Joyce Fruchter, Leonard Fruchter, Wesley Pinkham, and Jenna Pinkham

[00:04] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Hi. My name is Wesley Pinkham. I'm 20 years old. Today is February 21, 2009. We're in Los Angeles, California. I'm here with my sister and my grandparents.

[00:16] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: My name is Jenna Pinkham. I am 23. Today is February 21, 2009. We're in Los Angeles, California. I'm here with my brother and my grandparents. I'm Joyce Fruchter. I am 74, and today's date is February 21, 2009, Los Angeles, California. I am here with my husband, Len, and my grandchildren.

[00:44] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Greetings. I am Len Leonard Fruchter. I am 75 years of age. Today is February 21, 2009, and this is taking place in Los Angeles, California, actually, East Los Angeles. And I am here with Wesley Pinkham, Jenna Pinkham, and Joyce Fruchter, my loving wife. And the Pinkhams are my grandchildren. So the first question we want to ask is to establish, how do you guys know each other? How did you meet? Well, I had a friend. I was an Aza, and I had a friend who called me up because I had wheels. And at that time, anybody who had access to a car was king. And a friend called me up and said, there's a dance at Sinai teenagers tonight, and I know a girl there, and I'd like to go. How about driving me? And I happened to have my ex, my brother in law's car. I had just dropped him off for National Guard. And it was a 1949 Ford convertible. This was a 1950. I was real happy to show off the car. And we drove down to Sinai Temple, which used to be on third in Vermont. And that's where I met my ever loving wife, your grandmother and grandma.

[02:04] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: What did you think of papa the first time that you met him? I was a social chairman, so I planned the whole dance, and then I saw this cute guy coming at me with this other guy in tow, and they introduced me, and I thought, I like this guy. He just is so helpful and so cute and everything. And when he dropped me off at 03:00 in the morning, my mother was standing outside. This was the truth with a rolling pin, because I'd never been home that late again.

[02:37] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, you have to understand, she was barely 15.

[02:41] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I was 15 years old. And my mother said, what is going on here? I said, mom, this is the kind of guy I want to marry. And she got hysterical because she thought she, you know, she said to me, pisher, how do you know? I said, I don't know. And I knew. So that was the impression I had.

[03:05] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, that's the impression you had. But I've heard your philosophy on dating it's not quite as simple as meeting the guy you want to marry and just settling down. No, I think you told Jenna. What was it?

[03:18] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: What's your philosophy on dating grandma? Well, you have to really get to know the guy, right? I mean, you need to meet his family. You need to see where he comes from and what his background is and if he has the same goals that you do in life.

[03:34] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I think it was a little simpler than that.

[03:36] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Simpler? What did I say? Do you remember telling me that it's important not to just date only one man? It's true.

[03:44] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Because one guy doesn't have enough money to take you out every night.

[03:48] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: No, I didn't say that. I don't think I said that.

[03:52] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: No, as a matter of fact, I encouraged her to date. She had two other guys on the hook, and I encouraged her to date them because I didn't consider either one of them to be serious competition. And as long as they kept her occupied, then she wasn't going to get in touch with somebody who was serious competition.

[04:09] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: See, that's why I liked him, because he had a very inflated image of himself.

[04:15] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Now, on one of your first dates, I remember you telling me, pop up, that you pulled a car out of a gutter.

[04:22] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: That was our first date.

[04:23] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: That was the very first date. That was the third time. The first time we got together was at the dance. The second time was at a birthday party, and neither one of them was a date. And the third one was a date I actually made with her on a Sunday to go out where I knew there was a model t chastity down in a ravine.

[04:46] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: A gully. It was a gully.

[04:48] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: And I went down there with my car in my dad's trailer. We hauled that chassis out of the ravine and brought it home, and it stayed in the back of the garage at home until after we went off to college. And then my dad got rid of it.

[05:06] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: But that was our first date.

[05:07] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: It's quite a first date.

[05:08] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Yeah.

[05:08] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: And actually, I think I had your brother mort along, too, didn't I?

[05:12] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I don't think so.

[05:13] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I thought Mort was along on that trip.

[05:15] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I don't know, but that was a big first date. So if I had ever complain now that he's a car nut or he's playing with his cars too much, I knew what was coming. The first date. To haul an old car out of a gully. Please. I knew what I had in store. Speaking of other women, would you talk a little about your other lady, Bertha? Oh.

[05:41] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Oh, Bertha. Well, who wants to talk about it. Do you want me or Joyce Mama to talk? Well, you're 75, right? I am 75. You were born in 1934 precisely. And Bertha is in 1934. Precisely. Actually, Bertha, according to the casting information, the pan for Bertha, the oil pan, was cast in August of 1933, and I was born in February of 1934. So I figured that the factory and my father were at work about the same time.

[06:19] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Oh, God. Bertha is a 34 Packard, in case anybody wants to know.

[06:27] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I had always, as I said, first date, was hauling that model t chassis out and always talked about restoring a car. And finally, when I hit 50, and I'm still talking about restoring a cardinal, your grandmother is very eloquent, said, you want to restore a car, it's time to take a proverbial or get off the pot. So at that point, I decided. We decided to go looking for a car to restore. And I had really envisioned what we call a brass tee, a model t of the teens, which had brass plating on it instead of chrome. But when it came down to really realistically looking at a car to do, I said, well, if I did a brass tee, what am I going to do with it after I'm done and can't do a heck of a lot with it except drive it on parades, maybe. Otherwise, it stays in the garage. So we talked about it and decided that a classic car of the thirties would be dependable, would be attractive, and would be something that we could enjoy.

[07:35] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: So that's why we chose that packard, because we saw it. And I loved the way it looked. It was a wreck. You know, what it was, the condition was. But, grandpa, you know what Bertha looks like now. She's beautiful.

[07:50] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Yeah. And how have you. How have you enjoyed it, grandma?

[07:52] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Well, I helped. I mean, I did a lot of the sanding. I did the lot of the help on the restoration, and I chose all the colors. The upholstery I chose. I had special paint mixed for the body, and I helped with all the cosmetic things, and I knitted a blanket and did a pillow for the backseat. So I've worked on Bertha, too.

[08:18] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: We've enjoyed it a lot as well. Of course, Bertha wasn't in very good driving shape right before my bar mitzvah, and I specifically requested having it, having her ready to drive me from temple to the venue. And Poppy put on the burners and got her ready, and I got to arrive in style.

[08:45] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I'll never forget you leaning out the front window and with three blondes in the backseat, and you yelled out to all your friends standing in the parking lot. You, Hefner, eat your heart out. Cracked us up. I've forgotten that. Yeah, it was so funny. Papa, do you remember your bar mitzvah?

[09:13] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Yeah, I remember my bar mitzvah. It was a rather sedate affair, relatively. I was never particularly proficient, so I did the Haftorah, and that was about the extent of my real participation in services. I get a kick out of the kids now, doing the whole service. I was lucky to do the haftorah. And then afterwards, we went over to my aunt's house. They had bought a house. My aunt Rose and all of her entourage was moving out from the east, and they had bought a house in West Adams, but they hadn't moved out yet. So we had the party at the vacant home, and that was Saturday night, and that was my bar mitzvah. And the one thing I remember is I got an ever sharp ballpoint pen. And that was about $17 at that time, 1930 to 1940, whatever the hell it was.

[10:16] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: 47.

[10:17] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: 47. And the pen, I took it back three times. I got new cartridges, and finally I lost it because it was a mess that would barely work. And now I look at. They give these pens away for nothing. But I always. When I get handed a pen for free, I always think back to my bar mitzvah. I got a ballpoint pennilesse. So I'm interested. Both of you have been business owners and professionals for your entire life. Before the interview, grandma, you were joking with the form that said, are you retired? And you're like, well, no. So I'm kind of wondering, how did you come to own your own business, and where have you gone since? And how are you not quite retired?

[11:10] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Well, I still have people calling me for referrals. I'm a gerontologist. I call myself a gerontologist, but I am actually a geriatric social worker. And I think because I've been doing this for almost 30 years, that I do have a lot of more resources than a lot of people. I think being in geriatrics just in the last 1015 years has become very popular. But I was doing it way before then. And when I was on a government model project, I helped write the manual on case management for the elderly, and I worked with it. And then when Reagan came in, he shut down a lot of the government programs that dealt with the elderly. And our case management project was going south. And I said, I'm going to start my own business in geriatric case management. So that's how I got started. And I worked for a hospital at the time, too, part time. And I was going to school and I was, you know, had my own business, and that was what I was doing before that. As you remember, I was in. I was selling ladies clothing. I've always done something. I've always been sort of working the whole time, even raising the four kids. There was always something going on. I was always into something and. But I always was interested in the elderly. I think it's because I was so, so close to my grandmother, whom I worked with in her store. When I was a little girl. I was, you know, eight or ten years old, and she'd bring all her cronies in. They would come in and they'd schmooze and they'd carry on, you know, all the time. And so I just was fascinated by these elderly people, by their stories and where they'd come from. So I really attribute it to being so interested in the elderly at a very young age. And when I finally went, was going to finish college and I got. I interned at this place that was doing case management with the elderly. I said, this is fabulous. This is what I've been wanting to do all my life. This is what I feel, how I feel the elderly should be treated and how we should attack the problem of their healthcare, their total person. So that's why I got into it and that's what my degree is in, with an associate in geriatrics, but started my own business because the government dropped the ball and have continued on in that and continued. Reason I said I don't know if I'm retired is because family is still calling me regarding our 90 year old aunts and uncles and friends are calling me. And I do have paying clients, but I am not accepting a lot of paying clients now because it just takes me too far from what I need to do and what I want to do. Did that answer that?

[14:36] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Beautiful.

[14:37] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Good.

[14:38] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Thank you.

[14:39] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: So you're talking a lot about being close with your grandparents and that your family. Papa, I'd love to find out a little bit more about your relationship with your parents and grandparents. I know Wes had something pretty specific. He wanted to.

[14:54] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I just wanted to know what the significance of your dad's tools was to you and why they're so prominent throughout the house and even in your workshop. My father was a master mechanic, and he was always working with his hands. And I was working with him and helping him. I can recall, actually, when I was two years old, I was involved with him. I just have a recollection of working with him while he moved the car around. But I worked with my father and as I said, he was a master mechanic. He was a very brilliant man. He was valedictorian of his high school class and he had a scholarship to McGill University, but they decided to move to Los Angeles instead. Did they grow up in Canada? He moved to Canada. He was born in Hungary and he moved to Canada when he was an infant, practically. And so he went up through high school in Canada, and then they moved to Los Angeles and he apprenticed. He couldn't get into UCLA, he couldn't afford the out of state fee, so he apprenticed as a sheet metal man, and then he became an ornamental ironman. And he married my mother, and then he went to work for the us government in the fish hatcheries. But all the time that he was, he was always a mechanic, and that's a mechanic in the best sense of the word. And so when I grew up, I was. First of all, the fish hatcheries where he worked were basically one man hatcheries where he would have control of his own time. He had certain things to accomplish, but it wasn't like going to an office, so I would tag along with him. I was just his tail the whole TImE.

[17:02] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Your mother always used to say he had a bottle in one hand and a wrench in the other because he was following his father.

[17:11] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: So I grew up to appreciate working with the hands and working with the tools. And I have tools dating back to when I very first started to buy my own tools. And then when my father passed away, I took many of his tools, some of them we have up on the wall, that were his ornamental iron tools that date back when they were over 100 years old. When he got them, they were all handmade in the 18 hundreds sometime. And I just enjoy tools and I enjoyed my father. He was a very interesting man and I enjoyed working with him and learning from him. So how do you think your relationship with your parents and grandparents affected the way you raised your children and your views on family? I didn't have much of a relationship with my grandparents. My father's father died when he was two years old, so I obviously never met the Mendel I was named after him, and my grandfather was a tailor and a yeshiva, my grandfather on my mother's side, and he was a nice old man. But as far as I was concerned, the only thing I knew about him was he used to play pinochle every night and he'd complain about the people he played with who weren't playing it scientifically. My grandmother on both sides were nice old ladies, but I didn't have anything in common with them. My mother and my father were excellent parents, and I got wonderful parenting from both of them. My mother only had a grade school education, but she was a very bright lady, very knowledgeable in people. And I really appreciated her at the time, as well as afterward, that she had an awful lot to offer. And, of course, my father was my best friend.

[19:21] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: And what about you, grandma? Well, my grandmother was just an amazing woman. She really was amazing. Her husband died and left her with four little children, tiny ones, some tiny. And she not only raised the children, but ran a business. And by the time she was, like, destitute. But she managed to get all those kids grown up, and she wound up owning apartment houses and store, a store in New York. And when she came out here, she, you know, she continued, the children were all grown by that time, but she was an. She did not read or write. She could tally figures because she had to. In the store, she kept receipts. So she was an amazing, amazing woman. She's the one who lived in Poland, and at 13 years old, she couldn't stand it. She said, at 13 years old, if you don't let me go to America, she said, I'm going to throw myself in the well. So her parents let her go at 13 by herself to the United States. She had a sister in New York City. So that took so much guts and self image. She was amazing. So, I mean, that's what carried her through, and that's how she made it through life. And she's always been kind of like a hero, you know, to me. My mother and father were wonderful people. Each together. They were terrible, terrible. And what they did teach me something valuable, though, and that was how not to be married. And I said, I will never, never have a marriage like that. Never. And so I have strived very hard in 55 years, this year, we will be married to. To maintain that image of you. Don't act like that if you are going to be happy. And, you know, it has always been my force in the marriage to have a happy marriage. Thank goodness I was smart enough to see that in them. But they were wonderful people. Separate. They were just terrible together. And the times, I think, had a lot to do with that. They got married right in the midst of the depression, and they were. They probably would have gone down. They would have gone down if it weren't for my grandmother, who, you know, had this store, and she helped them. And that sort of thing. My mother also had a beautiful, beautiful, gorgeous voice. And she sang for her supper. Nightclubs in here and there in the Catskills. So they just barely made it on the skin of their teeth and not too well. And it caused a lot of rancor and a lot of anger and a lot of resentment. So that's, you know, that's what I was seeing all my life anyway. So how did that affect your parenting, you know, in terms of taking care of mom and all the aunts and uncles?

[22:47] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: How did her grandmother affect the parenting, just your experiences with your family. I know. Well, I know my mom and I know my aunts and uncles. And I'm sure they weren't easy to raise. No, they were very easy to raise. As a matter of fact, we have a disagreement here. One thing was that we didn't permit any disagreement between us. We were reunited.

[23:14] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: That's right.

[23:15] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: In raising the children. And they had certain standards and certain expectations that it was just. This is what was expected of them. I remember we went out one time with some friends or relatives to eat, and they brought their kids along, and we brought our kids along. And their kids were running up and down the aisles and between the tables and just generally raising hell. And our kids were sitting there flabbergasted that it was permitted. Because they knew that was not permitted with them.

[23:48] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: That's right.

[23:50] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: So we were united, and the kids had definite rules. Now, Joyce has comment. Otherwise, maybe the ball's in your court.

[24:02] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: And again, I always felt, as I was, the disciplinarian. But whenever they really were upset about something, they would talk to their dad about it. And they always. While they said I was a hard mother, your mother, Jen and Lois said she's a hard mother.

[24:22] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Is there another word that goes at the end of that?

[24:24] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: No.

[24:26] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: No, they wouldn't be permitted.

[24:28] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: No, they wouldn't dare. But she's a hard mother. I'd say, yes, I am. Yes, I am. But they always said, dad's fair. Dad's fair. If you ask them about their father, they would say, dad's so fair. Dad's the fair one. So they never felt heavily disciplined or unfairly disciplined by their father. And maybe they did about me, I don't know. But.

[24:55] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, when I had conversation with them about Mother Joyce, I would explain that she's a wonderful person. She's a hard mother. But wait until you meet her as an adult. And I am very proud to say all of my children are my friends. They're wonderful people, and we have a good relationship. And they have met us as adults, and we have a good, strong relationship as adults.

[25:26] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: That's right. I think they all respect both of us, and they have always respected us. But, you know, as children, do you just. You wonder sometimes. But as they've. Now that they're grown, they call me and dad and ask for discussion and advice and talk, and there's. I don't feel that there's any kind of a wall between us and our children. We really are so thrilled with all of you. You too. But grandchildren, it's easy because we don't have responsibility for you guys, but we really feel good about our children and our grandchildren.

[26:13] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: We like our children and we like our grandchildren. And not all parents and grandparents can say that.

[26:19] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Yeah, we're blessed. We are so blessed. Do you feel like the hopes that you had when you were young, parents have been fulfilled now that your kids are grown and you're seeing us as grandchildren?

[26:35] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I am very satisfied with my grandchildren and my children. Yes.

[26:41] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: All the way around, definitely.

[26:43] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, what did you want to do when you grew up? If I asked little Joyce, what was your maiden name again?

[26:54] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Burns. My father changed it from Birnbaum.

[26:58] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Birnbaum.

[26:59] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: And so he changed it to Burns. And he, you know, his cousin was George Burns, so they look alike and the whole thing. But he decided he was going to have that same last name because George Burns had done it. But what did I want to be when I grew up? I was thinking I was definitely on a scientific bent. But I know I did also know that I wanted a successful family, a good family, and a very, very loving husband and a loving relationship with a man. I didn't want the same thing that my mother and I, you know, I consciously was aware of that. But I did want to have some input as far as a professional.

[27:54] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: And, pop, what did I want to be when I grew up? Well, there weren't astronauts. No. There weren't astronauts. No. And first of all, I remember we used to do a lot of driving, and at that time, the bridges were what we call railroad type bridges with structural steel cocoon. And when driving through that, and I'd look up and see all that steel, I wanted to design bridges. And then we moved to Los Angeles, and I got excited with the museum of Natural History, and I wanted to be a paleontologist. Steady bones and reptiles. And then as I got further along, I knew my natural calling was engineering, and I got involved in electrical. So I basically chose to be an electrical engineer, and that was my youthful excursion and direction and how did that pan out very nicely? I enjoyed electrical engineering. I had some very interesting projects. I started work generating electricity with the Edison steam plant, and then I moved into designing electrical systems for the navy, for shipboard systems. And then I got involved in designing switchboards for the navy. And then I got involved in running the engineering for the conversion of the Queen Mary.

[29:40] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: How was that?

[29:42] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: The conversion from a military ship to a passenger ship? No, the Queen Mary was always a passenger ship. It was used during the war as a troop transport, but it was always a passenger ship. And long beach bought it and wanted to convert it to a hotel and museum. So the company that I was working with, actually two companies in Long beach that did marine engineering teamed up to a partnership to do the engineering for the conversion. And I was engineering joint venture manager for one of the joint venture companies. And so we did that. You know, in the various projects I was involved in, I kept working with lawyers because I was in engineering management, and there were a lot of legal questions in a lot of these projects. And I kept coming home and complaining to your grandma that I'm talking engineering and they're talking law, and we both think we're talking English, but we're not communicating. We're simply not communicating. So I really ought to go to law school and find out what the hell they're talking about.

[30:57] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: No, you said, I really should know some law. I really should know some law. Three years, I'm listening to that, right?

[31:03] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Mm hmm.

[31:04] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: So finally, I said, shut up and do it or stop talking. Get off the pot. He says, oh, no, I'm just gonna. All right, all right. I'll show you. I'm gonna take the LSAT. I said, fine. That'll shut you up. So he scored 99.5, or some stupid score was so high, he said, damn, you can say, now I have to go to law school. He really didn't have any intention of going to law school. He did not.

[31:39] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: I didn't.

[31:40] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: He did not.

[31:41] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: And after two years of law school, law school for. I went to night school, where at Southwestern. At that time, there were only two accredited law schools for night classes. One is southwestern. The other was Loyola. And I submitted my application, and Southwestern accepted me, and Loyola rejected me, so I went to Southwestern. And you've been a lawyer ever since? Well, more or less. More or less?

[32:17] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Okay, I want to hear my favorite stories. There's a couple of them, but I love hearing them when you say them. The first one. And I know I was here when this happened, but do you remember what happened when Wesley wouldn't clean up his room and you were babysitting. Yeah. Would you tell a story for us? Wes, get your room cleaned up. No. Wesley, do your room.

[32:44] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: He says, to be fair, how old was I at this?

[32:46] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: .4?

[32:47] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Just want to put that on the record.

[32:50] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I'm the prince, and the prince gets whatever he wants, and I don't want to clean up my room. I said, yeah, but I'm the boss, and you better clean up your room, Wes. He says, you're not the boss. I'm the boss, and you're fired. You're fired. That's what he said. And that was before Donald Trump should have copyrighted it.

[33:13] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Bottom line is, he did clean up his rooms.

[33:17] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: That's true. And, papa, when I was younger, I know I occasionally would have some trouble and give you some slack. Do you remember any good stories about me?

[33:29] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Oh, that's a very brief story. Jenna was being a little stubborn. Stinker.

[33:36] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: 18 months old.

[33:37] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: 18 months old. And I said, I just had it. And I said, jenna, I've had enough of this bullshit. And little 18 month old Jenna looked at me and said, grandpa, I don't do bullshit. And that's still the truth. I still throw that at her every once in a while.

[34:00] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Right. Okay.

[34:03] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: So I guess we'll venture off into the ether with a few questions. I kind of want to know what's changed and what's worth preserving. That might be a little bit vague, but you can have your take on it.

[34:19] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: You mean in general, in life, what's.

[34:22] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Changed and what just about our daily lifestyles and the world that me and Jenna are growing up in and the world that our grandchildren may.

[34:32] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: I think, for me, the most wonderful thing is we're all going on a family camp out in August. The entire family supposedly is coming, the children and the grandchildren, 17 of us. That's worth preserving. The unity and the closeness of our family and the feeling of wanting to be together and enjoying each other's company is, to me, the most important thing that we enjoy each other. We love to be with each other. We get a big thrill out of seeing all of the extended members of our immediate family and also all the big deals at Passover and at Hanukkah, the parties that we have. It brings that closeness. And to me, it just about kills me to serve 60 people for dinner and 40 people for brunch. But it's worth preserving, and it's worth the effort. I'm not going to say, papa, what do you think concerns you? What's changed that maybe. What concerns you about the changes that are happening the world?

[35:45] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, the changes that are happening in the world don't concern me. I'm worried about the future. But the future, historically, there have been major upheavals, major recessions, major situations. So long as we have peace, we don't have war. I'm not concerned about the future. What I am amazed about is technology. You kids take things for granted that we never envisioned. I look back at what has occurred. When I took engineering, my professor told us about this new device that they'd invented, they called a transistor, that they don't know what it does or how it works, but they think it's got tremendous potential. And what I've seen in technology has been such a dramatic change in the life that it's fascinating to me to see you guys dealing with it. You don't know any different. So I am very optimistic the future will be. So, real quick, if you had one piece of advice to give to us and to all of our cousins, what would it be? That's one for each of you. Please build good human relations. Ultimately, when all else fails or comes down to it, it's the human relation that talks. And that, in my opinion, is the most important thing, is your human relations. The rest of it will all fall into place.

[37:23] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Be good people and relate to your communities, but have your family as your first community as your first and most important connection. The same. Same as grandpa in a lot of ways. Okay. And I really want to thank you guys. You're so darling because you've come down twice, interrupted your very busy schedules, and it just makes me feel so, so good. It warms my heart. Thank you. I know. We want to thank you, too. It's always a pleasure to be here with the two of you and sharing your stories and keeping us laughing, because I think you have some incredible knowledge and wisdom to give us.

[38:12] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, I want to say one thing you didn't mention was building the MG, and that was a great opportunity to get to know Wes, and I really appreciated it, and I really had fun doing that with you.

[38:26] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: How long did it take?

[38:27] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Would you take about four years. Yeah.

[38:29] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Yeah. It was almost every weekend.

[38:31] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: It was almost every Saturday, and it was Wesley and Eden and Rodney. And I thought it was one of the greatest experiences of my life is dealing with my grandsons and my son, but primarily my grandsons at an entirely different level than I ever dealt with or been dealt with by my grandparents.

[38:54] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Yeah, definitely.

[38:56] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: Well, I want to thank you for that. Legacy. I really do feel like that was passing on a big torch in a real tangible sort of way. And that's what I'd also like to thank you for coming down here, is that we have all these opportunities to share stories at family gatherings and all, you know, so many different stories that get passed around. But we don't have that tangible nature to it. We don't have a chance to sit down and put it on tape.

[39:27] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Yeah.

[39:28] JOYCE FRUCHTER AND LEONARD FRUCHTER: And that's what we have here. And thank you for making yourselves available, not only today, but all the time.

[39:36] WESLEY PINKHAM AND JENNA PINKHAM: Thank you. Are we done?