We were on the Independence—oh what a beautiful ship! Barney and I went on a lot of cruises, trips to St. Thomas, Vegas. I’d buy beautiful jewelry in the islands and wear it home on the plane so we didn’t have to pay customs. My friend Florence, she’d buy diamonds and hide them in her shoes!

I never really needed to work but I always had a little job. Macy’s, Orbach’s, then the magazine distributor. I worked in the office on a contometer—I did figures. We’d send all the magazines to the stands. I love my magazines! I subscribe to People, W, that’s a high fashion magazine, and that British gossip magazine, Hello!—that’s a good one.

The Jungle is one of my favorite books, with all the Lithuanian words. I still read a little book of my mother’s, to remind myself of the Lithuanian. There’s nobody left to speak it with. Oh, you know Frank Morris—he writes about all the downtrodden people. I don’t know why I read all those social novels, I always have. I’ve always read a book or two a week!

For our twenty-fifth anniversary, we went to the Rainbow Room! We had six couples—we joked that the fellas saved up all year to pay for it! Our husbands bought us corsages. We had another party at the Copacabana. We saw Martin and Lewis there! What great entertainment!