Where were you born and raised?
I was born in 1924 and raised in Detroit , Michigan . We lived in blue-collar neighborhoods, where my parents owned small grocery stores. My father was a Galitzianer (Ukrainian) and my mother was Polish.
There were three children. I was the oldest, then four years younger was my brother [Sidney] and eight years younger was my sister [Leah]. I was the first son, and in the Jewish family that's a special position. In a lot of ways, I was my brother's protector. In school or in the neighborhood, when kids took advantage of him or beat him up, I'd beat up on them. [Chuckles] That caused problems because their parents were customers of our store. So I'd catch it at night.
I had a pretty rough and tumble time growing up. I did a lot of things that I never let my own kids do.
Where did you go to school, and what did you excel at…and what did you dislike?
I went to school – elementary through high school – in Detroit . I liked geography, math and social sciences. Obviously I liked that [social sciences] a lot because I got my PhD in Educational Sociology when I was 52.
I can't really say I didn't like anything. And I think that shows today. I'm constantly pursuing opportunities to learn, especially with the Internet. It gives unlimited opportunities to learn.
You came of age during the Depression. How do you think it shaped the person you are today?
We were blessed during the Depression, but it was obvious to me that the people in the neighborhood were hurting. My dad owned a neighborhood grocery store and we always lived above the store, so food and where we lived were never problems.
As soon as I was old enough to punch a cash register – around 10 or 11 – I worked in the store. That's when I really learned what responsibility was and how to work with people…One day I was trimming the vegetables and throwing all the trimmings in a box. When I got ready to take them out back to the garbage, my dad told me not to. At closing, a customer came in and bought three cans of Rival dog food – it said on the label “fit for human consumption” – and my dad gave her the box of trimmings. And one summer, my dad was seriously incapacitated with a back problem. I opened the store at 7 a.m. I made sure we got all our deliveries. I paid the delivery people. I waited on people with my mother. I did the banking. I closed up the store…I've often thought that my experiences there were a major reason I went into social work.
You went into the army in 1942 when you were 18. Were you scared?
No. I was adventurous – I've always been a risk taker – and I looked at it as an opportunity. And I was a romantic. I thought we were saving the world.
When I took the aptitude tests, they put me in the medical corps, and because of what I'd been taking in college – I'd completed my first year and was in pre-med – they put me into a 17-week program to became a dental technician. I was stationed in Riverside , California , and every chance I'd get, I'd take the train to Los Angeles , where an uncle lived. I was there so much that one Passover I was invited to Mr. Warner's, of Warner Brothers Studios', house in Beverly Hills , and ended up staying the night.
After the Normandy invasion [spring of 1944] they needed more foot soldiers, so I went to Europe . After six weeks of infantry training – in the heat of the summer in Louisiana – I was sent overseas to join the 99 th Infantry Division, which had sustained more than 50% casualties in the Battle of the Bulge.
In March of 1945, we were the first foot soldiers who marched into Germany. We crossed the Rhine River on the Remagen Bridge . That was the first time I'd ever seen dead American soldiers. And it was the first time I'd ever lost a comrade. We'd been sitting and talking, and he just stopped. It was dark and I didn't realize that he'd been hit by a stray bullet. Later on, I was shot, but it was “friendly fire.” My foxhole buddy, a guy from Detroit , shot me in the leg….When I got out of the hospital, the war had ended in Europe , and I was transferred back into the medical corps with the 1 st Division. This was the division assigned to guard duty for the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. When I could, I'd get passes to attend. I didn't realize then that I was witnessing history. All I wanted to do was get home, get married, and start my life.
What did you do when you came home?
I came home from the service in early 1946. Since Fay [Shapiro] and I had gotten engaged before I went overseas, we got married. I'd already done a year of college before I'd gone into the military, so I went back to school. I got my BA in physics and sociology from Wayne State University because I was still planning on being a dentist. But I didn't get into a school. Back then there were issues [quotas] for Jews.
Then social work was your second choice?
I wouldn't call it a second choice. Fay was teaching in the Detroit school system and we'd just bought a house and I was still able to go to school on the GI Bill, so I decided to go to graduate school and took another aptitude test. It indicated I should be a teacher or social worker, and because I was always interested in working with people, I talked to the Dean of Social Work at Wayne State and decided to go into psychiatric social work.
In grad school, my first-year placement was at the VA's Mental Health Clinic. It was the perfect assignment for someone with my background. My second-year placement was in a hospital that was part of the mental health system for the whole state of Michigan . In both placements, I learned to deal with social workers, psychiatrists and a lot about psychoanalysis because at that time Wayne State was very Freudian oriented.
Very early on – in the early '50s – you began focusing on nonprofit administration and working with health-related associations. That was a real leap from hands-on social work. How and why did you decide to make that leap?
I've always been a critical thinker, a pragmatist, an eclectic and an iconoclast. If you are going to be a change agent – and I've always considered myself to be a change agent – those are the qualities you have to have. But you also have to have the power to get things done, and you have to be willing to accept the responsibility that comes with that power. I came to understand that gradually – when I started thinking outside the box – when I was working with the [ Michigan ] state mental health system. I realized then that in order to address mental health issues, you had to also address things like return-to-work policies, housing options and integration back into the community.
The best way to do that was through client advocacy. So, while I was supervisor of student social workers, the State of Michigan created a new position, Supervisor of Community Relations, so I could do that [advocacy]. Eventually, I was nurturing staff, doing client advocacy and community relations. I was still in social work, but I had the ability to innovate, too. But it was always pragmatic innovation, focused on solving problems and based on solid research – in other words, facts – that showed us where the mine fields were, what the possibilities were, what the solutions were.
But I have to be honest, none of this went fast. To be a change agent you have to have a lot of sitz fleisch, which is Yiddish for being in long meetings and having patience.
You and your family came to Cleveland in 1978. What brought you here?
It was actually just Fay and I, because the kids [Diane, Laura, Elise and Ronald] were all grown. We came because I'd been appointed Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Comprehensive Cancer Center , a joint venture between Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals , eight other community hospitals and [Case] medical school. I was hired because of the work I was doing, the networks I'd built, in Michigan with the Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center . Soon after I arrived, the Center dissolved.
So – and this was definitely Cleveland 's gain – why did you stay?
The head of Cleveland Clinic [William Kiser] asked me to become head of the hospital's Health Services Research and Program Development Division. It was a unique opportunity. I reported directly to him and no restrictions were placed on me in terms of what I could bring to the territory. One of the ideas I brought to them was to “adopt” John Hay High School . Another was to have a Department of Geriatric Medicine. And we started providing grants to community organizations and partnering with community organizations, including Senior Outreach Services, which was just across the street.
I'd been in politics back in Michigan, so I understood how important community organizing – getting things done at the grass roots level – is if you want to get improve things.
From your vita, it's obvious that you are an educator: you taught at the college and university level until well into retirement and you've been published in journals. So the question is: Why have you put so much time and energy into teaching?
[Teaching is a matter of what we call in mathematics the “multiplier effect.” As one person doing social work, I could only see 25 people a week. But when I trained 5 others, then that's five times 25 out in the field. But educating direct service providers is just the beginning. The problems social workers address persist, so to make a dent in the problems – not just impact the number of people who are being cared for – you have to change the system. And the multiplier effect works there, too, so I began teaching [community organization, agency administration, planning and budgeting, etc.] for the people who managed the organizations that addressed the problems.
Teaching isn't just about teaching the facts. It's also about teaching people to recognize what the real-world issues are and how to get the information that's important and necessary to pragmatically and methodically meet challenges, solve problems and broaden horizons and think outside the box. And, no matter where I taught, I always said don't talk about the problems – everyone in the class knew what the problems were – talk about the solutions.
When you retired from the Cleveland Clinic in 1990, you and Fay bought a house. Usually people downsize when they retire, not upsize. So, why did you buy a big house in Pepper Pike?
My number one priorities today are my wife, who has some health problems, and my family. When I retired, we'd been living in an apartment on Chagrin [Blvd.] and when we walked into this house we knew this place would serve both priorities. All our “space” [kitchen, bath, living room, home office, bedroom] is on the first floor. And when our children and grandchildren come for holidays and Passover, the three bedrooms and bath on the second floor insure that we have real visits. [Taps the table] We can have 14 here for Passover.
At 84, your volunteer activities are endless. You are on the advisory committees or boards of many nonprofits, including the Northeast Ohio Chapter of the Universal Health Care Action Network and the Eliza Bryant Village . And you write letters that get published in national publications, such as US News and World Report and Business Week . Why do you think it's important at your age – and at any age – to do those kinds of things?
To be honest, I'm doing 50% less now than I was doing five years or so ago. But to answer the question, I feel I can make a contribution because of my experience and background in helping others achieve what they want – and need – to achieve. And I've never been afraid to make suggestions or give advice – and [chuckles] I've got a thick skin, so I'm not offended if people don't listen.
Right now, I'm especially interested in health care, and the history of the efforts to reform health care in the US . We have been “reforming” health care in this country since World War II. That means that solutions, suggestions, and proposals we are hearing today are not new.
You constantly refer to yourself as a change agent. When did you start thinking of yourself in those terms?
A change agent is a person who perceives that a situation in which an individual or organization or community finds itself should be changed, and why that change is necessary. They don't just outline the problem. They also work with people to achieve resolution of the problem.
There wasn't any moment when I said, “I am an agent of change.” It was a gradual progression, and it started when I was working in mental health in Michigan in the '50s. If I'd been a mid-level bureaucrat, I'd never have been able to bring about the systemic changes I've been responsible for, and I've always realized that. But being a high-level administrator was just part of it. I've always considered myself to be a self-motivated person – no one has ever had to kick me in the backside to get me motivated – and in my work I had the professional and intellectual opportunities to take the risks that could effect change.
When I retired, I didn't stop.
Many of the organizations you're involved with today are focused on bettering the lives of older adults. When and why did you become interested in those issues?
That goes way back, to when I was a social worker. Part of what I did then was to get clients who needed it into nursing homes. And when I visited most nursing homes I became very concerned. And that's stuck with me.
And, though I'm not what you call a synagogue joiner, I'm very humanistic and I take my religion seriously. And one of the major precepts that is important to Jews is to care for those who cannot care for themselves…That's one of the reasons I served on the Western Reserve Area Agency on Aging's Board, and why I'm on the Eliza Bryant Village 's board, now. And it's probably why I was inducted into the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame [in 1996].
You have the physique of a much younger person. What are you doing to stay so physically – and mentally – fit?
I work at it, because it's my goal to reach 100. And I'm counting on the fact that I've never smoked and the genes I've inherited to get me there. My mother had unlimited energy, and many of my father's relatives were over 100 when they passed, and they lived in the tenements of New York City .
I've had two bypass surgeries, the last one in 1990, and following that I made major lifestyle changes.
Besides taking my cholesterol-lowering medication, after my second bypass, I became a committed vegetarian. It's very easy to be a vegetarian and eat out. And I read labels—on everything. And here I am, 18 years later, without a symptom.
I didn't just change my eating habits, though, I changed my activity level, too. I got a bike and a treadmill and I started exercising at least three times a week. Today, I do a mile of activity – part of it on the bike and part on the treadmill – in 12 minutes. And recently I've been working with weights. I use two-pound weights for shoulder curls and arm lifts, and I'm also using two-pound leg weights to do ankle and leg lifts. In addition, I take a baby aspirin once a day, and B-complex and Vitamin C pills, and both Fay and I take multivitamins.
What about staying mentally fit? What do you do there?
I'm so management and process and goal oriented that I do what I need to stay organized. The phrase for that is “management by objectives” – MBO. And I've always been that way.
Also, I use time wisely. I've figured out what my priorities are and my time is focused on those priorities because time is the only commodity you can't compress or stretch. It's finite.
It seems to me that you have always been open to new ideas. Do you think that's an important aspect to aging well?
Absolutely. You can't just live inside a box. You have to be aware and up-to-date about what's going on around you. To do that – to stay up to date – I'm using the Internet. I'm doing a lot of research right now and I can download just about any information or article I need. And I've got subscriptions to lots of magazines, and not just those linked to my profession. I get Inc and Business Week and Forbes and Atlantic Monthly . But I'm not just reading things I agree with. On the Internet, I'm also reading people and publications I don't agree with because unless I understand how they are thinking and what they are feeling, I won't understand them and I won't be able to counter them.
We have a real problem in the US today because so many people are just reading what is comfortable to them, listening to what's comfortable to them, talking only to people who are just like them. That's very disturbing.
The MythBuster program is all about aging smart. What do you think people need to be doing – physically, mentally and emotionally – to do that?
I think first, they should be involved in the greater community, whether it's through volunteering or participating in cultural and artistic activities. Right now, Fay and I have a subscription to Cleveland Play House's Saturday Matinee performances. Then we go out to dinner afterwards for a “date.”
And I think people should be looking at evidence-based research to guide them in their health prevention activities and their health care decisions. That's the only way they are going to get the results they want. In addition, you have to be your own health care advocate.
Mentally and emotionally, they need to be dealing with reality, not insulating themselves from the real world.
And, when they start thinking about retirement, they should be thinking in terms of retiring to something, not retiring from something. When I retired, I wasn't retiring from the things I was professionally and personally interested in; I was retiring to things that I was professionally and personally interested in. But in retirement, I was going to get to choose the things I would focus on.
And finally, I think they should be involved with their family. I don't wait for my grandkids to call me, I call them.
The key to all that is what I call – using the management-by-objective analogy – the ABCDE Process: You need Attitude plus Belief plus Commitment plus Dedication plus Execution to achieve the goal of aging well.
If you aren't achieving your goal, look at why. And, in most cases, the main “why” is behavior. And the reason behavior's don't change is that people lack the information they need to motivate them to change their personal behavior. Information is the key to behavior change: without it, there is no change.
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