Joe Nahama and Rodney Nahama

Recorded March 11, 2020 Archived March 11, 2020 33:52 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: mby019736

Description

Joe Nahama (54) talks to his father, Rodney Nahama (87), about his family's Greek roots, Rodney's life being born in New York City and later moving to Los Angeles with his family, and his long career in the oil industry.

Subject Log / Time Code

RN talks about his parents and moving to Los Angeles with his family during his childhood.
RN discusses his family's Greek roots.
RN shares what he remembers of his parents while he was growing up.
RN talks about his younger brother. He remembers what it was like going to school while living in Los Angeles.
RN recalls his time as a student at UCLA, and working at a flower shop while he was in school.
RN talks about being drafted into the military after college.
RN talks about his work in the oil industry and what allows him to continue working now at his age.
RN discusses his children and his grandchildren.

Participants

  • Joe Nahama
  • Rodney Nahama

Recording Locations

Beale Memorial Library

Venue / Recording Kit


Transcript

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00:02 My name is Rodney nahama, and my age is 87 years old.

00:09 And today is Wednesday, March 11th, 2020 and I'm talking from Bakersfield, California Bill Library.

00:22 And name of interview with Partners who my son here is Joseph, and he's my my son.

00:37 And my name is Joseph, I'm Joe and my my age is 54 years old. Today's date is Wednesday, March 11th.

00:51 2020 my location is in Bakersfield California the name of my interview partner is Rodney or Rodney, my relationship to him is he is my dad my father.

01:08 Okay, you ready? Okay, I'm ready. We're going to start with when and where were you born? I was born in June 18th 1932 in New York City. And how long were you there in New York and I was lived in New York for 7 years and came to Los Angeles when I was 7 years old.

01:37 And who were your parents my parents were is it Ada and Alfred, tell me a little about your parents tell lies parents were when I was born. They just arrived from Greece from they just got married and they ride from actually they were married in Italy.

02:01 And it may arrive then I was born shortly after.

02:09 And what we're at what until it tell us about moving from Italy or Greece to the United States. What is it like for your essentially immigrants and in New York City and this was the start of the depression so things were pretty tough for them, and for me and I was I had a lot of physical problems.

02:41 And one of the reasons that I moved we moved to Los Angeles, it was recommended by my doctor. The doctor that was taken care of me that I needed a warmer climate in Los Angeles was where we moved tell me before you how how did your mother learn English my mother learn English. She was she she actually knew 7 languages and the English was not one of them, but she learned English by going. She go to the movies and she would go and and

03:25 And take notes and new and one of the language of the conversations and she would go home and look up in the dictionary and then go back to the to the movie and then see it one more time with with with a little bit more knowledge of what was happening. And she and you we can do remember all the languages. She spoke a new Greek Spanish Italian. She went to a French school. So she she knew French and Spanish and French were their main language and then English became one of her main languages and why why did your family grow up in Greece?

04:23 They they they they grew up actually and in a in a city and in Greece called Salonika Salon ago was an area where a lot of a lot of the Greek Jews went after they were exiled from Spain from Spain during the Inquisition. They went to they go to Greece with a Greeks and the it was at that time that Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire and the Ottoman Empire was very good to me. They need an educated people and my parents were educated, especially my mother.

05:19 And so she is so during the Ottoman Empire. She she she also knew Turkish.

05:28 Greek Spanish and and French were main languages

05:35 So they they get out and do you know why they left Europe to come to the United States before World War II the my mother was in this like I say the city of salonica in Greece and it burned down during the second World War World War World War II and she lived in the tent and but after that she is a Aveo.

06:14 They met that she met my father my father and and they got married and they essentially came to the United States.

06:28 For more for economic it wasn't there wasn't any political problems other than they was hard to make a living the rest of my family stayed in Greece and

06:46 And they were parked there during World War that my my grandmother and my uncle.

06:55 We're put into prison camps because they were Jews and Belgium belsom.

07:08 And my aunt she she was a sinner rated Annabelle's and Gracie. This is so what she was she was a fatality of the second for a second World War.

07:24 So your parents my parents were or

07:32 I worked and loss and my father worked as a in a produce store and in is Los Angeles before that in in in New York. I was going to ask to what what did your father do a New York? He was a sold sold the fabric for people's dresses for womens dresses. And then this was during the Depression in there was no no no real work. So they they did anything they could.

08:05 And he had a number of creditors was because I was I had pneumonia and scarlet fever and so he he went into debt and and they decided to get me into a warmer climate in Los Angeles was the place up of one thing and one thing before you moved. What did your parents say? But in reality it we moved to Los Angeles, but because of my of my father's creditors today, they want to make sure that they had that

08:52 The Los Angeles the place that they didn't need you to tell anybody you were really going to Los Angeles and we wanted you to get up and and my father had a good friend that from Greece and he he he lived in the Beverly Hills area of Los Angeles. So that that was the first place that we lived in was near Beverly Hills and later on. We got a he started working in our produce store and in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles.

09:32 When you move to Los Angeles, what was it? Like moving to Los Angeles? What was my my parents had a hard time because they being Jews. They they were excluded to buy a lot of things in one of the things that my parents remember didn't told me. He said that when we look for a house, they said no.

09:57 No dogs, no no cats. No Jews. So we were there was a lot of ill-feeling about the Jews even before World War end in the United States. So you but you moved to California weather California and has a good friend of ours gave my father a job in a produce store and who is your good friend? Who was this friend was Eli bardovi and in all these people included it were Sephardic Jews Sephardic is a Spanish Jew within that went to Green along with my parents and bardovi was one of them. So you're at your in Los Angeles that your your father is in the produce store selling produce and then later.

10:57 We had a friend that had a flower shop and and he died and he died and we got in and fortunately we got in the flower business. So wait when you were a kid. Did you talk to you your parents? What were they always around? What were your will your parents? Did you remember doing a lot with your parents and my father worked all the time very seldom. Did he have a day off? So we we went to used to go use to take a day if you know one day a week and we used to take the streetcar to the beach or and we went in fact we went fishing one time and that the Ocean Park.

11:48 But it was you know, I didn't know that they was tough but it was had to be tough for my parents to be in the end and that the situation tell me about as you Grew Older. Did you eat? I know you went to school but what else did you have to do? As you are older son? Oh, yeah, where were you either way? I worked in the flower shop and then I got my own flower shop. But before that before you worked at a flower shop, when what tell us about the weekend the weekends at at the you know, all the shops there, you know, there was a street and all the shops of your dad and his friends are right there together. So what was the what would happen if I actually bad that was with my uncle my uncle is the one that went over then Beverly Hills. He camed out of the concentration camp with his wife and

12:48 Play go every Friday night to to the Beverly Center or where they call that farmers market farmers market and in the end we would see some of their friends and all their friends had something that because they had been in the concentration camps. They had numbers on their arm and a lot of them. I had lost, you know, something had some problem as a result of being in the concentration camp and you were a boy and all the shop owners would they'd all go in the back of the limo tell us about that and who would come in at my tongue other was the produce store and I had the Little Flower Shop right next to the road is store and during the Sunday when there was hardly anybody around they my father used to it.

13:48 The grocer and the Baker and the the the owner of the drugstore used to go in the back of the produce store and they play they play dice and and shoot dice.

14:09 And one of the favor because we were in the heart of Hollywood. One of the ones that would come all the time. Every Sunday was Curly of The Three Stooges.

14:24 He would he would participate with the with my father and the Eli and the grocer and the and the and the owner of the Hawaii. They're in the back pitching dice. What were you what were you doing? I was I was taking care of all the stores today because there wasn't anybody they were all involved in the end and the gambling and I was the one that was take care of his take care of the the bakery handsy.

14:59 Produce store My Little Flower Shop in the grocery owner of the drugstore. He had somebody in there. So why did he had somebody in there? So I didn't take care of that.

15:18 Okay, so it's so you're growing up. Did you have any siblings? Did you have a brother 9 years younger than me, He was just growing up about the same time and going to school while I was I was about nine years older than my is my brother.

15:42 Solano Way we grew up in Los Angeles and then and then tell me about about growing up and let me hear you grew up in Los Angeles. You're in the middle of Hollywood. So good tell me about going if Corey Corey the your friends and people you do a grammar school people that was in the school was Diane Disney and and she had men that I always sat behind Julie Newmar, which is it was the Catwoman so bad in the middle of Hollywood.

16:23 Yeah, and a lot of the people came if they wanted to go get in the movies with a lot of people came in that area and I grew up with a lot of the people that wanted to get into the movies and didn't get in one of your jobs that when you had your own flour storage or your parents and she have to put flowers on the grave of WC to use the way I used to sell flowers in this is a little little luminum Shack and they have the flowers outside but in the weekends, I'd go and help my father. He had he had a flower shop near Forest Lawn and in Glendale, California and which was the forest lawn's a big cemetery and we had the other potential care. And so we I used to go out and put flowers on graves every Saturday and Sunday.

17:23 So whatever it was it was an interesting time. Yeah, so you so you so you so tell me about how you put yourself through college, and in the flower shop was very lucrative. I sold flowers every every when I wasn't in school. I was going to UCLA actually commuting to UCLA from where we lived in the Los Feliz area.

17:54 And I used to commute and I had a retired man that used to open the store and help me when I was there and my father would buy the flowers for his store and and Glendale and also 5 buy flowers for me and and and in the Los Feliz area.

18:22 So are we in the business was actually pretty lucrative. I always always had enough money to to do whatever I wanted it because I but I worked a lot when I wasn't going to school I was working. So you say you went to UCLA and I went to UCLA. I graduated from UCLA. I took up with a geologist. I became a geologist. I don't know why I I took one course in geology my freshman year and it seems so interesting I decided I wanted to do that. I didn't even know what a geologist did before that that that thing and I didn't know how to

19:08 What what I was going to do, but I knew my father said well, we can always always can support you even though you are a geologist. So I became a geology laid your father wants you to be my father one day one day. They wanted me to be a dentist, but I didn't want to be a look at down people's throats all my life so bad. So I

19:39 So I became as you say you what you got in graduate from UCLA you go with you then you get inducted you drafted into the villagers was President Eisenhower invited me in for a couple of years. He I was inducted in the Army and I went into

20:02 And who did you work for in the end? They are me who was your who is your coming?

20:10 Eisenhower was it his son. He was President of the United States, but his son was working at Fort Belvoir, which is a short distance from from from Washington Washington. So I work for his son for a wife or almost about six six two six months earlier or more or longer and they were in the problem of training officers for Logistics. And I went to Not only was I have for Belvoir, Virginia. I was also a Fort Lee Virginia and also, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

20:56 Okay, so then you did it you did your stented in the military and then you come back to California. I worked a little bit but I am really started the was able to get in the University of Southern California SC as a geologist in the master's program. So I went and got my Master's at the SC.

21:28 And so that bad happened after that happen. I got my first job in the oil industry with a company called Schlumberger and with it with that I was I was able to do a lot of things in the oil industry and then eventually got a job with with a company called.

21:55 That was

22:00 Honolulu, I'm a little oil. Yeah in between all this you decided to meet and marry someone who happens also to be released a new lilina. I'm on my my my wife of over fifty years. Yeah. I knew her as we were the same Meritage that her parents were aware also from that from Salonika, but there was from Izmir Greece, which was also part of the Ottoman Empire.

22:37 And they they they have a they were we were very similar and we we had at our heritage was identical and so we married and had the Joseph. No, that's me and it was sitting right here and also David Nam of witches and lives in London and we were born in Bakersfield and they grew up and Bakersfield. So when you moved from from Los Angeles to Bakersfield you never went back to Los Angeles you stayed in Magnolia today in Los Angeles in Bakersfield for the for the for all my work and career. Okay and work for for Slumber J. Like I said and Honolulu and then then they started my own company before that. There's one company you were

23:37 Working there too. Also Yeti forgetti and there was a good story about Getty when we were drilling a well. I was a Christmas Eve. I was out on the wall over on Carrizo Plains.

23:53 And here and he and he said he was in London and he called the the well to find out how it was going. And so I thought you unfortunately we had some well problem. So I didn't know where the well it wasn't completed and we were still still working on those problems out. But I I talked to Jay Paul Getty which was it was it was an outstanding Bart and I decided to work to go and work and I work with her friend who it was my boss at Honolulu while I work for a company call Franco Western and he was my boss at Frank of Western. His name was Frank Wiegand.

24:51 And we were we started the company call nahama weekend and we and we went public and we were on the NASDAQ for a number of years until until we went through another cycle. Like we're going through now and the price for boiled disintegrated so that you had your company until the in the in the eighties about the about the 90s in the early nineties in the price of oil fell. In fact, we're going through another experience the like that right now, unfortunately my jaw, is it a right in the middle of it right now? Yeah, that's that's why you would tell me when you win that when the price of oil fell years ago in the 80s and you have a

25:51 Family, I'm I'm in high-school David my brother. What was the what was it? Like for your family a geologist? I always had enough work and no one knows it and public company. We we we did. All right, sweetie. We made some money and so things worked out good or just like they're going to work out good for a Joe and then the common common environment that you've been through the ups and downs of the oil more than once we do the same thing. I followed in your footsteps. So what tell me about what what do you do? What do you do? Cuz you're you're still working your yeah. I'm still working all day work everyday go to the office, and I don't drive anymore.

26:48 So I take the Uber and Joe and my wife take me with you and 1 days some days take home abs all day. So I'm able to be almost completely independent as a result of the results and fortunately because of the computer age and Uber and and being able to do things with a computer. I'm I'm kind of independent. What do you think is the missing ingredient for you to be independent? What is the thing you want to buy to make you completely independent so you can get to the Grove on a three-wheel bicycle?

27:39 So I could go at least to the Meijer marketing. Yeah, but my wife will love me and my son won't let me but I would make it so I can go to the market at least to go somewhere a mile away from my house. Yeah, yeah, so I'm almost independence day, but I'm in good shape and the fortunately I can I can still think and do things. So if you had to explain to someone what a geologist does in the oil business, how would you how would you explain it to someone that doesn't know much about a geologist. Look what I do is I still look for a possibility of drilling new trying to find oil.

28:35 Even in this environment we still need oil and I look at different information and my son taught me how to work the 3D computer and the and I can still work 3D problems and looking the looking for for a while while I have this program that allows me to look look at the data geophysical data on the computer showing your long career of of of being in the business and and you when we drill an oil well, we live in Bakersfield that we drill it. Well, well it might be near Sacramento it for gas. Well or might be somewhere what what are what are some of the technological invention like if you were to think back through your own. What am I?

29:35 When I was working we drilled wells in Sacramento with most of the area's I I was working that time wasn't in and near Sacramento California. And and I I and I drive up there and and we drill a well and I look at the elog the information to find out whether we would have complete the well or abandon the well and then I drive sometimes I drive up and down the valley one day and then I decided they're the best thing is to get it to to do when a by airplane. So I I learn how to fly.

30:18 I learn how to fly in and I got a

30:25 A permit and I got the instrument training and I was able to go up and down the valley with a Wii but we had a airplane and Bonanza Beechcraft Bonanza. And that was one of the day again that we gave me the opportunity to do a lot of things that I wouldn't have been able to do what what changed what chain do used to fly, you know that I changed after that technology. They invented the the fax machine and made the the fax machine made the airplane obsolete.

31:09 Because I could get the information and my office at the same time. They were getting it and end up in Sacramento to fly unless anyone who didn't have to fly away so that the fax machine was one of the things the technical colleges that eliminated the airplane after all this your whole life. You have two kids and five grandchildren x 6 x grandchildren and three of them are three with three boys are here with and Bakersfield Joe's sons and they they they they help me and I'll see them very often and back this weekend. My oldest grandson is going to help me do my Pawn

32:04 And so that it I'm lucky that we were so close and they were able to communicate and see them on my other son is in London and he has three children and we don't see them very often, but hopefully we'll see him soon. So what would you like to tell your grandchildren about? What advice would you like to get when I think I don't think there's any advice. I think they're doing what I think do what you want and that's that's that's their you know, Behavior just be happy and I think that's that's probably the hopefully that's what's going to happen now. So there's no advice. I think David nehamas my son in London. He he's doing Financial business and so he is the oldest dog.

33:04 Where is it going to be by Miss food, and this is the end within a very short. Of time. It was going to be this month. But because of the virus we had to postpone it. So it's at the viruses that cause the little problem we were going to go to London and decided not to go because of the virus situation. Yeah. Okay anything anything else? No, I think I think I've Spilled Out everything. I know. Okay. Well, I thank you. Thank you for being my dad. Thank you for my baby. My son.