Gersham Goldstein

Fuks: Gersham, let’s start with you early life. Are you originally from Portland?
GOLDSTEIN: I was born in Brooklyn, New York, at the Williamsburg Maternity Hospital, I’m told, on December 5th, 1938. My parents attended synagogues. When I was five — at the time we lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant — a couple of yeshiva buchers [yeshiva boys] picked me up to take me to school. I didn’t like school because the rabbi hit you with a ruler if you didn’t get the alef bes proper. Not that I was ever hit, but I noticed the hitting. We moved to Sheepshead Bay, so we lived in — starting in Crown Heights, moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant, then to Sheepshead Bay. In Sheepshead Bay, we …

Fuks: Sheepshead Bay is still a part of Brooklyn?
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, it is. There we belonged to an Orthodox synagogue. I wasn’t trained for bar mitzvah there. I was trained for bar mitzvah at another place, and I went to Hebrew school at another place before I did my bar mitzvah training. 

Fuks: So you were going to public school and then to Hebrew school?
GOLDSTEIN: Public school and after was Hebrew school. We quit public school at 3:00 PM. 3:30 PM we were at the Hebrew school. That went pretty well. I stayed in Hebrew school after my bar mitzvah. The interesting thing was that they didn’t think I’d do well for my bar mitzvah cause they had given me a record of my Haftorah, but I didn’t listen to it until close to my bar mitzvah. But I did OK. It was similar with regard to my son Marcus here. Two weeks before his bar mitzvah, Rabbi Stampfer said to us, “We don’t think he’s going to be ready for the bar mitzvah.” And I said, “No, he’ll be ready.” And I didn’t have to tell him. He was ready, just as I was. 

Interestingly enough, the rabbi at that congregation, Sheepshead Bay, was Rabbi Turk. Rabbi Turk’s son used to play basketball in the PS206 schoolyard with his tzitzis. Not necessarily anything more than his tzitzis, but he always played with his tzitzis. Rabbi Turk was not a nice human being. His son moved to Israel. His son had a son who was the Israeli consul in San Francisco, and I got to know him. It was very interesting that I got to know the grandson of Rabbi Turk, who’s now pretty high up in the Israeli foreign service. His name is Tor [spells out], changed from Turk. 

Fuks: Interesting. 
GOLDSTEIN: But as I said, Rabbi Turk was not a nice human being.

Fuks: So did you go to college in New York also?
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. My father wanted me to go to Wharton, but the form you had to fill out was too long. So I went to City College in New York because you really didn’t have to fill out a form. If you graduated from high school, you got into City College. 

Fuks: That’s a great asset.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, it was great. And it was free, $5.00 a semester. It got to be $14 when I graduated.

Fuks: That’s a significant increase.
GOLDSTEIN: I had the [inaudible]. And I promptly flunked out at college, somehow managed to talk my way back in. I’ll never forget what the adviser told me when I was trying to talk my way back in. He said, “Look, Goldstein. You want to get your parents upset, that’s fine with me, but don’t get me involved.” And I managed to do very well in college after I flunked out. I was asked by the head of the history department, because I minored in history, to proctor the History One exam in my senior year. I remember walking in, and the other proctor was the professor who had flunked me in History One. He said, “You son of a bitch, I thought I got rid of you three years ago” [laughter]. Anyways, somehow, even though I flunked out to college, I got into the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and I did very, very well. 

Fuks: What attracted you to the law?
GOLDSTEIN: I went to James Madison High School in Brooklyn. We didn’t have any lawyers in my family. I think that there was one, but I really wasn’t connected with that person. When I was going to James Madison, I would hitchhike up Bedford Avenue to James Madison, and many days the person who picked me up was a gentleman by the name of Aaron Koota [spells out], and Aaron Koota was the district attorney of Kings County, Brooklyn, a city of two and a half million people. Aaron Koota wore a Chesterfield coat and had a bowler hat. Since he lived sort of near where we lived, sometimes he had detectives sitting in front of his house when some son of a bitch would threaten his life. But he’d pick me up and we would talk. I always wanted to get a Chesterfield coat and a bowler hat. I did get a Chesterfield coat. I’ve never gotten a bowler Hat. I got a black LBJ once. It was made specially for me by my students at the University of Texas Law School. 

But anyway, I went through City College, I went to Penn Law, graduated, got a [Gawin?] travelling fellowship from Penn so I could go anywhere [inaudible]. I was tempted to go to the London School of Economics. I had never been west of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, really. It was a close neighborhood in Brooklyn. Sheepshead Bay was close. Didn’t really go out. I took the Gawin [or Gallon?] Fellowship and wanted to be a civil rights lawyer. I had an offer from the D.A. in Manhattan. I had an offer from the NAACP, and…

Fuks: About what year was this?
GOLDSTEIN: 1962.

Fuks: A significant time to be engaged in the civil rights world.
GOLDSTEIN: Absolutely. So I applied for the Arthur Garfield Hays Fellowship in Civil Liberties at the NYU Law School, and I had all these professors from Penn Law recommending me. When I went up to NYU and met with Norman Dorsen, who was head of the Civil Liberties Program and eventually became the head of the ACLU, Norman said, “I just gave the fellowship away to a guy who’s going to be a tax lawyer. I wish that you had applied earlier because with this backing you have you’d be the fellow.” He said, “You know, you could probably do more for poor people if you become a tax lawyer, and I bet they have money for you. Go down the hall, and at the end of the hall on the left, knock on that door and that will be the head of the Tax Department.”

So I did that, and I met a man who was wearing a gray suit, white shirt, red tie, large balding head, a bottle of Scotch in the middle of his desk, some aluminum glasses. I sat with him for a couple of hours, had a couple of belts of Scotch. He offered me a position as his research assistant. I went back to Penn and told them I wasn’t going to take it because he was a drunk. They said, “No, no, no, no, no. Take the job. He’s the best law school classroom teacher you will ever see.” I took the job.

Fuks: What was his name?
GOLDSTEIN: Gerald L. Wallace was the best law school classroom teacher I would ever see. Not only would I say that, but the [Irvin Trivers?] of Seattle would say that, the James Eustices of New York would say that, everybody who went to his class.

Fuks: So he had a significant influence on you.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, a very significant influence. So I did very well at NYU the first semester. I was told I was at the top of the class. And I found out how Gerry Wallace graded his exams. He had a guy named [Allen Priegel?] who graded his exams, and then he graded them two or three times after that. But Priegel went through them initially. I was in the office when Priegel reported that some guy had scored 114 out of 117 on the first question. “Chief,” — because everybody called Wallace “Chief” — “the second person scored 98. Wallace said, “Nobody is that good. Reduce it to 108.” Then Wallace asked for the number of the person who had done it, and Priegel gave him my number. So they didn’t know whose paper it was. Then at that point Jim Eustice walked in and said, “You won’t believe this, Chief, but some guy scored a perfect score on my first question.” And they asked if the number was the same number. 

I had tense times with Gerry Wallace because I didn’t like to prepare for class. I was working for Jacob Javits in 1962. He was running again for the Senate. I ended up writing three position papers for him, which his staff said were the best position papers that had ever been written for him. I got to meet the Rockefeller people at that time because Nelson rented the sixth floor of the [Risolt?] Hotel for all statewide candidates. Javits had rooms there, but also had rooms in a different hotel, which is where I worked. But the Rockefeller people got interested in me. In the meanwhile, I was a thug. I wouldn’t shave. I’d wear Bermuda shorts. When I felt like it, I’d talk dirty. I wouldn’t prepare for class. Wallace complained about that because, he said, “I need you to help me teach.” So we worked a deal that if he called on me third, I’d give him the answer because I could figure things out faster than most of those guys. And that’s the way it worked out. He called on me third, and I gave the answer, and I was successful.

Fuks: Did you end up practicing law in New York?
GOLDSTEIN: No, I didn’t. I was looking at my grades after the first semester, and the guy who was standing next to me, he said, “How’d you do?” I said, “I got A plus here, A plus there.” He said, “My brother-in-law will get you a job in Oregon.” I said, “Why the fuck do I need a job in Oregon? I can get a job anywhere.” He said, “ No, no, no. My brother-in-law will get you a job in Oregon. Why don’t you come to my apartment and my wife will make you a cup of coffee?” So I went to their apartment. Her name was Miriam. His name was Stan. She was the daughter of a Baptist minister. Her brother was a Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. He mentioned my name to Peter Gunner, who was then the Judge of the Oregon Tax Court, and Peter Gunner offered me a job. Called me up three nights later, offered me a job for $500 a month. 

Fuks: About what year was that?
GOLDSTEIN: 1963. So I took the job, and I drove across the United States having never been west of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in a car that broke down about every 100 miles. Got to Salem, Oregon, and met Peter Gunner and met then-Supreme Court Justice Alfred T. Goodwin, and Ted and I became dear friends. Judge Gunner was not a great judge. He was good for the court because he was very politically connected. He needed me to help write the rules to cite cases and stuff like that, never really listened, so sometimes I would write dissenting opinions, and he would write the opinion, of course, and he’d get reversed by the Oregon Supreme Court. He would get very upset and drive into Portland and meet with people from the Tax Bar and be upset. Sometimes I’d go with him, especially if he started drinking martinis at lunch, and I would go home after my martinis and sleep. Then I’d be awakened by the clerk saying he wants to go to Portland, and I’d come in and drive him to Portland. 

I took a break at the end of December of ’63 to go back to New York. The chief offered me a position teaching at NYU. It wasn’t tenure track, but it was teaching graduate students at NYU. I took it. Meanwhile, when I was back in Oregon during ’64, I was dating the pretty girl…

Fuks: Pauline.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. And working for the judge, and I also worked for then-Governor Hatfield. In fact, I wrote his keynote speech for the Republican National Convention of 1964, which nominated Barry Goldwater. That speech took on the John Birch Society, the Ku Klux Klan. The convention was loaded with Birchers. They were pissed off about that. I think that’s why Hatfield never became a vice-presidential candidate, because he did what was right. We used to talk about that often, because we’d see each other. He came to the University of Cincinnati when I was teaching there to deliver the commencement speech. I was walking towards him on the football field after his speech, and the president saw me, and the president was really concerned about this nutty law professor who wore cowboy boots and was a kid yet was getting paid all this money [laughs]. Mark and I saw each other, and he just looked at me and said, “It was a motel in Coos Bay.” That was the last time we had seen each other [laughs]. 

In any event, I had been teaching in Cincinnati for a year before Pauline and I got married. We got married in San Francisco, which was neutral territory, because my parents didn’t want me to marry her and her parents didn’t want her to marry me. I remember her father saying, “Why don’t you date one of your own kind?” My response was, “It is my perception that your daughter is a human being.” And my parents — she’s a convert, you know, not Jewish enough for them. That seems to be a problem that runs through many Jewish families.

Fuks: Pauline didn’t convert for the sake of getting married. 
GOLDSTEIN: No, not to get married to me. She converted to be a Jew. She sang at the shul in Burlingame, California, and the people who were members of that congregation loved her. When I was going to get married to her, I know they were very concerned. I came down and they were really looking me over. It was very interesting. In any event, we got married. We moved to Cincinnati. The dean put us up in his house for a week because we didn’t have a place to live. We finally got an apartment. Pauline went to work for the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati — worked there for six months or so — which was like a block and a half from the house, the apartment where we lived, which was great for her, and I was a couple of minutes from the law school. 

And even when the dean sold us his house — he went off to become president of the university and they gave him a house, so he sold me his house in an effort to keep me in Cincinnati. The idea was, “Never let Goldstein go.” So I was this highly-paid professor. It was agreed that I would be the highest-paid professor at the law school. He arranged for me to get a job with a law firm, and then when he left town he sold me his house for what he had paid for it, which I thought was a great deal.

Fuks: That is a good deal.
GOLDSTEIN: He had this wonderful house on an acre and a quarter with a view over a swim club just below us, and it was four minutes from the law school.

Fuks: How long did you live there?
GOLDSTEIN: I lived there 11 years; Pauline lived there 10 years. I worked with this law firm. It was a great law firm. It was sort of the only law firm in Cincinnati which was partly Jewish, partly Christian. Most of the other law firms were Jewish, Catholic, whatever, but they weren’t mixed. Charlie Keeting’s law firm was Catholic. I could only get Catholic kids in there. Taft, Stettinius & Hollister had never hired a Jew until I convinced the head of TS&H to hire a Jewish kid, which he did. 

Fuks: It was a different world then.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. And six months later he called me and said, “Do you have any more like that?” I said, “I’ve got lots of them.” When he eventually became incompetent, Alzheimer’s or whatever, the young associate who was working with him was a gal named Lynn Fisher Troup, who was married to the rabbi. So I thought that was good, that I did well with TS&H.

Fuks: That’s progress. That’s great.
GOLDSTEIN: And I haven’t forgotten that. My kids are back there now. I had 11 years of kids graduating from the law school. My children. And my firm, I only hired the ones I chose. So I’ve got Mark Reuben, who’s still the tax lawyer at that firm, I’ve got Terry Meier, who’s still the corporate lawyer at that firm…

Fuks: So there’s some close connections still there in Ohio. That’s interesting. What drew you back to Oregon?
GOLDSTEIN: I promised Pauline that when I retired I’d come back to Oregon. She had family out here. One morning I woke up, in 1976, and said, “We’re making too much money, and we’re in the wrong place. Let’s move back to Oregon.” And I was making too much money. I was making a lot of money. In fact, when I interviewed at Davies Biggs, now Stoel Rives, and Jack McMurchie asked me what I made, I told him and he said, “My God, you make more than our senior partner.” I said, “Yes, but that’s not important. I just want a job. If you give me job, I’ll take whatever you pay me.” And he gave me a job and paid me 50% of what I was earning [laughs]. 

Fuks: Wow. It was a big change.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, it was a big change.

Fuks: But the money wasn’t important to you?
GOLDSTEIN: No, it’s never been. I was a law professor. You know, you don’t make a lot of money being a law professor, but you get to affect a lot of kids’ lives. Once I went back to Cincinnati to try a case…

Fuks: [phone rings] Sorry.
GOLDSTEIN: And we’d go to to the Queens City Club on, I think it’s Fourth, and I’d run into my students, and the gentleman for whom I was trying the case said, “They still genuflect to you.” Yeah, right [laughs]. But they know me, and that’s OK. They’re my kids. I loved to teach. I really loved to teach. I still run into former students. I teach for NYU at the graduate tax workshop each year. We switch off between San Diego and San Francisco. I’m on the ethics panel, “Professional Responsibility of Tax Practice.” People come up to me and say, “I had you at NYU in 1991” — when they gave me a chair, and I taught at NYU for a semester, a property class. I really enjoyed that class. Hey, that was last year in San Francisco, but he remembered ’91. Shit. I barely remember ’91.

Fuks: That’s got to be very satisfying.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, that is special. So anyway, we moved out here, and I started work for Davies Biggs, and I was going to quit pretty quick because nothing was going on. I got involved in a transaction, and there was a Jewish gentleman involved. His name was Mel Peters. I was in a room with about eight or ten tax people trying to plan the transaction — from various firms in Portland, and accountants and whatever. They all had ideas, but I said, “No, this is the way you do it.” And we did it that way. Here I was going to quit the firm because of no action, and Mel Peters came back and said, “You know that guy Goldstein who planned this? We want him from now on to plan our transactions.” 

I worked with a guy named David G. Hayhurst, and David Hayhurst was a smart, great corporate lawyer. I remember the first meeting we went into when I told him how to plan the transaction [laughs]. I could see the fear in his eyes. He’d never worked with me. We were walking into this important meeting, and he was fearful. I could see it. He looked at me and said, “What should I call you?” Never having dealt with a Gersham before. Hell, at Davies Biggs nobody knew that Rosh Hashanah was two days until I arrived. They had Jewish people, but they were one-day Rosh Hashanah people. In any event, I said to Hayhurst, “You can call me Reverend Professor.” And to the day he retired he called me, still today when I run into him, “Reverend Professor.” 

Fuks: That’s really fun.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. He was a wonderful guy to work with.

Fuks: So Gersh, you’ve been very connected to the Jewish Community. 
GOLDSTEIN: I never noticed [laughs].

Fuks: I’m curious about how that came about?
GOLDSTEIN:   Dad and Mom were factors of the Jewish Community, wherever. Shortly after my bar mitzvah my brother got ill, and we had an incompetent doctor who didn’t properly diagnose my brother. In any event, somebody told my parents they should go see the rebbe from Chabad Lubavitch, and so they did. They met with the rebbe at 3:00 AM in the morning, I was told. He suggested a doctor to them, a guy named Joseph Milgram, who was the chief of staff of the joint disease hospital in New York. Joseph Milgram took care of my brother, and my father told me, “If there is ever anything you could ever do for Chabad, take care of them. They’ve helped us.” So when Moshe Wilhelm arrived in town, and the first couple of lawyers he was supposed to see weren’t there or something, he ended up in my office. I told him — I didn’t say, “I was expecting you,” but at some point I knew I had a debt to repay. So I’ve been repaying that debt for the last 32 years. 

Fuks: That’s fantastic.
GOLDSTEIN: I enjoy hanging out with Moshe and Motti and his brothers and sisters. And so Chabad. Two years after I moved out to Oregon in ’77 — I started work at Davies Biggs in January of ’77 — my parents moved out here. My brother at that time was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Louisville. Mom had gotten on a bus in Louisville and had a difficult time with the bus driver, so she wasn’t going to move to Louisville. So she picked on me and came out here, and she and Dad lived in the Portland Plaza. One day I got a call from Gary Kahn, who had an office across from the Portland Plaza. He said, “I see some guy putting on tefillin every morning in the Portland Plaza.” And I said, “That’s my dad.” Dad put tefillin on every morning because he promised that he would do that. And I got the opportunity to help Moshe. So there was that. 

I got involved with organizations. You’re in a law firm, you’re supposed to get involved with things. People around here got involved with the symphony and the ballet and bullshit like that, and museums, and I’m not a symphony guy. I like to go to the symphony. I don’t like ballet. I do like museums. I was looking for something to do, so I got involved with the [Robison] Home. I was on the board. I became treasurer. I really enjoyed that experience, helping people. That’s what lawyers are all supposed to be about, helping people. So here I am trying to help. So I did that, and then I did …

Fuks:   Who was the director of the Robison Home when you first got involved? That’s pre-Al Mendelowitz, right?
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. It was pre-Al Mendelowitz. Then there was Al. But most of the time it was the righteous Christian, Bill Stinnett, who referred to me as his “rabbi.” Bill and I got along very well, and then there was sort of a backup board for the treasurer. It included Milt Carl and some others. We’d have meetings at Stan Eastern’s office. 

But then I wanted to move on from that board, so I think I got on the Federation board. I think I was treasurer of the Federation for a bit. Then Charlie Schiffman was the director. Then I got somehow to be chairman of the board. Charlie left us to make aliyah to Israel, and so I had to hire someone. I had a committee. Everybody thought that they knew everything. I know I don’t know everything, but they knew lots of things which I never thought about. I find that’s the way committees are, and that’s why I like to be a tax lawyer — because they do things alone. I don’t have to check with a committee. 

I remember I started depreciating land, which everybody knows you can’t depreciate. But I did it for 36 farmers in Montana who had large spreads, and I was depreciating their ranches. The Internal Revenue Service, of course, was not happy with that, and so they audited these folks and I got to defend them. We went to the United States Tax Court. We had chosen two of the 36 cases to try. We didn’t have to try it. We stipulated all the facts. Then it went to Tax Court, and the Tax Court said I was right! And I had told that stupid lawyer for the government, “When I win this case people will be depreciating General Motors stock. People will be depreciating diamonds. Don’t take this case to court.” [In another voice, simulating the lawyer for the government] “No, we’re going to win.” “You’re not.” And they lost. 

I was concerned there for a while because the judge who took the case in Kalispell was not the judge I wanted to write the opinion. There are 19 or so judges on the United States Tax Court, but when it went to Washington, DC, the chief judge took it away from that judge and gave it to the judge who had written the line of opinions up to that point. That was great because that line said I was going to win. Every other one was a loser. I won. Everybody who’s won since then has been a loser. Nonetheless, I won, and Martie Ginsburg, Ruthie’s husband, called me up and…

Fuks: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
GOLDSTEIN: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Called me up and said I must have gotten him drunk, the judge. And Carl Ferguson said that, too. I know why they said that. I won’t tell you. But I knew I had to win. That had to be the rule. There are tax lawyers in New York who call, and there’s one of them who’s always laughing when I pick up the phone. I always ask, “Why are you laughing?” He says, “Because you depreciated fucking land, Goldstein, I laugh. You and I knew we could do that, and you did it.” Anyway, that’s it.

Fuks: That’s a great story. 
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. Martin Ginsburg and I had been friends since 1970, when we taught the 1969 Tax Reform Act together at the graduate tax workshop at NYU. We had the charitable contribution provisions we taught. A guy named Jack Taggert taught with us [laughs]. Taggert and Ginsburg were supposed to write an article together about them. They got into such arguments, they ended up not writing the article together. Taggert wrote the article. There’s a sore note says, “Ginsburg was supposed to write this, but we disagreed, and then Goldstein [held our coats?].” It was a lot of fun because we taught for four days and we changed the answers after every day because we’d argue about them. It was very interesting.

Fuks: Given that background in terms of participating in litigation and so on, and being in a profession that is focused on argument, it was interesting to me that you were able to, in the context of the Federation, come up with an agreement about hiring a new director and make those changes. I’m curious how that worked. You hired Marc Blackman.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, I did. It was great. The guy got fired in Philadelphia [laughs]. When I heard why he got fired, I said this guy is for me. I met him, and I was going to hire him, and the group, of course, [sound of palms rubbing together] was wringing their hands for more than a year. So we kept Charlie going along with us. But when I met Marc, I knew he was the guy. 

Fuks: What about him gave you that feeling?
GOLDSTEIN: He seemed to have a vision that most of the other people lacked. I know he’d been fired because he was too good — because the guy in Philadelphia who was the Provost at Temple [University] felt threatened by him. So I knew why he wanted to be president and he wanted to be chief executive officer. Great. He needed that. So I helped get him. It’s one of those things, “The train is leaving in a half an hour. Be on it or under it.” And we hired him.

Fuks: So it was a good hire.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. We got lucky. Otherwise we would not have ended up with such a good person. He’s going to stay with us for a while, I think, until his kid makes it in hockey [laughter], and then he’ll be rich and he won’t care about us. OK. So I got involved. I was once on the board of Neveh Shalom. But really I hate boards. I’m on a couple of boards now. I’m on the Hillel board. When I quit the Federation board, I figured I ought to be on something, so I got on the Hillel board.

Fuks: That was the Portland Hillel board?
GOLDSTEIN: The Portland Hillel board. And I’ve been president of the Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society. I was on the Lewis and Clark Board at one time. Manny Rose was Chairman of the Board at the time I was put on it, and I think I was put on it because Harold said I should be put on it. 

Fuks: Harold Poland?
GOLSTEIN: No, Harold Schnitzer. 

Fuks: That carries a lot of clout.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. And I became very friendly with Harold Schnitzer over the years. 

Fuks: He was a remarkable guy.
GOLDSTEIN: He was a remarkable guy. He was the smartest man in the room. Very quiet, subdued. Not flashy. He and I would go to lunch. We’d go to a place where you have to give your name after you order, and then they’d call out your name. You’d pick up your food. And he always gave a different name. I thought that was just wonderful. That was wonderful. 

Fuks: He was just being playful?
GOLDSTEIN: No, the Schnitzer name was a name that he didn’t want to be used necessarily. And I met his brothers. I didn’t meet Morris, but I met Manuel, Gilbert, Leonard, and I met all the kids — Marilyn [Easley?], Carol, Kenny and Debbie [Novak?]. Gary Schnitzer. 

Fuks: Gail.
GOLDSTEIN: The six girls. And Bob Philip. I’ve had just a lot of fun practicing law. I ended up somehow as general counsel at TriMet at one time. Then the governor named a guy to be chairman of the board, and at the first meeting he came up to me and told me he hated me. Now no one had told me they hated me since the sixth grade, and there was so much anger in his voice. My partner was standing right next to me. He froze. In any event, he made TriMet put the lawyer in position for bids. And every law firm in town wanted, of course, to be TriMet’s lawyer [laughs]. The manager of TriMet at that time, he hired a one-man law firm, called me up and said, “You’re the backup. You do all the work. Never show up at a board meeting.” And that was how we continued to do work for TriMet. 

Fuks: That’s interesting.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. Of course, Mr. Wyse [spells out] was the guy who hated me. We had represented Columbia Funds, and he had sued Columbia Funds. Barnes Ellis had tried the case for Columbia and won, and Mr. Wyse thought we took away half, a third, whatever the hell it was, of his fortune, and attributed something to me which was untrue. But I wasn’t going to correct him. 

Fuks: People get emotional under those circumstances.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, for money. They get very emotional for money. I’ve said to some of my clients, “It’s only money.” Some people understand that, and some people don’t understand that. But I’ve enjoyed working with the Jewish organizations even though I hate board meetings. But when I’m running them for the Federation it’s a lot easier because you can cut off people who are bloviating and really don’t have anything to move us forward. And I would. 

Fuks: I’ve seen you do it.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes. So that’s about it. We hang out with Chabad, and Pauline is Devora’s [Devora Wilhelm] consigliere, and that’s just fine.

Fuks: It’s been a good life here.
GOLDSTEIN: Very good, very good. We’re happy here. My friend Ferguson got on the board at Lewis and Clark with me. He sometimes lives in New York, sometimes in Connecticut. Now he’s in San Diego. Spring he’s in San Diego, fall he’s in New York, and Christmas he’s usually in Connecticut. He’s the one who convinced me to marry Pauline 50 some odd years ago. 

Fuks: So far so good, then.
GOLDSTEIN: Yes, it’s worked out. Ferguson said he’d never do that again [Fuks laughs]. It was in a wild cab ride from Greenwich Village to Grand Central Station. Some guy from Oregon was in New York. We were in New York at the time. I was there. Pauline was in San Francisco. Carl and I were talking, Carl Ferguson. On that cab ride he convinced me to marry Pauline, and then we met this guy and he wanted us to do him a favor. We had no power to do that favor, but we tried. He was a nice gentleman from Oregon. 

Most of the people I’ve met from Oregon have been nice people, especially in the Jewish community. Some folks haven’t been nice. I remember being on the phone leaving a message for someone — and Judge Goodwin was standing next to me — and I had to spell my name — G-E-R-S-H-A-M G-O-L-D-S-T-E-I-N, and Ted just tapped me on the shoulder and said, “See, you’re home” [laughter]. And I remember Ted sending me down to Eugene to buy my first pair of cowboy boots from Mr. Nemerovsky, an Israelite without guile. 

Ted, Judge Goodwin, he used to go to Brooklyn when my parents lived in Brooklyn, and he’d visit with Mom and Dad, give Mom a hug, and would say things like, “Does Leo know?” The neighbors, of course, on the porch would be listening [laughs], shocked that this young man is hugging Mrs. Goldstein and he’s not her son. But his mother sort of adopted me. He adopted my mom. He’d bring his family to Brooklyn, and Dad would drive them to Yonkers or wherever one of his brothers was living. They’d have ice cream at Jahn’s ice cream parlor in Brooklyn. 

Judge Goodwin is 92 years of age. He is a Senior United States Circuit Judge, former Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit. He lives in Sisters, Oregon. He was nice enough to take a Sunday afternoon and go over to Bend and marry our daughter. The first marriage. The second marriage was by [Zuki?]. But the first marriage was a civil ceremony in Bend in front of the river or lake or whatever it is. Ted was proud to do that. He’s a dear friend. I’d come back to Oregon after I was in Cincinnati because the judge who replaced Judge Gunner was a guy named Edward H. Howell. He wasn’t a tax judge at all, but he was a great judge. He became a Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. He was from eastern Oregon. He was put on the tax court so people in Salem could meet him, so they’d know really how good he was, so they’d agreed to allow him to be put on the Supreme Court. Otherwise, they would have never met this guy.

He would have me out for summer, and he’d save all the good cases for me. We’d argue, and he’d decide the cases. Before he died, he called me at Stoel Reeves. He said, “You’ve got a big ego, and I shouldn’t say this to you, but you have the fastest mind I’ve ever seen.” I said, “A. You never met my brother, and B. You’ve never been to Brooklyn” [laughter]. 

Fuks: That’s great.
GOLDSTEIN: He was a wonderful man. 

Fuks: Gersham, thank you so much.
GOLDSTEIN: You’re very welcome.

Fuks: It was really a pleasure.
GOLDSTEIN: An honor and a privilege.