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MAX: I felt that when I married Pauline that I did heroic deeds, not to be going from one place to another. I thought that I would be able to start all over again, and continue to be a factor in life. And the first three, four years had been good. And then we went to Israel, where we had a complete success, and we went on an excursion boat for seven or eight days on the Caribbean, it was wonderful. We lived like people in our class and our age live, although there are plenty over there that are richer, that they used to be businessmen, and they have thousands and thousands of money. But we managed to belong to a men's club, the women's club, and she belonged to the Pioneers and I belonged to the singing club, and I enjoyed it. The men's club, singing club... Something came along, took a wrong road and I didn't know which way to turn or which way to follow.

IMAGE: In Israel, 1971 Max

NARRATOR: It gradually became apparent to Max and the family that it was essential to his survival that he marry again. There was little doubt that he desperately needed a woman to love him and be loved, as well as to take care of him. He was as starved for feminine affection as much as he was for someone to help him with his daily decisions. He didn't consider himself to be a whole person without a woman; it was part of the natural way of things that a man should be with a woman. He needed someone with whom he could share his anxieties, his joys, his lonliness, his pride.

NARRATOR: As Max talked of each new attraction, his family observed from a distance, not wanting to influence his feelings and yet alert for signs of Max's impulsiveness. With the realization of the importance of Max finding someone came the concern that she would be good for him in as many ways as possible.

NARRATOR: Pauline seemed to be such a woman.

NARRATOR: An immigrant like Max, she had been married twice before, had one son and three grandchildren. Although she was kosher, she didn't really observe Jewish law any more than did Max. She seemed to be a pleasant enough woman, and most importantly, clearly made Max happy; it was therefore on this basis that his sons and their families welcomed Pauline into the Leavitt clan.

MAX: To tell the story with my eyes – the eyes was the beginning of my end, after all. In Florida when my eyes started… you know the story with my eyes? Well a year and a half ago, we went to this doctor that everybody's going to. He examined me and told us to come in a year's time. What does that mean, it means for a year's time I'll be sound and safe. Unfortunately, when we came to the doctor a year later, the goose was cooked already.

MAX: I had the cataract in this eye, already, which he neglected in time to do it. So he sent us to a place in Miami Beach, where six doctors operated at that place, and we went there, and one of the girls gave us the works, examined us, a real examination. And sent in the report to the doctor, and he told us that it's too late to do anything for that eye. From then on, it started all my troubles. Pauline and everything else.

NARRATOR: Max's eyesight had always been quite poor. He was an extremely avid reader, but with the years his cataract condition worsened steadily, and his prescriptions were constantly being strengthened. Max's seeming ignorance of the facts of the condition could very well be an exaggeration. He was the kind of man for whom the act of confronting matters of his own health was the cause of deep distress; such untenable and unpredictable problems upset the very equilibrium of his being. In actuality the complete loss of vision in one eye was due to progressive deterioration of the retina, and could not be foreseen. It was Max's helplessness at the situation which was the source of his frustration, and which caused him to continuously blame his eyes as being the root of his troubles with Pauline.

MAX: Pauline found herself in a peculiar situation. We lived in Marlen Gardens where most of the people are second marriages. And the personnel of the second marriages was such that the woman has the upper hand, cause no woman gets married without having set aside a bundle. And on the same floor, she saw three, four couples that their husbands died, and they left them over with $60,000, $80,000 policies. Some woman used to come in to my house and show the policies, so under circumstances like that, you were in a trap. Surrounded. By widows. Some people are... what you call... gentle, and smart, and some are not! Unfortunately, she got a set of women, and they were on the other kind... so one thing led to the other.

MAX: When I married Pauline, we made up our agreement, to have... a bankbook on each name, and we have a checkbook, two checkbooks, one was on both our names, one was on my name, which I sent [to] my family, and one was on her name, which she sent to her family. This held up four, five years. During this time she broke the agreements in her favor on a few items; me, as a gentleman, overlooked it. We had a system, nothing to beat. And through that system she won a few thousand dollars before the break came. During the years, little by little. Until she did what she did! Spectacular!

IMAGE: Herb, Lisa, Norma, Eric, with Max and Pauline before Debbie's wedding, 1974

MAX: I was three times in the hospital with operations. All this took money. Little by little the bundle started to come down, come down, come down... but it didn't turn for the worse until the last year. After the three operations and after the decision from the doctor from the eyes that he actually told me that I'm about to get blind! Then all of a sudden he put three pair of glasses in one pair of glasses. They made three pair of glasses, but with one eye, eyesight. I saw right away that the writing was on the wall, 'cause I had three operations, and these operations took away about $2,000. Some, the government made good, some not. But she got the leading item from some widows, living on the same floor, that it was their favor.

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NARRATOR: The social peer pressure that exists in these tight-knit retirement communities is difficult to gauge, but should certainly not be underestimated. There are a wide variety of factors contributing to financial worries among the elderly, not the least of which is the reality of their low pensions coupled with their health problems. But what also should be considered is the particular past of the Eastern European Jewish immigrant. It is not all that simple to assure a people who are automatically expectant of poverty that they will not go hungry. Typical of this mentality is both Jennie and Pauline's attitude towards food. Jennie was famous for "already-squeezed-once” half-lemons, Pauline  was known for filling the refrigerator with an abundance of small aluminum-foil wrapped left-overs. It was indeed quite natural for them to be this way.

NARRATOR: MATERIAL HERE TO BE REVIEWED. During the last few years of their marriage Pauline slowly and methodically took control over their monies, using Max's increasing blindness and resultant dependency on her as an excuse.

MAX: All was in their favor. Everything, all their agreements... and another thing, they started reading the dirty books. The women! [They] were reading dirty books, I forgot the names. There was a set of books, that each gave to the other, passing by, all of a sudden I see Pauline reads all these books. Naturally I'm not such a man from the old world – I like myself also a dirty book sometimes, but the way she did it, so passionately, so very often the dirty books to read, and read, and read, and read... So I, what I did was wrote to Benny, he should send me a paper... an enlargement from the New York Times. I should be able to read it. So I read it! – for a little while, until my eyes started to get worse. So I figured, what do I need the enlargement, I'm not going to be able to read it. So I kept it for a few months, then I told him that he should stop it, because I can't read it anyway.

LISA: So why does it bother you that Pauline was reading all these books?

MAX: Without wanting, the books didn't do her much good... I don't have to tell you, you're a kid, you're a girl... and passion climbs down by itself with the years. Maybe she wasn't satisfied sexually! So little by little, it started to accumulate and they started to send us from the government, from the hospital, that it's terminal, so they sent in records for the blind. So little by little the idea that I'm getting blind sank into the household. She saw that sooner or later. she'd have to break up the marriage.

NARRATOR: Although American society doesn't quite put an age limit on our sexual lives, it is pretty much assumed that people stop engaging in sex sometime after retirement. The idea that the elderly can, and do have satisfactory sexual lives is just now being accepted, in the wake of these past decades of sexual self-awareness. The fact that Max could discuss his own sexuality with me at all is perhaps a testament to this new freedom.

NARRATOR: In general, Max was an extremely passionate man. The fervor he put into singing, the rapture with which he listened to opera, and the physical contact that he maintained with his children and grandchildren are all indicative of his sensuality. Clearly, however, Pauline found something seriously lacking in their sexual relationship. But Max could accept this. His anguish at Pauline practically coveting these "dirty" books was just as much due to his resentment at not being able to read himself as it was sadness at their apparent sexual inequality. In exasperation he tried everything he could to hold onto this last piece of intellectual independence, but realized that the situation would eventually worsen.

LISA: So you think that not only was it because you couldn't see anymore, but also that it had to do with sex?

IMAGE: Max and Pauline's wedding celebration, 1971

MAX: A little bit, I think, yeah. But the way she done it, and the way she systematically works. Little by little one July she made a drive, like I should pay all the insurance. I had a box, a main box, she had a main box. I didn't know what's doing there, she didn't know what's doing in my box. But she surely knew more what was in my box, than I in her box! Because I was sick three times in the hospital, which times she was boss over the money. And she could do with the money the way she wanted! And I, was at her mercy. And me, being what you call the born gentleman, at heart, I couldn't do it any different. And came July, she had to pay insurance for the box... and I had to dish out the money from the box. And I did! But the way she did it, so the way the break came was out of tradition, out of all morals, and she kept on doing it... a different sort of way I never heard of. She had a friend – her name was Jenny – she copied Jenny, whatever she wanted, and Jenny copied her – it was a dual role. It's a unique face, it came to the point that I couldn't sign the checks no more. 'Cause I couldn't see it! So she had to sign the checks. And I trusted her. She wrote all the checks. Mine, hers, and double ones. And whatever she did was spectacular, just like... you read in novels. To do what she did, how she did it was out of this world.

NARRATOR: Max always treated any issue concerning himself or his family with the same guiding precept; to keep the peace no matter what the consequences or sacrifices. A pessimistic outlook on an issue in the form of a complaint or an accusation would either be counterbalanced by possibilities of solution, or by selfeffacement. Max did not make a stand with Pauline out of deference to his unwritten law that everything should go smoothly; nothing should upset the balance of daily living. Thus he continually compromised himself, in acquiescence to her whims. But while he allowed her to chip away at his pride, in retrospect he intellectually removed himself enough to be truly amazed at her calculating tactics.

IMAGE:  untitled (two elderly people walking away from camera)

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IMAGE:  untitled (Max sticking out his rolled tongue)