Portland, Ore. – As we travel the country, we hope to make many stops at retirement centers to get down the oral histories of what has been called the Greatest Generation.

Our first stop was at the Rose Schnitzer Manor in Portland, and our first interview was with long-time attorney Sy Barrack, best known for putting away dozens of New York mobsters.

At 82, Sy Barrack is hard of hearing and nearly blind. But like so many in his generation, he knows how to tell a good story. He remembers his hard childhood during the Great Depression with tremendous clarity, and remains feisty about the “very interesting” files the FBI kept on him after his time as a pre-teen socialist agitator in the 1930s.

When we finished the interview Sy was sad to see us go, and especially sad that we had not brought a puppy for him to roll around with. If there is any message he can give to young people today, he added, it is not to lose hope: “America is changing - and better off for it.”

As for his own wish, it is that he could live to be 200, so that he might finally put to use all the lessons he learned in his first 80 years.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 | Email This Post

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