then I had a very good likeness So you see that was 16 years apart And the next time I did something was when my daughter and her husband took a trip to Hawaii And they brought back some wood sculpture, but not native sculpture that you find in every country in the world, where one family has made one particular object for 150 years, you know, through 10 generations.
Now, this was a German artist in Hawaii who worked only in driftwood, and his work was remarkably good. So when she brought it home, I said, I thought I could do it. So she sent away asking the artist to send a piece of wood, which arrived about a year later, and it was a very poor piece of wood because it was hollow in some spots, cracked in others. It was a small piece. But I studied about six months and finally made the head of a woman into this piece. He says in every piece of wood, he says there's a beautiful person. That was the way the artist spoke.
I had one of his brochures. So I finally made this, had a woman, this too shall appear in this show, which is soon to be held. And I went to that. And then everything would come two or three years apart. In the painting, I also made two more paintings, a Chinese man and a Chinese woman, which also will appear in this show. So altogether I made three paintings. But it wasn't much of a challenge to me because in painting, if you don't like the stroke or the particular section you made, you take a rag and take it out and wipe it out and do it over.
You can't do that with wood because if you chip the piece of wood out, it's gone. and then I started sculpting and my first step it was this piece of wood that came away and then I just whenever I felt like I wanted to do something or just piddling around I'd come up and do something there are two things that were were made out of pieces of wood that were laying on the stock room floor and I started cutting on this thing one day and I wound up with something I called loops entwined this too shall be in the show these pieces of wood weren't big enough when they came out looking pretty good and my daughter said, gee, this looks pretty great but there was a whole corner missing I just picked up a piece of wood so when everyone thought it was pretty good I just had to work on attach a piece of wood to that corner so I could square it off and kind of sort of frame it up and I did that and then I started sculpting nudes in bar relief And I sculpt one figure which is my favorite lady an African primitive which too shall be at the show And not all these things are owned by me but I still have it here and this is how an African primitive sees himself.
And I have seen this picture in a book, three-quarter profile, and I had to turn it around. Without any schooling, this is difficult. I had to turn it around to make a front for you. So the work you do now, Max, is a combination? A culmination. It's a culmination and a combination. Many things. Yes. And what I'm doing today came about because the materials that I used and the tools that I had were all available. I had aluminum rods then. I don't know where they came from. And with these aluminum rods, I put my initials into a tool, a wooden handle tool. And about five years later, it was still there, so that looked pretty good.
So I filed it and sanded it down to the cypress of the wood, where the handle was just as smooth as it ever was, and the initials remained there. and from the time I did those initials till I did something that represented a piece of wall hanging there must have been about eight years in between and that came about because a piece of wood became available a friend of my daughter's who owns the Hilton Inn in Central Expressway called her up one day and said he's moving out of his office and he's got a lot of pieces of wood here that your dad might like and these were samples of large heavy doors entrance to the main dining room and they were made up of panels and son LeMille had submitted panels you know the design he had these I took those and that was the first thing I did a metal in light was a vase with flowers which shall be at the show and I kept right on working in metal inlay metal and the method that I used at the beginning and the method that I'm using now is as different as night and day.
Tell me something. Are you still working on your art forms now? I haven't done anything in several months, but it's become a little bit more difficult I'm a little bit older. My eyes aren't as sharp, my arms aren't as strong, and it's a physical work. I should say it's both physical and mental because although drawings are made first, they change as you go along. All right, I'm glad you said that. I'm just checking. We still have a little more tape on the side. give me those steps the procedural steps from the birth to the culmination of one of these pictures like you sketch you take the wood you see what it is you just quickly I would love to tell you that but I can't tell it quickly because I told you a little while ago that my granddaughter in Los Angeles had decided that she wants to document my message well I can't spend three tapes on it well that took six tapes of 90 minutes each alright do it on one foot so there about for every one little piece of metal that you see in there.
And there was at least 15 steps taken with this one piece of metal before it is as you see it now. Okay, so then what you're telling me is it's a long process. Very long. And you don't have a regular daily routine now where you get up every day and do your work on your days. No, that was one thing. That's why I retired. I wanted to retire away from responsibility and having to be at a particular pace at a particular time. So my shop and my gallery is my home, and I work when I please. I see. I'm not tied down kind of thing.
But as an amateur, and everybody just placing me, well, second to Picasso, they wouldn't put me first, my friends, nasty of them. So as an amateur, an amateur doesn't like to sell anything. He likes to keep everything. So I gave them to my family. I gave them to my daughter, my granddaughter, and so on. then I kept everything else I wouldn't sell anything until someone saw some of my work in my daughter's house and the sister they got to have some of my work and they came to the house and gave me a commission and I says well what would you like to have he says something from the scriptures I says well unfortunately I know very little about the scriptures I says for example he says well Jacob's dream and my answer to him was what's that I'm ashamed to say it but that was the truth so he says well I'm a member of Sheriff Israel.
Next week I'll bring you all kind of books, which he never did. So I called him late on a Sunday night to make sure the end of the week and he says well he was busy eating at the books So the following morning I went to the library and brought home about 100 pounds of books but I got the wrong kind of books I got books that dealt with religion, and that's not exactly what I was looking for, for art, you know, for religious stories. So I went to the library and told her what I wanted, and she says, well, why don't you try the children's section?
There you will find Bible stories with illustrations. so I went there and I started working on Jacob's Dream and when I didn't hear from the person who commissioned me for several weeks I felt it was like my own and I became very involved in this I worked 7 days a week anywhere from 3 hours a day to 17 and it took about 4 and a half months to complete and I might add that piece now hangs in Golden Acres, Jewish Home for the Agent in the shul. And that was bought by someone who presented at the Golden Acres. Then I presented Golden Acres with another piece which is on the other side of the podium.
The shul is very narrow. And the wall is about eight feet, each piece of wall. So one holds Jacob's dream. And the other one I made a Moken David out of Hebrew letters. And before making it, I had to study which way I would like to make it. Well, we hear a whole lot of shalom. and shalom is a Hebrew word and in this country we don't speak Hebrew we speak Yiddish and in this country we would use the word shalom we have five more minutes, okay go ahead and shalom, so I made one out of the Hebrew letters shin, lamet, mem into a Mogan David and I presented this to the Golden Agents and then I started a Bible series or stories from the scriptures of which I made I think 14 yes I've seen them It took me eight and a half years.
Okay, Max, I'm looking forward to your one-man show and your display, and I know and I've seen that you have tremendous artistic ability. How did you, we have to end our tape now, how did you get into the seniors here at the Center, and what things do you enjoy doing with them? I hate to break your heart. I first came with the seniors here, and when somebody invited me to come here and play a pinahol. That's quite all right. You haven't stopped. And now I keep coming and I have some bones to pick which may come up in the near future That all right Because I find right in the past couple of months that the dues of necessity had to be raised But by the same token, they took a lot of things away from the senior citizens.
And I feel like that's being hit with both ends of the stick. And the things that they took away, strangely enough, I'm not at all interested in. Because I don't drink coffee, that's one of the things they practically took away from. and another is that you now have to pay for your bus, which I don't use also. But as a matter of principle, I think the center directors should have come and explained to the senior citizens why this was necessary, or the senior citizens should make some kind of a protest. Well, the bus, I can tell you why it's necessary. Each time that bus brings a load, it costs us $150.
Well, we are fully aware of that. Anyhow, Max, your kids and your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as I said, someday you're going to come into the library and see your name and take this tape down and listen to the Guns of My Son. And the way I end the tape is always... I've got to answer you on that. They won't listen? No, I've got to answer you on that. I'm not asking you. Wait, I've got to ask you the question. And I always like to end the tape by saying if they were really, like, they hear the story and they hear the wonderful things that have happened, if you had to give them some advice, for them, for their lives, and how to lead them, what would you tell them, Max?
Gee, this makes me think of so many, so many things. Well, what would you tell them? I think as a Jew who really doesn't practice his religion, although... No, it doesn't have to even be religion. Although for the past 15 years I've been studying anything on Judaica or Judaism, not religion, What would you tell him? I think I would have to tell him to live by the golden rule. Do unto others as he would have others do unto you. And try to lead a clean life. You'll get what you want. But you've got to work with it. Nothing comes easy. Don't blame everything on luck and don't say you weren't lucky because it's a strange thing.
All people who work hard are lucky. That's right. That's a very clever statement. So maybe they're making their own luck. So I'm not going to say that luck don't help. It sure helps. You can have all the brains in the world, and boy, if you've got a little bit of luck with that, you got it made But you be the smartest man in the world If you just don have any luck it going to be a hard struggle on the other hand I seen some very successful people who I didn think were very bright many other people didn't think were very bright they were lucky that's the exception to the rule okay Max I want to tell you that I've enjoyed listening to a little bit about your life in every one of these interviews I don't get the
whole thing but we get a little paste and that's what i want to add one thing sure about five or six years ago further back than that uh prior to my starting this uh metal inlay in wood i suddenly got a certain feeling that my life here has been a waste on earth i lived it like everybody lived there i worked i ate and slept and so forth but i wasn't going to leave nothing behind and to me when a wealthy man leaves ten million dollars to his family he has not left anything behind he's only left the story behind that he was a successful
businessman, a lucky one. I always felt I wanted to leave something behind for somebody to look at and to say, this is what Max Packer made, and that's why, when it almost looked like my work was not going to be in Golden Acres, because the man who bought a kind of back down army and started chiseling with me, I hope he never hears this part, he said to me, well, does that mean you're willing to sacrifice some of the price to get something in there? I said, yes. and I sold it for half the agreed price and he put it in there and the reason for it was I wanted maybe, as you said earlier 75 years from now somebody's going to walk into Golden Acres some little kid with a baseball bat in his hand and look at that picture and say you know, my great-great-grandfather made that so this touched me and I thought that's a way of leaving something behind and for the very same reason I'm very careful to whom I sell my pieces I held up three pieces that I could have sold a dozen times but I wanted to sell them only together and I was going to sell them to any person for a half price who would buy them together and give them away what I mean give them away is give them to a temple or Sherith Israel or give them to the JCC where the public can see it No, I couldn't get anybody that would buy all three, because these pieces run into a lot of money, even at hand price.
What does a piece sell for, a piece of your artwork now? Well, you'll soon see the prices. And the scriptural pieces, most of them run about $3,500. And then there are smaller or less significant pieces, the $200, $300, the sculptures, about $600, $700, things like that. So the price is not cheap. But I made one piece, Moses at the parting of the Red Sea, which took me eight and a half months to make, seven days a week, at least 60 hours a week. What would that amount to a 10 cents an hour? Right, you can't put any time. Okay, Max, you're a very interesting, wonderful person, and I'm glad you're my friend, and I am very much looking forward to your art show, and I very much enjoyed your life, and I am glad that you are leaving something of yourself behind.
Have a good day and enjoy your Pinochle game. Mary, I'm very happy that you thought I'd love and make you want to do this. My pleasure. Thank you much. You're welcome.