This is a living history interview with Ralph Price, class of 1940, conducted by Marilyn Summers on April the 4th, the year 2002. We are at the Mark Building on the campus at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia. The subject of our interview today is Mr. Price's life in general, his experiences at Georgia Tech. Mr. Price, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to come and tell us your story. And all good stories start at the beginning. 

So tell me, where were you born and when? 

I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, August the 31st, 1919. An exciting time in Atlanta. What was the Price family doing here? 

My father was a projectionist in theaters. That is, he ran motion picture machines. My mother lived here with him. And were they born here? 

They were both born in New York. 

So he came here for the work? 

I have no idea why he moved to Atlanta, but he was presumably he was doing this kind of work exciting time in the motion picture industry that was prior to talking films yes it was a projectionist do you know what theater he worked at i know he worked at the earl theater in philadelphia i think the rialto theater as far as i can remember but i don't recall the names of any of the theaters that he worked at actually he became he joined the union the iatse international alliance of theatrical stage employees and he became the business agent of the union in atlanta which dealt with the exhibitors to provide them with projectionists to run the machines in their theaters very good very good did you have any brothers or sisters i had two sisters norma who was two years younger than me AND MY SISTER, HELEN BUNKIN, WHO LIVES IN BRIMINGHAM, ALABAMA. SO YOU WERE THE BIG BROTHER. I WAS THE BIG BROTHER. OKAY. 

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO GROW UP IN ATLANTA AT THAT TIME? 

WHAT WAS THE CITY LIKE? 

I GUESS I WAS LIVING AT HOME, GOING TO GEORGIA TECH. WELL, GO BACK BEFORE THAT. OH, MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS. YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE BORN IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA. 

SO WHAT WAS IT LIKE? 

WHAT'S YOUR EARLY MEMORY OF THE CITY? 

WHERE DID YOU GO TO GRADE SCHOOL? 

I WENT TO THE INMAN GRADE SCHOOL. I CAN'T THINK OF THE NAME. FOR A TIME, WE LIVED ON FOURTH STREET IN ATLANTA. THEN WE MOVED OUT TO A SUBURB. WHILE YOU WERE GROWING UP? 

YES. what was atlanta like as a town then do you remember anything about it do you have early memories of it well atlanta was not a big city at that time i remember the streets were narrow and the downtown area was not very large there were a few large department stores richards and davidson's there were some theaters there that were just coming into their own my father worked at some of those theaters and represented the operators and others but i didn't spend much TIME IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA. I WAS LIVING AT HOME AND GOING TO SCHOOL. WERE YOU A GOOD STUDENT? 

YES, I WAS NOT A BAD STUDENT. I WAS A GOOD STUDENT. SO YOU LIKED GOING TO SCHOOL? 

I DON'T EVER REMEMBER DISLIKING IT, SO I JUST ACCEPTED IT AND DID IT. IT WAS THE THING TO DO. 

DID YOU HAVE PART -TIME JOBS WHEN YOU WERE GOING TO JUNIOR HIGH OR HIGH SCHOOL? 

NO, I REALLY DID NOT. I LIVED AT HOME AND I DID NOT HAVE ANY JOBS ON THE OUTSIDE. 

HOW DID THE DECISION GET MADE THAT YOU WERE GOING TO GO TO COLLEGE TO GEORGIA TECH? 

I WENT TO TECH HIGH SCHOOL. THERE WERE TWO SCHOOLS THERE, TECH HIGH, NEXT DOOR TO BOYS HIGH SCHOOL, ALL RIGHT. 

I CAN'T THINK OF INMAN CIRCLE, I CAN'T THINK OF THE NAME OF THE ERA THAT WE LIVED AT, BUT IT WAS NEAR THE GRANDMAR SCHOOL THAT I WENT TO. OKAY. IT'S CALLED VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS NOW AND MIDTOWN, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER AT THAT TIME. I'm not sure of that. 

But I went to a Tech High School, and I did extremely well in high school. I was very much interested. I don't know why I went to Tech High School instead of Boys High School. Boys High School seemed to me more of the Jewish boys went to Boys High School. I hadn't been Jewish. 

But my father was a projectionist in the theaters, and I was looking for something technical, I guess assuming that I would be involved in technology. 

So I went to tech high school, and I excelled in mechanical drawing, never got less than an A or an A -plus in all my drawings while I was there, and in the shop courses, steam laboratories with engines and things like that. I always got very good grades, and I was very excited with all of that and did very well. 

I got involved in the military there and involved in the ROTC and became the captain of the rifle team and became the lieutenant and then a captain and then the colonel of the ROTC Corps. And when I graduated, I won medals for the best officer, for neatness and all these kind of things. 

Did you always know you were going to go to college somewhere? 

That was your plan? 

I assumed I would. I don't think I ever really thought much about it. 

But following my graduation from Tech High, I guess I went to Georgia Tech because it seemed to me two things. One, I think it was local. I could live at home. The tuition and fees were modest compared to other big colleges. 

And I guess because I had gone to Tech High School and Georgia Tech seemed to me an engineering college, and I thought that's what I really ought to do. Logical progression, right? 

Yeah. 

So I enrolled at Georgia Tech. Had you ever been to the school before? 

Were you familiar with Georgia Tech? 

Not really. Not really? 

I had seen it, but I wasn't that familiar with it. I had just driven by the campus a couple of times and knew what it looked like. It wasn't anything that... Were any of your friends going? 

No, I didn't have any friends, no. None of my friends influenced me to go there. 

I guess I just went there because they had a reputation as an engineering college, and I assumed that that would be good for me. And your dad approved? 

My dad approved, my mother approved. 

So, SO I ENROLLED IN GEORGIA TECH. WHAT YEAR WAS THAT? 1936. OKAY. AND WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION? 

CAN YOU REMEMBER? 

YEAH. I MADE A MISTAKE. ONE MISTAKE. WHAT AM I DOING HERE? 

BECAUSE IT WAS AS MUCH LIKE GEORGIA TECH AS LIKE MILK AS LIKE WATER. BECAUSE GEORGIA TECH WAS A HARD SCHOOL. AND I WASN'T WORKING WITH MECHANICAL DRAWING AND SHOPS AND ALL THIS KIND OF BUSINESS. 

I did join the ROTC there, but that was the only similarity between Georgia Tech and Tech High School. In Georgia Tech, I had a very difficult time with the courses. 

They were very complex, mechanics, calculus, courses of that type, which English, of course, I could write with. 

But most of the other courses were very tough for me to accept after my easy time through Tech High School. 

Now, you were a commuter student. Yes, I lived at home. 

So you not only had to spend time coming here and going home from here, you had to find time on your own for homework. Exactly. 

Now, I did make one colossal mistake at Georgia Tech as a freshman. 

I found myself a small red address book, and I kept a record of my grades, and they were not very good. It was a humbling experience. 

Well, it wasn't at all humbling until 17 years later my son, who was going to the University of Pennsylvania, found the **** book and said to me, you know, Dad, you're doing all these good things. You nearly flunked out of Georgia Tech. 

Well, it was... Two ladies had already seen the book. Yeah, par for the course. 

So you were challenged. I was challenged. What did you think of the professors? 

What did you think of faculty? 

I was impressed. The faculty was excellent. I worked hard. But, Ian, you didn't flunk out. You managed. Oh, no, I didn't. Oh, following my initial year, I got good grades. It was just that start. Oh, man, that was a tough start. I got very good grades the rest of my three years there. Took all the necessary courses, and some of them very technical. I did join a fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi, TEP, T-E-P. Did that help? 

Well, it made me a good social life. 

And I became a leadership role there and became the chancellor, the president of the fraternity, which I remained in for, I guess, a year or two, whatever it is, until I graduated. 

So the first year was very rocky while you got yourself in a position, but then after that it was not so bad. No, no. After that I got good grades, I graduated with good grades, really had no serious problems. It's that survival year that really gets you. Yeah, the survival year really killed me. 

Do you remember any professors at all from that period of time? 

Anybody you remember favorably or not favorably? 

I have some recollections, but my descriptions would not be appropriate or accurate, and so there's no point in my saying something that I'm not very pleased to be able to. They're all long gone. You don't have to worry about that. 

Oh, well, I remember for surveying the difficult course, I had Professor Lucas, but nobody called him anything but Filthy Lucas. That was his name. He went around with a vest on and always stains on it, and he was a filthy Lucas. 

But he was a nice guy, a very capable professor, and I just remember that. I think the names are so much fun and add so much color to the time. I had an English professor who was a reddish hair, little mustache. I can't remember his name. Was it Glenn Rainey? 

Glenn Rainey. That's the other name. That's funny. He was an interesting guy. I remember he wrote a – he had us write an essay about girls. And he said, nobody is to start their essay, girls as a whole. He says, that's forbidden. 

So that's all I remember. 

But I was very involved with the fraternity and ROTC, and we had one summer camp down at Fort Barrancas, Florida. It's right next to the Naval Air Station. It's not Fort Barrancas, right adjacent to it. 

And we went down there, and I was in a coast artillery unit, so we fired these very large sea coast guns at sea targets. Then we fired these three-inch anti -aircraft guns at sleeves that were towed by aircraft. 

And of course, we were firing at night, and we were firing up into the sky and the target was lighted from the plane, but you couldn't see anything and you were cranking these devices that kept the muzzle of this anti -aircraft gun trained on the sleeve which was being towed by the airplane which was maybe a couple hundred yards ahead of it. 

Unbeknownst to me and those under the cover, we couldn't see what was going on or what was happening, because the blast from the muzzle of the gun would be blinded, and you couldn't see it if you went under cover. And you couldn't see where the shells were going because you were under cover. 

But there were observers watching it. 

And you had to crank the device with two handles to keep it moving in an even They used to follow the plane, but all you could see under there was the dials on the turntable, which told you how fast you were moving and following it. 

What we didn't know is that obviously we were tracking the plane a little faster than the plane was flying, or the target was flying, and so we started, the bursts were going at the end of the sleeve and the beginning of the sleeve, then they were crawling up the sleeve, at which time the pilot cut the cord and flew away to **** with the target. He was afraid you were going to shoot him by the other side. No question about that. It could have happened. Yeah. It could have happened. At Fort Barancas, part of the training was in rifle shooting, which I did very well. Then part of it was shooting a.45 automatic ******, which intrigued me greatly. and there was a fellow named Harold Dye who was a friend of mine from Georgia Tech and who ultimately became in the war a general who negotiated with Sutherland North and South Korea and made a great name for himself. 

But he and I ended up as the two top scorers on the.45 Automatic ******. I've remained friendly with him from that day to this. 

In fact, while I'm here at Georgia Tech, I'M HERE, OF COURSE, WE HAD LUNCH AT THE BEGINNING OF THE WEEK HERE WITH A DOZEN GUYS THAT GRADUATED IN 1940 WITH ME. WE REMINISCED AND TOLD A LOT OF LIES TO EACH OTHER AND HAD FUN. IT WAS VERY NICE. GREAT. AND A LOT OF THEM WILL BE AT THE DINNER TONIGHT, SO WE CAN REMINISCE AGAIN. IT WAS VERY NICE. WELL, THE CLASS OF 40 WAS A VERY PRESTIGIOUS CLASS, BESIDES THEIR OWN DYE YOU HAD. We had Howard Ector, Bob Eisen, Roan Beard, Johnny *****, and Dutch Koneman. 

Now Dutch Koneman was with National Theatre Supply when I went to San Francisco with the same company. Oh, for goodness sake. It was a small world. It is a small world. 

But interestingly, when I went there, I was sort of homesick and cold because I came out there expecting California to be warm, but it wasn't. San Francisco wasn't so warm. And I had blue pants and short-sleeved shirts. Anyhow, I wasn't there very long before we had to take an inventory. 

It was a place that had a big warehouse and we had all kinds of things to inventory, you know, carbons and lamps and all the equipment it takes for a theater. And so we worked late one night, and I guess about 1.30 in the morning, that gentleman says, you know, we haven't had anything to eat. 

So he drove down to Fisherman's Wharf and he brought a bucket of shrimp, brought them back to the place, and he fired up the sterilization bucket that we used for parts that were repairing the machines, and he boiled the shrimp and had brought back a bottle of whiskey. 

So the four of us were sitting there eating shrimp and drinking whiskey when And Lloyd Oinby, the manager of the branch, came out to see how we were doing. 

Well, it was just a good joke. Nothing happened. He found out how good you were doing. He found out how good we were doing. He adjusted well. Let's go back to still your Georgia Tech times. You made some good friends, obviously. You're still good friends with some of the people you met there. As you were approaching the end of your academic career, we were approaching war. Right. 

How much of an impact did that have on you? 

Were you thinking about the war at all as you were coming into 39 and 40 as you were junior and a senior? 

Did that weigh heavy on you? 

No, it did not at all. 

So you were still oblivious and enjoying what you were doing at that time? 

Yes, I had no thought whatsoever about what was happening to the world or what might happen to me. None of this happened until I had moved to San Francisco and was living in the boarding house. 

So your time here at Georgia Tech was a happy time then? 

Yes. Yeah, a very happy time. I enjoyed it, got along very well, had no complaints. 

I told you I went down to the Orange Bowl, did I tell you that? 

Well, in my senior year, one of my classmates, my fraternity brothers, came from a wealthy family. He had a car. 

So Georgia Tech had won the Southeast Conference football trophy, and they were invited to play Missouri in the Orange Bowl. 

So his name was Ed Saul. He invited me to go down to Florida with him to see the Orange Bowl game. 

So we drove down in the morning, went to the football game, got in the car, and drove back to Atlanta. You're kidding. 

A round trip like that? 

That was the only day I was ever out of Atlanta until I graduated from Georgia Tech and went to San Francisco. Did we win? 

Oh, we won handily. It did very, very well. 

Well, that was good. It was a great game, and it was a good trip. 

So you came back to the campus. 

Did you know what you wanted to do with your degree as you approached graduation? 

Well, what had happened before I graduated, my father, who was, I told you, Projections and Theatres, a business agent of the union, ran into a man named Oscar Oldno, who had a son that went to Georgia Tech, and he had gone to Georgia Tech. And his family owned a chain of theaters in Atlanta. 

And he had become the president of a company called National Theatre Supply Company, was the Division of General Precision Equipment Corporation, which had a big manufacturing plant in New York that manufactured projectors, sound equipment, supplied rectifiers and motor generator set for theatres. And National Theatre Supplier was a sales organization. It was a national company, had branches all over the United States. 

So when he ran into my father, he was astonished that my father had a son at Georgia Tech, because he had gone to Georgia Tech. He says, when your son graduates from Georgia Tech, have him get in touch with me. I want him to come to work for my company. 

I think he will find a great future with my company and it will be very promising, and I'd love to have him. 

So three years later, my father says, you've got to get your sold off, wrote him a nice letter, got a rather prompt reply. I'm thrilled that you're going to join my company. I want you to go to work. 

What I think is the brightest man in the company who will teach you from the ground up all about our company so you can be able to success. His name is Lloyd Owenby, and he's manager of our San Francisco branch. 

So you didn't even have to be interviewed or anything. You had a job. Not a thing. Never met the man. Absolutely unreal. 

And so you were going to go from Atlanta, where you'd been all of your whole life, except for a little day off, all the way to the other end of the country to meet somebody you didn't know to work for a company. 

What I did first was to take a train to New York and meet Mr. Walter Green, Walter E. 

Green, MANAGER, WHO WAS THE PRESIDENT OF GENERAL PRECISION EQUIPMENT COOPERATION, A NICE, NICE, VERY STRAIGHT LACED MAN, BUT A LOVELY PERSON. 

MET HIM AND HE TOLD ME ALL ABOUT THE COMPANY AND ABOUT AND THEN I TAUGHT THE TRAIN TO GO TO SAN FANCISCO. BUT I WENT OUT THERE EXPECTING CALIFORNIA. I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT CALIFORNIA. AND I WENT OUT THERE WITH THESE SHORT SHORT SHIRTS AND GREEN PANTS, BLUE pants. 

I got to San Francisco, and I'm cold, but my parents had known a family that had bought an old Gold Rush mansion in San Francisco, Jackson and Broderick Streets, 2898 Jackson Street, and they had converted into a boarding house. 

It was a magnificent home with carved mahogany, balustrades, and it was a beautiful building, about five stories high, and the top was like a turret, like a castle. And that was my room. And I loved it. It was great. 

So I went there to see those people and they were very happy to have me. 

And so I still didn't have any clothes because they were still coming out on the railroad or something. 

But I met a girl who lived on the bottom floor and I went down to see her. I wanted to make a date or something with her, and I thought she had a Southern accent. 

So I was homesick with the South. 

So I said, oh, you're from the South. 

She got highly insulted, because the only Southerners she had ever seen, because she was born in the town of Danuba, California with a population of 2,000 or something like that. 

Well, Oakey is from Oklahoma who came out there with all their belongings on the back of a pickup truck. 

So I made a date with her and it was not long after that that we were having breakfast one morning in the boarding house with a beautiful place with mahogany trim and when the phone rang and somebody called me to the telephone and it was my friend Bob Schultz, who was a salesman for National Theatre Supply in San Francisco, who said to me, Ralph, do you have your radio on? 

I said, no. I said, why would I have your radio on? 

He says, we're at Walwood, Japan. 

Again, the Japanese are ******* Pearl Harbor right this minute, and the scuttlebutt is that they're coming next to San Francisco to invade. 

So I go back to my girlfriend and I said, nothing we can do about it, they're not here now, let's go out to the beach and take a look out at the ocean. 

So we went out to the beach and sat there several hours looking at the waves and looking at the distance of Japan, back to the hotel. 

Well, I had a commission in the reserves from Georgia Tech, but I had had an operation for a hernia. 

So I carried a projector up to the projection booth in the RKO Theater about three weeks before and I just had a hernia operation. 

So anyhow, what did I know about anything? 

I was called to active duty to go out to the Presidio to report. 

So my friend Bob Schultz, the submarine commander, gave me a beautiful saber with a red velour case, and so I took the sword and the saber and I packed up my things and I went out to the Presidio to report for active duty. 

What were you going to do with your saber, for goodness sake? 

Who knows? 

It wouldn't have made any difference because you get out to San Francisco and I report to the officer there. he looks at the records he says when did you have the surgery for hernia i said three weeks ago he says what are you doing that's ridiculous the the regulations say you can't report for six months it's a set minutes recovery period nobody wants to take your responsibility if you're having a problem with it i said you've got to be crazy i've been doing this for four years i did this at georgia tech and i started to carry on he got very upset he called the commanding general the guy I came in there and he says, young man, he said, that's no way to talk about the Army who was defending our country and so forth. I want you to apologize for the whole staff. 

So I had to apologize for the whole staff of the Presidio out there, after which they gave me a medical discharge. Before you ever really got in. And I was devastated. 

I understood sometime later that my unit went to Cregidor and I might have been with them, been captured by the Japanese. I don't know what happened, but I know that nobody would take me after I had this medical discharge. 

They didn't need to take the time to trouble to combat it or anything, so I never got to serve in the service. And I was absolutely beside myself. As primed and ready as you were. I was ready to go. 

So shortly thereafter, they had an opening at Nashville Theatre Supplier. 

I told you I was transferred to Los Angeles with Lloyd Ownby, and in Los Angeles he took me to the Ambassador Hotel. Did I tell you this? 

No. The Ambassador Hotel was the posh hotel in Los Angeles at that time. He takes me there one night. He takes me into a club called the Variety Club. It was an international children's charity, but I didn't know that. All I know was a variety club. It had a gold heart on the matchbook covers, a red heart, that said, the heart of show business. I'll tell you that story. 

So I was impressed with this thing. 

I took on the matchbook covers and this girlfriend that I met in San Francisco, I wrote her a note and told her I was in Los Angeles now and I joined this club and I sent her book matches. I didn't hear her. A week later I called her. I said, her name was Jessie Porton. I said, how are you? 

She said, I'm fine. I said, I haven't heard from you. She said, well, you don't need me. You can join that girly club. You don't need me. She thought it was a girly club. 

So I figured, well, maybe I'm making a mistake. 

So I went back to see her in San Francisco and proposed to her. 

And we got married in Fresno, and we moved to Los Angeles and lived in Los Angeles, trying to think of the address. Did you join the variety club that night? 

Yes, I joined the variety club that night. Got involved with a lifetime thing. We moved to Des Moines, Iowa. 

They didn't have a club in Des Moines, Iowa, so I was there for a year, but an interesting thing happened. 

In Des Moines, Iowa, the war was on, and projection and sound equipment were in very short supply because it was made in these high-precision plants, and the plants were being turned over to make munitions and more materials. 

So, I'm sitting there trying to make a name for myself in Des Moines, Iowa, and we had a manager of our branch in Memphis, Tennessee, the name of Bob Bostic, who had graduated from Georgia Tech. And I had met him at a manager's meeting in St. Louis not long before that. And he was a fascinating man. He was a salesman's salesman. He could talk a blue streak. He could talk to anybody. He was so involved in the business of selling projection sound equipment that he wouldn't stop. 

So I'm at this meeting with him in St. Louis with all the other branch managers. I was a young kid, been a manager for less than a year. and after the meeting the first day everybody gravitated to his room because he was he always had a trinket in his pocket a little pocket flashlight or something that keep your keys in whatever it was he always had a giveaway item for national theater supply and he was a real he was national 20 hours a day seven days a week so we're in his room and we're talking after after dinner, had some drinks, and the hotel room was full of guys. And one of the time they started to go to bed. And I'm talking with him and he's telling me how he sells. He says, when I am with a customer and I know he needs something, I have to sell him. 

He said, I get myself so worked up that as I'm trying to persuade him, his eyes change from eyes to silver dollars and he says i want them silver dollars and he said i'm not going to stop till i get them i listened to this thing i couldn't believe myself anyhow we're talking talking oh i realized what at the time these guys have been leaving it was seven thirty in the morning and the meeting started eight o'clock i said bob he says go shave we'll go we go to the meeting and anyhow and when the meetings came to a close we had a a luncheon to you know everybody got nice comments from what happened at the meeting. And they decided we were going to serve either a martini or a Manhattan before lunch. And they gave everybody a dup kit, you know, one of these little leather kits, a flat kit. You put your shaving stuff in lined with plastic or something. And they served for dessert, apple pile or mowed. And the drinks came around. 

I took a Manhattan and I noticed Roy Rosser, who was the manager of our Chicago office, a young, nice looking fellow with blonde hair, very, very straight -laced, very religious. I noticed he took a Martini. I thought to myself, I've got to watch this. I cannot believe he took a drink. I watched him. I said, he's at a different table. He took the toothpick that was in the martini, in the green olive. And he took it out, washed it in his glass of water, and then ate it. I thought I would wet myself. I just could not, I couldn't get over it. I've never forgotten it to this day. Anyhow, while all this is going on, I'm sitting at the table with Lloyd O. N. B., who is from Los Angeles, and Bob Bostic, my friend from HE WAS FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, AND BOB BOSTICK WAS A TEAM STILL, A JOKE STILL LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN YOUR WHOLE LIFE. SO LORD OWENBY HAD TO LEAVE THE TABLE FOR SOME REASON. 

AND I SEE BOB BOSTICK, HE TAKES HIS APPLE PIE, AND HE OPENS THIS BEAUTIFUL NEW LEATHER DOP KIT THAT WAS JUST GIVEN TO LORD OWENBY, AND HE GENTLY PUTS THIS SOFT APPLE PIE AND closes it down. 

Well, everybody was a little bombed, so I'm sure that Lloyd didn't know about it until later in the night or the next day when he wanted to shave, whatever it was. 

So you know, I'll tell you, I had a lot of fun. It's absolutely incredible, the funny things that have happened in here. 

So it wasn't long after that, oh, I'm in Des Moines, Iowa, and I say the equipment was very short supply. 

So I thought, I talked to Bob Bostic, and I said, Bob, what are you doing? 

He says, well, I sell popcorn. To who do these? 

I said, to the theaters. They pop popcorn in there. Popcorn machines that make more money off the end of it on candy. Besides, you can't get candy anymore because of the sugar and this thing. I said, where do you get the popcorn? 

Popcorn. He says, oh, G. C. Atkins. I remember that name, that's just 50 years ago. It's a popcorn grower in Shawnee Town, Oklahoma. And he grows popcorn, and I buy it from him in freight car loads, and the OPA ceiling price was $11.45, $11.95 a pound. He says, I can buy it for like $5.60 or something like that, a hundred pounds, whatever it is. I said, you've got to give me his telephone number. 

So I called Mr. Atkins. Mr. Atkins, I'm in Iowa. 

Now, Iowa is the popcorn capital of the world. 

I said, but right now, because I can't get candy, popcorn is a hot item and I'm having a hard time making any money because I can't get the equipment to keep it up. Would you say, oh yeah, I'll sell you popcorn. 

So he sold me a freight car load of popcorn, 800 bags of popcorn, that's a lot of popcorn. 

So I had a big warehouse in the back of my little office in space, so I brought the popcorn and put it back there. And I am selling it for 1195 or 100 pounds. 

I'm making very good money and all the exhibitors are very happy to do business with me and my branch is making a lot of money. 

I come in one morning about three weeks later and I had an elderly gray haired gentleman who was managing my warehouse. I'm sure he was not as old as I am now but I thought he was ready to die. You thought he was old then. Go ahead. 

So he's come to give you good news or bad news. He tells me, Mr. Price, that popcorn you bought is flying away. I said, what are you talking about? 

He said, you won't believe it. I'll show you. 

He opens the warehouse door and all these cute little things, little moths are flying all over the warehouse. I said, good God, shut the door. I go to Mr. G. C. Atkins in Shawnee Town, Oklahoma. Mr. Atkins, the popcorn is flying away. Oh, he says, not to worry. I said, what are you talking about? 

How can I sell the popcorn? 

He said, don't worry about it. I'll tell you what you do. You go to the drugstore and you buy six cans of carbon disulfide. Be sure you get just what I'm telling you. They're sealed cans and you go back to your warehouse. 

Before you go in the warehouse, you seal all the doors and openings except the one you go in, and you have some sealing material with you when you go in, so when you come out. 

You go to the farthest end of the warehouse and you pop open one of these cans until you have put six of them around, holding your breath the whole time. When you walk out the door, you pop the last can, shut the door and seal that. I said, what's going to happen? 

He says, the next day there ain't going to be any. I said, what's going to happen to them? 

He says, they're all perished. They're all gone. 

Well, how can you pop the popcorn? 

Oh, when you pop the popcorn, you're popping it in hot oil. 

They will be all cooked, and they'll be disappearing, and nobody will ever know them, and they have a lot of nourishment. 

I was like, oh my God, I sold thousands of pounds of red popcorn, and I made so much money that when in Philadelphia, RCA had seen in the success that National Theatre Supply had enjoyed opening branches nationally and selling equipment to these new theaters and theaters were being rebuilt and growing. They decided to open their first office in Philadelphia. 

Now the man that National Theatre Supply had originally bought his business because they had to buy all these businesses to form national organization. His name was Harry Blumberg. And he had the only real supply house in Philadelphia. There was one small one, didn't mean anything, didn't do any business. 

But he had sold out his whole business to National Theatre Supplier and he was the manager for National Theatre Supplier. And then when RCA came in, they hired Harry Blumberg to work for them. 

So they were facing a real disaster because he was Jewish. 

A lot of the exhibitors in Philadelphia were Jewish people, and they knew they were going to do a lot of business with him. 

So I guess that's really why they hired me to come to Philadelphia. 

Anyhow, come to Philadelphia, and I don't know any of this, but I knew that there was a man there named Jack Bereson who was the president of a company called ABC Consolidated Corporation, and that he did a lot of business with the theaters because he operated concessions in theaters. 

He put in there either vending machines or candy stands, and he provided them with candy, popcorn, other things that they sold, or he sold with his employees, and paid the theaters a commission. And the theaters were smart. They would make a deal with him to get money up front. 

He would loan them $200, $500, or $1,000, or maybe $20,000 dollars, and he would pay them a commission, and the commission would pay off the loan it made from him. 

What year was it that you moved to Philadelphia? 

Do you remember what year that was? 

How long had you been with National Theatre? 

Ten years? 

Not that long, really. 

You were with San Francisco? 

I would say until I got to Philadelphia that was probably maybe six years, I'd guess. 

So the war was over, but just? 

The war wasn't quite over when I got to fill it up. 

Okay, so it was still before 1945. I think so, yeah. Right around that area. 

So you were still coming into really still a war economy. We were still struggling with things. I think so, yeah. Toward the end of the war. Just so we have a good feeling for what what it was like. 

So I went to see this fellow, Jack Barrison, who owned this ABC company. I said, Mr. Barrison, I've got a problem. 

I'm having a hard time getting equipment and I really need to do some business in this territory, but I know that you have had this territory alter yourself with popcorn and I am not about to go in competition with you but if you would like to try this popcorn that i have a deal with mr atkins i'd be very happy to try it for you if i can save you some money that would be good for both of us so he he tried a carload of popcorn and it worked well the second car carload worked fine except he called me one day he says flying away well i said don't worry i can take care of it So he let me alone, and we sold a lot of hot coins. 

So you had a good business relationship. It went very good, and I made a lot of money. 

Now, in Philadelphia is when I was active with the Variety Club of Philadelphia. Yeah, because you'd had a little time there where there wasn't one in Des Moines. That's right. Tomorrow. 

So I rejoined the club in Philadelphia. And I became very active with them then. I HAD A LITTLE BIT ABOUT VARIETY CLUB. YOU HAVE TO BE IN THE THEATER BUSINESS TO JOIN IT? 

NO. NO? 

IT'S SPONSORED BY THE THEATER BUSINESS? 

I'LL TELL YOU A STORY. OKAY. TELL ME A STORY. A MAN NAMED JOHN HARRIS OWNED A CHAIN OF THEATERS IN PITTSBURG, CONSOLVANIA. A LARGE GROUP OF THEATERS. HE WAS A VERY ASTUTE MAN, BEEN IN THE INTERNATIONAL MANY YEARS. 

And one of the theaters he owned was the, I'll think of the name of it a minute, okay, Sheridan Square Theater. It's like a server of Pittsburgh. And he had a good organization and was doing a lot of business. 

And the manager of the Sheridan Square Theater, after the theater closed at night, would go up to the William Penn Hotel, and there were a number of people from the entertainment industry, who were in nightclubs and other entertainment music halls, who would come up there and they would talk shop occasionally where they played bridge or something or poker, I don't know what they did, and they would just talk shop. 

One night the manager of the Sheridan Square Theater comes up there in a panic and he says, says, I've got a problem. He says, a woman left a baby in my cry room in my theater tonight. This was in 1927, 28. And he said, there's nothing there but a note. Her name is Catherine. She says I have seven other children. 

My husband is unemployed and I can't care for this child but I know the people of show business have great hearts and I pray that you will take care of my daughter Catherine, the Sheraton Square Theater. 

So he says, I don't know what to do, he says, you know, this is a terrible thing, but we certainly cannot betray this woman's confidence. 

So they took the baby and he says, I'm going to take it to my home for a couple of weeks to see what happens. 

Well, for a while they were taking this child to their different homes to take care of this baby. While they were looking, they put paper, ads in the paper and everything. 

And finally, Walter Winchell at that time was probably the biggest known radio commentator in the world. And he heard about this story. And he advertised this thing internationally, looking for this mother of this child who never... 

She called from time to time, from PlayStation phone, to inquire about the welfare of the child, but she never betrayed her name or anything. anything. 

Well, after some time they figured this is not fair, this child will never have a home, a family. 

So they tried to find a family that would take this child, that would take care of it and adopt the child. And we didn't know who it was, but someone did adopt the child. And we lost complete track of the woman. 

Now the only two people who knew the child or anything about it, was the manager of Sheridan Square Theatre and one other executive of John Harris's theatre chain, who died sometime later, so it was the only one man they knew. 

And the group of men that would meet one night a week from the various entertainment industries got together and said, you know, this is before they put the labor for adoption, we've got to do something to raise money to take care of that child. 

So they decided to have a dinner in the William Penn Hotel. 

And they took the ballroom, but they didn't have many people, they thought they may have a hundred people at a dinner. 

So they pitched like a circus set in the middle of the ballroom. 

And they put some side shows around, strong man and all this kind of business and the woman with the beard or whatever it is. 

They put sawdust on the floor and they said, you know, we're going to use the terminology of the circus. 

This will be tent number one and whatever chapters will be tent number two, three, four and the president will be the chief Barker and the assistant will be the second assistant as the First and Second Detention Chief Barker, and the treasurer will be the dough guy, and the secretary will be known as the lawyer will be called the fixer. They use those names. And the members were all Barkers. And a close friend of mine was active, he was the vice president of the company, George Eby. Anyhow, I'm in Philadelphia and this is all going on and we had the variety club in Philadelphia. And somehow or other, either I was in Pittsburgh, I met John Harris. We got very friendly with him. He was a real character. He came to visit me in Philadelphia one time. He comes over there. He has a knapsack on his back. He's very distinguished, very, very wealthy man. Comes over there with, what do you call, corduroys and a shirt. He was dressed apart, but he was a real showman. Anyhow, finally Rosalia found the home, found a family to take this child. The man was a retired Navy man and and his wife had some children, and they adopted this baby. 

But nobody knew they could not find out who did it. We finally had an executive director many years later who broke his behind trying to find something. 

Then when he died we had another executive director who got smarter and he went to all the records and he looked through the records until he found the adoption of a child the year that this baby was born. And fifty years later we found this woman. We had her to a convention, and she told the whole story. 

And that was the beginning of how the Variety Club got married? 

Well, the Variety Club was started in the beginning, when they found the child and started to raise money. Then other... Then they found many, many places to go with the money. They were good fundraisers, and it took off... Not just Pittsburgh. 

Other people, you know, there was camaraderie in the motion picture business, because film was distributed from Los Angeles. Not from Los Angeles, from film distribution centers all over the United States. 

Every film center had a distributor, somebody that delivered the film to the theaters, a sales manager in each territory, a salesman, and they had offices. 

So, wherever there was a film center, we opened up a variety club. We delivered variety clubs all over the United States. 

So you had them everywhere? 

Then we opened up in England, in London, opened up in Tel Aviv. In fact, I'll finish So I'm very active in Philadelphia. I've become the Chief Barker. You have a tie on that. It's got hearts all over it. Is that a variety of ties? 

They gave me this in London. We had a meeting over there. My wife and I were over there at a variety convention. And after the convention, we were invited to No. 10 Downing Street to have tea with Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his wife. 

Now that was, you know, pretty You eat the hot, pretty hot in the hog. And Prince Philip was active with our organization over there. 

And while I was the International President, some years later I didn't tell you this, I took a trip around the Western Hemisphere with Lord Louis Mountbatten, going to various cities and having dinners in his honor to raise money for our various variety club tents. And the whole idea was just to promote it and expand it as much as you could. That's right. We now have tents all over the world. All over the world. And it's all to raise money for children. We've raised millions and millions of dollars for handicapped children. Handicapped children. Yeah, underprivileged, whatever the illness may be. 

We are not confined to a single disability or disease, just whatever the need may be in whatever city. 

Now, in Philadelphia, we built a camp for handicapped children out near Norristown, Pennsylvania, a magnificent camp. It's worth millions of dollars. 

We have kids there all summer, every summer, with an indoor swimming pool, outdoor swimming pool, school, all kind of facilities, basketball, they have wheelchairs and they can play basketball in wheelchairs, all this kind of business. 

Now the people that support Variety Club inevitably are show business people. 

In the beginning they were all show business people, but the industry has changed so dramatically that the people originally were independent theatre owners, which owned a theatre in every little city. 

Now they've formed national companies that own chains of theatres, so our membership membership is no longer the same class of membership we had before. 

But our fundraising has been more sophisticated. We started at one time having telethons. We had telethons at Philadelphia. We would raise a million or two million dollars a year on just a telethon. People called in to make our countries for a pledge. 

Then I started, well, maybe fifty years ago, to get the Philadelphia Inquirer to print a special edition called the Handicap Edition, the Happiness Edition. And we sell it on the streets and we get law firms and other organizations. I'm on the board of the First Dressed Bank. I've been on there for, I think I told you, 40 years. And I was on the executive committee and all that. And I got the bank to support. The bank will give me maybe $15,000 or $20,000 to support that old Newsboys Day. And they get publicity for doing it and so forth. 

So the tents all over the world raise money in whatever means they can. 

Now, our tent in London conceived the idea of a little gold heart so it says wear your heart on your sleeve and you buy this heart for two or three dollars and it's a beautiful gold rivalry they put a different model and we sell hundreds of thousands of all over the world to raise money for the children there's lots of different fundraising means to raise money for children the first heart you saw was on the match box back in 1942 43 that's right and now you're wearing a tie that's filled with I was with National Theatre Supply in Philadelphia and started doing business with Jack Barrison, selling him popcorn to the theatres. 

He became very impressed with my integrity and what I was able to do for him and my knowledge of people in the theatre business. 

I became very friendly with an awful lot of them and I was a young man at that time and And there were two men I was very impressed with. One was the name of Jay Emanuel who published a magazine called The Exhibitor. 

It was distributed to all people that owned theaters in the United States and particularly those in the Philadelphia area because of a big, big center and the film distribution center there. 

The other was Uncle Ben Amsterdam who got a pioneer in the motion picture business going back many, many years. And he had a lot of interest in theaters in the Philadelphia area. 

Well the two of them were very fond of me and they helped me an awful lot. 

So at the time that I was doing business with his Jack Bereson, it was ABC Consolidated Corporation, one day he called me and said, I want to see you have lunch with you. I went down to see him. He told me that his vice president had resigned to go form another independent company. 

And he said, I really have admired the way you handle yourself and I'd like you to come to work with my company as a vice president and join the board. 

Well, I talked to Jay Emanuel and Ben Amson, who knew this whole situation. They said, he's a wonderful man, a lot of integrity, very bright and very sharp. You do a world of good to join him. 

So I left National Theater Supply, and this man, old-known that had hired me originally, I had to write him a nice letter and tell him I felt very bad after all he had done for me, but that this was an opportunity I couldn't afford to pass up. 

So I joined ABC Consolidated as the vice president, and I proceeded to do extremely well with that company, managing branches all over the East Coast and building up their business. 

And it happened that about that time the business was moving from vending machine sale of candy and popcorn to over -the-counter sales. 

And my manager in Baltimore lived next door to a man the name of Daniels, who had a company down there that manufactured kitchens. And he was a very bright fellow, very artistic, and he said, I think he could make us candy stands. His name was Elmer Daniels. 

So I called him. He came up to see me. 

And sure enough, he was very enamored of the idea, and he started to design not just candies, but some beautiful enclosures with canopies over the top, down lights, and popcorn over the counter. That's how that all started then, huh? 

That's how it all started. And we started to build a big, big business. It was a fascinating story, and it really built a tremendous amount of business for us. 

Of course, in addition to theater business, we had concessions in ballparks, racetracks, industrial plants, and it was a big, big public company, ABC Consolidated Corporation. 

And there was a man in New York who handled the concessions for RKO theaters, and he had a big theater in New Orleans that I had seen, and he said, I want you to go down there and see if you can design me a beautiful candy stand for that theater. 

So there's Elmer Daniels, my friend. I said, Elmer, I want you to go to New Orleans with me and let's, I'm going to tell you a story. You're not going to want to print, but I'll tell you the story anyhow. 

So we go to New Orleans and I said, we stayed in the Roosevelt Hotel. I said, Elmer, I want you to go take a look at the Archeo Theater, which we did. And he drew some plans and he was going to come up with some beautiful, he said. 

So afterwards it's late in the evening we had dinner down on bourbon street and and new orleans food is very good so we go into a strip joint because it said on there this girl does a strip in the shower so we go in this bar and we're sitting at the bar well if you knew new orleans in those days the girls would be on the stage they would strip they would come down and they want to have you buy them drinks well they were drinking tea or whatever it was didn't make any difference And this girl comes out in the window, stripped, he saw her stripped in the shower, comes to the bar. 

Well, Elmer gets all excited with this girl, and he's buying us some drinks, and it's getting late later in the night. I said, Elmer, it's getting late. I said, it's 11 o'clock. I've got to go tomorrow to go back to Philadelphia, and you've got to go back to Baltimore. 

He said, well, look, Ralph, this girl likes me, and she says, you go back to the hotel, and I'll join you there not too long. I said, Elmer, I think you're crazy, but it's okay with me. 

I went back to the hotel, and I go back to the room, and I thought, I can't believe what's going to happen here. 

But anyhow, I went to bed, and I'm sound asleep, and all of a sudden, the door opens, and Elmer is there. 

I said, where's the girl? 

Oh, he said, she had to work later but she's coming up here i said it's okay with me if she comes up here i'll excuse myself or something so in the meantime elmer goes takes a shower and he powders himself up and he puts on his pajamas he gets ready to go to the bed he has a pint bottle of whiskey i think he had some other accoutrements that he would need if the girl come up there so he puts on the side of the bed then he gets up again and takes off his his pajamas off and he's laying in the bed. I fell asleep, thank God, finally. All of a sudden, all I know is my bed jumped up and down. I said, Elmer's at the door. 

What he had done? 

He had jumped from his bed to my bed, bounced off my bed to go to the door, to open the door. There was nobody there. I said, Elmer, he says, Ralph, I know she's coming up here, but I've got to leave. I've got to catch this early. I plan to go back to Baltimore. I said, well, ELMER, I'LL TAKE CARE OF HER BEFORE SHE SHOWS UP. HE WAS ABSOLUTELY CRUSHED. ANYHOW, HE LEFT. 

SO I THOUGHT TO MYSELF, NOW, YOU KNOW, RALPH, YOU'VE GOT TO BE A GOD **** FOOL IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING WITH THIS. THIS IS TOO RIPE TO LET IT ROT ON THE GROUND. SO I WROTE A LETTER TO ELMER DANIELS. I WROTE IT WITH MY LEFT HAND. 

And I said, Elmer, I cannot tell you how crushed I was when I got back to the hotel and you had already left. 

But your friend was so kind, he let me spend the rest of the night there. We had a lovely time together. 

I don't want you to feel bad, but I just feel so terrible that you left before I got back there and I'll never forget you. 

She said, I'm hoping one day I'll be able to come up your way, and if I do, I will certainly get in touch with you. I mailed this letter. Never heard from Elmer Daniels. 

So then I thought to myself later, a few weeks later, I was going to be in North Carolina so I mailed Elmer a postcard. Elmer, I'm on the way, I cannot tell you how excited I am at the chance. You're going to be a real son of a ***** to do this, but that's what I did. And I don't hear from Elmer Daniels. 

I thought, man, one day this is going to kick me right in the behind, I know, but I didn't say anything. About a year and a half later or something, I forget what happened. 

I said, oh, I said, Elma, whatever happened to that girl, I said, we had her name there, I knew the name, because I signed her name and everything. He said, what are you talking about? 

I said, the girl that came back to the room. 

He said, what girl that came back to the room? 

I said, you know, the one in the shower, all this kind of business. You know, he finally put two and two together, wheedled out on me most of this story. I thought he was going to kill me. He says, my wife was ready to kill me, throw me out of the house, the whole thing. She saw the cards. Something, whatever. He had to confess it, whatever it was. It was absolutely unbelievable. Anyhow, I'm still with ABC Consolidated. And so you were doing these to theaters all over the country. Oh, yeah. We have operating concessions all over the country. Big business. It was a public company. way. 

So then I go to New York with ABC. 

My office is still in Philadelphia, but I went over and met the people that were the head of the company in New York. And we had a lot of other concessions that I was interested in, and it went very big. 

But then I cannot remember what happened and why. I finally retired from ABC. 

But not for long. 

Well, when I left ABC, I'm trying to think what in the world did I do? 

Well, didn't they merge? 

They sold out? 

Oh, excuse me. They sold out the company to the Ogden Corporation. Right. And you went with them? 

I went to the Ogden Corporation, the president of Ogden for some time. Then the Ogden Corporation got into some big trouble. 

The man that had really founded the company, a very wealthy man, retired and he put his son in as president. 

Now, the son used to work for me when I was the president of ABC, Ogden Foods. He was not that capable a man, but they made him the president of Ogden Corporation. Not a lot of stock. Thank God I gave some of the stock to Georgia Tech before they blew up the company. 

And this guy finally really ruined the company, ended up with the company changing hands, bankrupting Ogden, and they had acquired another company that was exploring for oil in Europe and put up a lot of plants over there, trashed to steam plants, and I had some stock in that company which has now gone out of business. 

So it was not a happy ending financially for it, but I didn't suffer. I had a wonderful experience, and I think that's the last. 

So you took a retirement, but it was a short-term retirement again. Yeah, exactly. I still had a pension from the company, which I still have, not a big deal, but it's a pension. I continued my other activities with the Variety Club. 

I'm still involved with the Variety Club, and two weeks from now I'll be going down to Palm Desert, California, to a convention where, you know, I've been to all the conventions for all these years. You both know a million people all over the world. Yeah, I've had a lot of wonderful people that I've had friends with. 

But you weren't content to just be retired. No. Another company caught your eye. Well. How did you get involved with Medic PRM? 

Oh, yeah. 

How did that come to your attention? 

Oh, I was on the board of Hahnemann Hospital, and I was chairman of the board of the Lyckoff Cardiovascular Institute there. And the chief of cardiology, Bernie Siegel, was a good friend of mine. 

And I would go to their cardiology updates and I would go to watch surgery sometimes and very impressed. And I was consulting for a food service company up in Boston. 

And one One day Bernie Siegel says, Ralph, you know, you're a cuckoo, why are you cocking around with a food service business when you're a frustrated doctor, you go to the cardiology updates, why don't you get in the health care field? 

I said, who's going to hire me in the health care field? 

He says, why don't you call Bernie Corman? 

Never heard the man's name. I said, okay. Two weeks later, he said, you call him, I said, we'll call him tomorrow. I go to the telephone and I find out, who in the **** is Bernie Corman? it. I found out he owns a company in Pensauken, New Jersey. I'm in Philadelphia, Pensauken, New Jersey. 

It sounded like to me he was in the woods of South Africa someplace, although I've been to South Africa. 

So I finally found who he is. I call him on the telephone, tell him who I am. He said, why don't you come have lunch with me? 

I said, I'd love to. I go over to Pensauken, New Jersey. I finally found the **** place. I dropped to this building. it was the most magnificent building you ever saw it had curved walls and not full height walls about three quarters of a wall and the whole ceiling was all blacked out and these walls were all outlined in blue neon the place was plush, plush, going to the boardroom where I had lunch with him it was curved walls and beautiful tables it blew my mind I said, where did you get this he said, we designed this building building. It was an abandoned post office warehouse. 

One of my companies, he says, designs and develops hospitals and medical facilities, and they put this together for me. It was beautiful. We had a nice lunch. Lefty said, you know, I've got a small company that's not doing well at all. You might have fun managing it for us if you're interested in it. He said, come see me again. 

So I went to see him again. He showed me all about the company. 

He was losing about, I guess, $100,000 a year and doing maybe a million dollars or something like that. 

So I said, and they didn't have employees. 

The guy that had found it was a doctor, a young doctor, who operated at a Hahnemann Hospital under the water. And one day a guy comes in with a punctured lung from a stab wound or something. He didn't have a ventilator. He said, no, doctor, this is asinine. Let's go buy a window and rent it to him. He did that and then he started. He still didn't have enough money to start a big business. 

So he had some friends and he would put them on as a distributor in New York and in White Plains, New York and in Cleveland. And he would lease a van for them to drive these ventilators. 

He would lease the ventilators from the manufacturer, put them in the offices, and these people would go out and rent the ventilators to hospitals, charge them a fee for the rental, and he would pay these people a commission on what rental it was. 

So I said to Bernie Corman, I said, Bernie, it sounds like it would be fun. He So he gave me a job to run that company. 

So I stayed in Philadelphia and I would go to my office over there and I realized right away that I couldn't operate that way. 

So I canceled all the lease deals and I paid these guys salaries and put them on a commission basis so they would make money. And I bought the vans and I built up a big business for that company. And it was definitely needed. It was a niche business. it was a niche business. 

And there were a lot of other products that we could rent as well as the ventilators, and we had a warehouse to do it in. 

So I ran that business for I guess about seven years. 

However, when I joined the company, he had just hired a new executive vice president, a man who didn't know anything about the business. 

But he said, you know, Ralph, I want to give you a contract, a five-year contract, but I was already 62 years old when I started. 

So he said, and I want your contractors to say you've got to hire a replacement for yourself before the five years is up so we have a continuity. 

So I agreed to it foolishly. And five years plus five more years. 

So sure enough, after about four years or five years or something, there was a lot of changes in the whole business. And he said, I think we really ought to put a younger man. I said, that's over to me. 

So I had a pension, whatever WHATEVER IT WAS. SO I LEFT THE COMPANY, AND I GUESS THAT WAS THE LAST PAYING JOB I HAD BY THE TIME I... MR. PRICE, NOT BEING ON SOMEBODY'S PAYROLL DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE RETIRED. YOU'RE STILL A VERY BUSY BOY, TRAVELING AROUND FOR A VARIETY CLUB. YOU'RE INVOLVED IN SOME OTHER CHARITIES, TOO. TELL ME ABOUT THAT. 

Well, actually, with Variety, I retired as international president in Los Angeles, and it was quite a gala occasion. And President Ronald Reagan, who was a wonderful man, and he spoke eloquently at my dinner. 

I continued on with the March of Dimes, and I was serving on the board of the March of Dimes, and we were very close with Jonas Salk, who developed the Salk vaccine, and we had occasionally a board meeting, and on the board was Jimmy Roosevelt, Beverly Sills, a lot of very important people that I got very friendly with over the years, and we occasionally had a board meeting at the Salk Institute which the March of Dimes had helped to fund for like fifty million dollars when it was being built to fight polio and other diseases and Jonas Salk was a wonderful man and I got very close with him and we had board meetings out there and one of the board meetings he said if a few of you would like to stay afterwards I have a new associate I'd like you to meet and hear out, because he's a charming young man, and I think you would enjoy hearing him. 

So sure enough, the meeting was over. 

Jesse and I stayed, and Francis Crick came into the room and explained on the stage how he and his partner had discovered the helix of DNA, the source of all human life. Pretty exciting stuff. It was very exciting stuff. It was a charming man. 

Even Jesse could understand what he was saying and she's not at all attuned to anything technical but it was a wonderful experience and we enjoyed it very much all of this time that you've given away you've gotten great rewards from oh more than you ever could ever imagine it has really given me a wonderful feeling of doing something for the less fortunate people or for helping other causes and I've just enjoyed the the heck out of it mr price tell me about your family well i my wife is a remarkable woman she's uh this is now uh april the third fourth on april the 18th we will be married 59 years wow congratulations and thank you and she's just a small person takes after her mother her mother was a wonderful woman she's been your life's companion absolutely absolutely she's remarkable she loves everybody never forgets anything she's got a remarkable memory like you have never heard in your life two years ago in los angeles because her family is all in california from walnut creek all the way down to san diego and two or three times a year i'll fly out there with her we'll We'll take the car and we'll drive up and down the coast visiting all of her family. And it's just a remarkable experience to be with her. 

And how about your children? 

My children, my son Michael is at 54 years old, 55 years old, and he owns Cherry Hill Medical in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. 

It's a home care company that provides medical equipment for people at home, and he is remarkably capable of providing probably even paraplegics with the equipment that they can't speak, but this equipment using either high-tech sip-and -puff machines of getting around, opening doors, things of this kind. And he deals with a lot of hospitals who have an enormous amount of faith in him. 

And he has probably two children, a son who is brilliant, who went to the University at Pennsylvania and the Wharton School simultaneously, graduated with a 4-0 average from each one. And what's his name? 

His name is Daniel. Daniel, okay. 

Daniel was in first Boston with a consulting company, another two or three years, liked it, but finally got bored and was offered a position with a new start-up company in Los Angeles, to San Francisco, called Stamps.com, which was posted to the internet. THAT. HE WENT OUT THERE AND THEY OFFERED HIM 15,000 SHARES OF STOCK ON THE OPTION. 

WELL THE MARKET AT THAT TIME WENT FROM $4 A SHARE TO $80, $90 A SHARE AND ONLY LOST MONEY ON THE STOCK WITH HIS GRANDFATHER, ME. 

BUT HE DIDN'T MAKE ANY MONEY ON IT BECAUSE HE GOT DISILLUSIONED WITH WHAT THEY WERE DOING AND LEFT THE COMPANY. 

BUT BEFORE HE LEFT, THE PRESIDENT BEFORE HIM HAD RETIRED, HAD GONE TO SCOTLAND AND and called Daniel to come over for a couple of months and help him work through some of the problems he had with the company, which he did. What the other child would be? 

The other child would be Jenny. And Jenny does what? 

Jenny is as remarkable as her brother is right. She went to the University of Pennsylvania, graduated, and she's now 24 years old. 

And she had a lot of interviews, went to work for Price Waterhouse because she could stay in New York. 

So she got an apartment in New York, and she stayed with them for a couple of years, but they kept flying her around the country to visit some of their offices. They were happy with her, but she was not happy with the travel. 

So she said, Pop-Pop, I really want to make a move. I'm going to go look around. 

So she found a company called Lend -Lease. I don't know where she got the name, but she went to see them in New York, and she called me. She said, Pop-Pop, tell me something. I have a problem. I want to discuss it with you. I love that company. I like those people. they're the brightest, sharpest people I ever met. They're a big company. 

But she said, they didn't offer me what I think the job or what I'm worth. 

Well, how do you think I ought to handle it? 

Well, I gave her some modest thoughts, although I really didn't think how you could approach that job. I never had it myself. 

But she must have talked to four or five other smart people. She calls me a month later. She said, I know what I wanted. I called them up, made a date with them yesterday, went over there, and they paid me what I wanted. 

So she started to work over there. 

Well, she had been very happy with that group, and on the weekends she met a young man who was providing tour service to tourists who came to New York, taking them to the restaurants and the food service places in the village area. 

And he's a charming young guy, so she made a deal that she would work with him on Saturday or Sunday and go out to ****** some of these tours around. 

But when we were in New York, we went to see her. She took us on a tour. How nice. Oh, my goodness. The people on the tour love that girl. She eats out of their hands. Anyhow, it's gone extremely well. Not today, but your daughters. Oh, wait. Let me finish with Jenny. 

So one day I'm on the board of the First Trust Bank. I think I told you that. I've been there for 40 years and I'm on the executive committee. 

So one day, Jenny says to me, you know, Papa, yesterday I went to the conference call with one of my clients, and Richard Green was the president of Fresh Dress Bank. 

His grandfather put me on the board, and his father kept me on the board because I helped him acquire the bank. And I said, let me find out what it's about. 

So we had a board meeting, too. I said, Richard, tell me something. Jenny tells me she was on a conference call with you last week. 

What in the world would you be talking about together? 

Oh, he says, it's about Six Penn Center, a great big downtown office building in Philadelphia. He says, we own 25% of that building. That's the Fresh Trust Bank, which they own 100% of. And Lend Lease owns 50%. 

I said, what kind of company is Lend Lease? 

Oh, he says, it's the biggest real estate operating company in the world. They headquarters in Sydney, Australia. I said, I cannot believe you. And my little granddaughter, 25 years old now, is working with that company, in. They love her. It's amazing. She took a page out of her granddaddy. 

Well, she's done more than that. It's amazing. And my third grandchild is my granddaughter Julie, who's my daughter, Carol's daughter. She lives in Los Angeles. And I told you she had been on several of these soap operas, acting. 

But she got a little disillusioned WITH IT BECAUSE IT WASN'T A LONG-TERM CONTRACT. SO SHE HAS STARTED WRITING. AND SHE WRITES NOW SOME THINGS FOR DISNEY, A COUPLE OF CARTOONS AND THINGS. SHE'S NOW WRITTEN A FILM. SHE'S TRYING TO MARK IT RIGHT NOW. GREAT. SO WE'LL SEE HOW SHE DOES. MEANTIME, SHE'S STILL SINGLE. SHE'S 27, LIVES IN L. A. TELL ME ABOUT CAROL. My daughter Carol is a psychologist. She works out of her house. Her husband is with the government handling transportation both in Philadelphia and nationally. 

So she lives in Pennsylvania? 

She lives in Philadelphia, not far from us. How about Patricia? 

Patricia lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. 

She was married, and she had a lovely husband, But for some reason, they decided they were bad enough apart. They're still very close friends, but they're still apart. 

And she is a psychologist working with underprivileged children, boys and girls, who are sort of homeless. And there's an institution there that they live in, and she treats with these kids and handles them. And she's very happy with it. She has her own home, and she's a beautiful home. She takes a page out of your book, too? 

Boy, more than that. 

Now, about 40 years ago, I took my son, Michael, on a trip, but just the two of us. We went down to the Caribbean, we spent a week, you know, snorkeling and all this kind of business. 

So I thought, every 40 years is a good thing to do, so I invited him to another cruise. Every 40 years. 

So his wife found the cruise he wanted to go on, a five-day cruise. We flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico, aboard this beautiful ship. I said, Now, Daniel, Michael, I said, You know, we have to go on some excursions. You just can't stay on the ship and eat and get fat. He is a nut with exercise. He can lift weights heavier than me and you put together. He's unreal, and he's very small but very strong. 

So we go on this beautiful ship, and we had a lovely five-day trip. 

And while we were going to go, I said to Jesse, You want to go visit Patricia? 

So she got on the plane. 

She flew up to Pittsfield, Massachusetts and spent the time we were gone with our daughter Pat, had a wonderful, wonderful time. We came back. 

However, on this cruise, the first day we went to Antigua and they had a catamaran that you could book to go on. 

So I said, let's go on the catamaran, we'll go snorkeling. 

So it was a lovely young couple that owned the catamaran, so the ship put us on that thing. We went out. We sailed for a couple of miles. Then they anchored offshore where there was a couple of caves and some coral reefs. 

So we got put on the snorkel and fins and masks and everything. We'd go on the water for an hour and a half, had a wonderful time. Come back on the boat and this young couple was so nice. They said, look, we've got rum drinks or straight rum, whatever you want. 

So I had myself two or three rum drinks. 

The next thing I know that's a young man, a nice -looking young man, holding up his hand is, how many fingers do I have?" I was laying on the deck. 

I said, how in the **** did I get on the deck? 

So I told him how many fingers it was and he felt me around and he says, okay. 

My son comes up and he said, man, did you take a- I said, what did I do? 

He said, you slipped on the edge of the deck and you took a complete somersault and you fell flat on your face on the deck. He said, I wonder you didn't break something. I didn't even feel bad. Although, a few days ago, I was black and blue from my shoulder. And later, you did. 

So I didn't drink any more rum. Stay away from the rum, that's for sure. And this was just recently. Oh, this was just three or four weeks ago. Oh, my goodness. And anyhow. You must have a high tolerance for pain with your hernia operation, and now you're falling. Here you are. Unbelievable. 

So anyhow, we had a wonderful trip, and we... Are you going to do that again in 40 years? 

I told you, yeah. Stand by. Mr. Price, you're here at Georgia Tech. You had a wonderful tour today. You said it wasn't the same school. I could not imagine anything as fantastic as what has happened to Georgia Tech. When I left here, it was a small college, and I knew everything about it. I could go everywhere. I knew what was going on and everything. I knew all the professors. There were no real laboratories. There was no testing thing of anything. 

Then we had the aeronautics department where they had the first helicopter and all this kind of business. I was fascinated with that. 

But today, I was absolutely dumbfounded. Not only that, they're still building buildings over here like crazy. It's an enormous college now, one of the biggest colleges I've ever seen. And the people here are the most highly tech, intelligent, brilliant people I have ever known. and i i could not tell you how impressed i was with everything we saw it's a pretty exciting place to be a fantastic place to be and and my wife who had really not seen much attack was very impressed with all the people we saw they had a lovely luncheon for us today and tonight they're having this dinner i'm going to have to repeat some of the things i've told you so they don't think we'll call it a rehearsal you did a good job going through your rehearsal thank you very Thank you very much. 

So tonight you will receive a recognition from Georgia Tech, which we are proud to call you our own. Thank you. 

We're glad you're a rambling wreck, and we're glad you were willing to come and share your story with me today. It's quite a story. 

Well, you are very kind. What a great inspiration. 

I have enjoyed meeting you and going through all of this, and if I can be of any help, you let me know. 

Well, we're delighted to have your story at Georgia Tech in the Living History Program, and thank you for spending time with us today. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.