I had a chance to view Fred Lewis's interview about my life on The Heart of San Diego even before it was broadcast today over Instructional Television (ITV).  One of the perks of being a subject of the half-hour show is that they send you a DVD copy.

When you watch yourself being interviewed, you tend to squirm, especially if you're in the company of family and friends, who are quick to tease you about any mistakes. So okay, I admit it, when the show first started, I had no idea where I was supposed to look as Fred started telling a little about me. 

During the show, Fred displayed a series of photographs about my journalistic career and about my family life. In one picturing me covering Ronald Reagan, Fred asked me who the person was standing behind him.  I stumbled on that one. The picture was taken when Reagan was California's governor, and the occasion was his return to Sacramento after taking a trail ride with Nevada Gov. Paul Laxalt. I said something to the effect that I wasn't sure, it could be Laxalt. But the more I look at the picture, the more I think it may have been William P. Clark, a high-ranking aide who followed Reagan to Washington and became his secretary of the interior.  

I hasten to make this correction for the record because I believe The Heart of San Diego someday can be an important resource for historians, particularly if the interviews ever are transcribed and indexed according to the subjects covered in the interview. Who was with Reagan in a particular picture is just a factoid, but big fact, or factoid, it's important to be accurate.

Think of it, Fred  has been doing these interviews for over 10 years.  The interview with me was Show #516.  You probably can't think of a name in recent San Diego history—whether that person be a political figure, an educator, a media person (as in my case), a sports personality, a celebrity—whom Lewis has not interviewed. Before they ever think of wrapping up the series, there's one more person who ought to be interviewed—Fred himself.  He's had a long career as a San Diego broadcaster. I'll be happy to join the line of applicants who'd like to conduct the interview.

As one who chronicles the Jewish community, I practically salivate at the idea of someday being able to review all the quotes having to do with Jews from Fred's interviews. Of course, there would be many interviews that would be silent on the subject, but there would be enough to keep any serious historian of the San Diego Jewish experience busy for quite some time. Fred, himself, is Jewish, so he's quick to pick up on a Jewish reference.

Coincidentally, the person interviewed just prior to me was Elaine Lipinsky, who, in the footprints of her family, has been an important philanthropist to a variety of San Diego causes, including the arts, education, the elderly and Temple Emanu-El.  Along with her brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Sheila Lipinsky, Elaine inherited the stewardship of the Lipinsky Family Foundation after the deaths of their parents, Dorris and Bernard Lipinsky.

I feel a special kinship to the Lipinskys because their family foundation and another headed by Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs were major contributors to the Agency for Jewish Education fund that made possible my biography, Louis Rose: San Diego's First Jewish Settler and Entrepreneur.  In the back of the book, I included profiles of both the Lipinskys and the Jacobs as a way of expressing my appreciation.

Consequently, I was quite familiar with the Lipinsky saga before Lewis interviewed Elaine Lipinsky, but he elicited from her a story I had not heard before. Seems when she was a school girl, some boys taunted her with anti-Semitic comments.  After one ignored her warning to watch his mouth, Elaine turned around and decked him with a hard, fast punch.  She was something of a "tomboy" back then, she allowed.

Apparently anti-Semitism in the years prior to the establishment of UCSD was much stronger in San Diego than it is today. Elaine vividly remembers how Jews were excluded from buying a home in La Jolla prior to the university's establishment.  When I arrived in San Diego in 1972, that was just a memory.  Today La Jolla is the home of Congregation Adat Yeshurun, Congregation Beth El, Congregation Beth Israel as well as a Chabad house. in La Jolla.  Also there are an active Hillel House on the campus and the Lawrence Family JCC only a short ride down Genesee Avenue. Far from being a place where Jews are excluded, La Jolla is an area of Jewish concentration.

The Heart of San Diego is sponsored on ITV by the San Diego Foundation and the San Diego Historical Society. If you missed today's interview of me,  there are two other broadcast times—at 8:30 p.m. tomorrow (Dec. 26) and 8:30 p.m. Friday (Dec. 31). Here are the channel assignments by cable system: Cox-Channel 16; Cox-North County-Channel 16; Julian-Channel 4; Time Warner-Channel 16, and Adelphia-Channel 67.  — Donald H. Harrison