January 5, 2025 • 29 mins
Original Air Date: January 5, 2025
It’s never too late to reinvent yourself! Larry Ruttman (Larryruttman.com) was a long time lawyer who switched gears to become a writer and is still at it at 93. His latest book is “Intimate Conversations: Face To Face With Matchless Musicians”. Hear his advice on living a long life in a long marriage.
It’s never too late to reinvent yourself! Larry Ruttman (Larryruttman.com) was a long time lawyer who switched gears to become a writer and is still at it at 93. His latest book is “Intimate Conversations: Face To Face With Matchless Musicians”. Hear his advice on living a long life in a long marriage.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We can all use inspiration for the new year. I
want to introduce you to a man who has reinvented
himself over his ninety three years. He started out as
a lawyer in Brookline, Massachusetts, but he has become an
author and his latest book Intimate Conversations Face to Face
(00:35):
with Matchless Musicians, and those are classical musicians and conductors.
And I want to introduce you to Larry Rutman. Welcome
and Happy New Year. Larry.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, the same to you, Shelley. Happy New Year to you.
And I'm really honored to be on your show. I
know of your history as a longtime broadcaster and podcaster
and this, that and the other thing, all the great
things you've done, so it's a pleasure for me to
be here.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, thank you. Okay, let's start with You're ninety three
years old and you don't stop. What motivates you, what
drives you?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, I think I'm sort of an anomaly, if that's
the right word. When I was in practice of law
for thirty five years. I looked around at all my compatriots,
people of my age, and I realized that I was
not aging at the same rate that they were, and
that was and that's held up. And even now at
ninety three, I don't feel old. I don't really look old,
(01:38):
and I don't think old, and I still am ambitious
and think there are things I can do. This book
is one. The next one would be a memoir. I
never thought i'd write a memoir, but people said you shouldn't.
I said, well, what have I done? But they said
you should. And then when COVID came along and I
had time on my hands, I did do it. I
(01:59):
usually he looked forward, but from a memoir you got
to look backwards. And I found that reviewing my life.
It wasn't exactly adventurous, but it was interesting and I
found out a lot about myself just thinking about things
that had happened many years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So tell me about growing up and your parents. What
kind of parents were they? How did they shape because
I find that the parents kind of shape who you are,
who you become.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, I think that my parents were, you know, well,
I wouldn't say there were ordinary people. My father came
from Revere, which is a community just outside of Boston,
which is famous for its beach and it had a
great amusement park. And my father learned how to live
his life young and he became very prominent in the
(02:50):
retail shoe business. His brother Matt was on the Keith
circuit with Al Jolson and visited Al Jolson when they
were in Baltimore, and so that there was and he
was a very gentle guy. My father, I loved him dearly.
He died really younger, around seventy. My mother was a character,
(03:10):
and I think from her one of the reasons I'm
doing as well as i'm doing at this age is
and it's really unexplainable completely why somebody does well in
their nineties, but some things can be explained. One of
them is the genes you get. And my mother lived
in ninety six. She was a character. She was beautiful,
(03:32):
she dressed impeccably. She worked until she was ninety five
and when she took a fall, and I inherited a
lot of things from her. She was tough, and she
was a women's liver before there was women's live because
essentially what she said she thumbed her nose that men
and said, hey, look, you can't tell you how to live.
(03:55):
I'm going to live the way I want to live.
So I think that some of her personal characteristics jeans
rubbed off on me, although my relationship with her was
a little bit testy because she was difficult, and I'm
like her, I'm, you know, a little difficult myself in
the sense that I have my own ideas and I
(04:15):
want to go by them. An example of that is
when I started writing, I never touched a writing course
because I didn't want to ruin my style. I thought
my style was good and it's worked out that way.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
What did your mom do that? She was working till ninety.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Five issues in the retail business with a friend of
hers who had a shop that was quite well known
Surrealed Cyrald, and she handled all the sutsky, so to speak,
that were in the store. And she was a great
seller because not only was she sufficiently vocal to talk
(04:55):
about what she was trying to sell, but also my
mother was a i'm a looking prison so she can
show these things by putting them on herself, and so
Sorell thought she was invaluable. There were personal friends as well,
and that's what happened. And when my mother died, you know,
(05:15):
I gave the funeral oration. What do you call it? Reality? Yeah,
And so I had to tell everybody what she was weary.
And I said, we're not going to open the coffin,
but she I'll tell you how she's dressed. People wanted
to know that. And close to one hundred people showed
up for women way beyond the generation of most of
(05:35):
the people there. And it's an amazing attendance for a
woman that age.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'm speaking with Larry Rutman. He is the author his
latest book, Intimate Conversations Face to Face with Matchless Musicians.
It is his conversations with classical musicians and classical conductors.
But this is a ninety three year old man who
is still working today, who started as a lawyer and
(06:04):
became an author and sort of did everything his own way.
What are your biggest life lessons, Larry, that you would
want to pass on to other people. What have you
learned over your ninety three years when it comes to
what's important in life?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Well, the name of the title of my yet to
be Well it's been published in a test edition, but
it'll come out in a published edition by a regular
publisher next year, I hope and the three words in
it that I described my life with a friendship and maturation.
I think I'm matured late in life, even though I
was a lawyer from the time I was twenty eight,
(06:43):
but really matured late in life and inquisitiveness. And so
what have I learned. I've learned that. I guess the
biggest lesson I've learned is keep going because you don't
know what's going to happen. I never dreamed that I
would to be an author, and that happened at age seventy.
(07:05):
And so since seventy to ninety three, almost a quarter
of a century, I've been engaged in this second career.
And I you know, as I say, I didn't know
what's coming. But it's been fantastic. And why is that
so wonderful? Because it's life. And if you keep working
and keep doing and keep thinking, you can do things
(07:26):
at any age. You don't have to lie back. I
think that real retirement would be deadly for me, because
I like to be doing something that might have some
value to the rest of my to my friends, to
my fellows, to the rest of people, rest of the
people in the world. That's the reason that I that's
one of the reasons I wrote this book. I want
(07:48):
my legacy when I'm gone to be Essentially, I wrote
a book on baseball that was honored as the top
baseball book. Also it also serves as as a history
of the Jews in this country from the time of
the Great Depression and before. But this one is a
real legacy that it has broad appeal not only to
(08:12):
regular people in bookstores, but also to schools, universities for
any school from K seven or eight to the highest
reaches of learning for advanced degrees. Because it's written in
my own vernacular, which does not test people with big
(08:32):
words or arcane expression. But I write like I'm writing
to you, so that people are looking over my shoulder
as I talk to these people. So I think the
main value is life. And I even response the idea
of the book that music is life, not just about life,
but is life. That's not my own idea, but it's
(08:52):
one I share with a lot of other musicians. Musicians
are fascinating people. But to come back to your original question,
that's it. If you stay active, and you stay interested,
and you stay doing stuff, you're going to live longer.
You're going to be interested longer. Your days are going
to be much more fascinating, and people will talk to you,
(09:15):
not like you're an old person, but like you're a
regular person. You don't time out. You're good forever. So
you stay in the refrigerator in there. Take out the
bottle of milk after three weeks and still fresh. That's
probably a batter.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Larry, How long did you practice law? When did you
stop practicing law? And why did you stop?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I stopped you around two thousand and after, Like I
started when I was twenty eight maybe maybe forty forty
five years.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'm so old were you when you stopped?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How old? Yeah? Well I never really stopped. I was
around seventy when I when I toned it down. People
still come to me with legal problems after twenty three years.
I'm not in a swim of it. But we had
a problem right here in the local area where people
on one side of me were changing a one family
(10:09):
house into a two family house, and it caused a
lot of trouble and people ask me to represent them,
and I did. I got another guy who was an
expert in the zoning law in Brookland, and together we
without going into details, won the case in the way
that we wanted to win it. And that was only
a couple of years ago. So I still practice law
(10:30):
when the necessity calls for it. I think lawyers do
a great service. Good lawyers not talking about bad ones,
but good lawyers are great for democracy and freedom and
individuality that we hope is preserved in this country because
good lawyers know the law and really mean it when
(10:51):
they talk about giving their services not only to make
a good living, but also for me kind, for the
preservation of democracy or our customs. So that I'm a
big fan of being a lawyer. I never want to
be identified as a retired lawyer who doesn't think of
(11:14):
law anymore, doesn't practice it when the necessity rises. But essentially,
my writing career began around two thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And what made you decide to write a book.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, as I say, Shelley, I never really thought I
would write a book, and that came as a surprise.
When I was still practicing law, I had a television
program in Brookline on Local Access TV, in which I
interviewed local people. You know, there's a lot of great
people in Brookline. Mike Ducaucus is memorable as a presidential candidate.
(11:48):
And I guess the Goodman sisters. She was a Pulit
surprise winning a writer for The Boss and Globe, and
her sister was famous for her book Lost Boston. There's
so many this. I think at one time there was
seven Nobel Prize winners living in Brookline, so it was
(12:13):
easy to have a program about these people. And I
wrote newspaper articles and people said, well, you ought to
write a book. I said, who me write a book?
I don't know, so but it happened. I wrote my
first book was called Voices of Brookline, and it's all
about Brookline people, four hundred and four hundred and fifty pages.
I don't know how to write a short book. And
(12:35):
so that was, you know, successful, And I liked being
able to write something that people would like, because that's
what an author wants. It wants to be read, just
like a musician wants to be heard. So that that
got me started, and that was in That book was
(12:56):
published in two thousand and five, and in five, I
guess I was around seventy three or seventy four or
something like that. And then I followed that up with
other books and things like that. So does that answer
the question you want?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That answers the question. I am speaking with Larry Rutman.
He is a ninety three year old author. He started
out as a lawyer. He has not stopped living life. Larry,
you been married for sixty three years. They're sixty one,
sixty one years. What is the secret to a long
(13:34):
happy marriage?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
What is the secret? Well, you know, I'll tell you something.
We're an unusual couple. We're still very popular with young people.
We have We had dinner last night with our next
door neighbor, and they're younger people, and they have a
daughter who's only like five years old or something like that,
(13:56):
and they write us notes like we're so lucky to
be living when they want to go out to dinner
with us all the time. That's very not only flattering,
but nice, pleasant friendship. I told that one of the
keynotes of my of my memoir. And on the other side, well,
Eric that you just met, who's the engineer for this program,
(14:17):
lives next door. On the other side. Now, Eric and Angie,
who's a Micross capist and a very accomplished woman, a
very beautiful woman. They're both young. They have two young children.
And so this pattern repeats itself where we have young
friends as well as older friends. But you know, a
lot of my older friends are gone already, although the
(14:38):
very closest ones have survived. But they all have serious
physical problems, but they're all mentally fine. But I think
that I think that Lois and I have a certain
even though she's ten years younger than I'm sixty one,
I'm married to thirty two, we were natural. We're the
(15:00):
same when we're out with people as we are at home.
Between ourselves. We use the same four letter words at
home as we do outside. Lois is a very outspoken
and funny person within the confines of her friends and associates,
(15:22):
but more shy when it comes to people outside that realm. I,
on the other hand, am I'll talk anytime at length.
I love people. I love to talk to them. You know,
I probably say more than I have to, but people
seem to like that. And so I think that one
(15:43):
of the successes of our marriage is based on the
fact that, whether it's private or public, we're never putting
on an act. People pick up on the genuineness of
our relationship, and even if we're fighting between ourselves in public.
They take it as some sort of a good feeling,
and I'm not sure it isn't you know laws and I,
(16:06):
you know, it's not one of the one of the
She's sort of, you know, temperamental, and I was more temperamental.
I've grown more mellow as time has gone on. But
still there's a and I write about this in the memoir,
but still there's a free give and take between us.
And I think that that is a plus in the marriage.
(16:31):
On occasion it's a minus, but mostly it's a plus.
I mean, how did two people get along together for
sixty one years? It's practically impossible. There's so much divorce
in our society, and there are times that test any
marriage for anybody except those people who for some reason
see each other in a golden light forever. But that's
(16:53):
pretty rare. I think marriage is a terrific adventure. And
I have to be frank to state that. One of
another reason that I'm living so long is because Lois
is wonderful to me. I mean, she she essentially she
keeps the great Immy. You walk into our house, it's
not like walking into the house of old people. You
(17:13):
walk into the house, everything is spick and span. She
was up on a ladder cleaning the beautiful chandelier in
the dining room last week, so that it's brilliant and
the house, you know, to her, it's if it's not
totally perfect, it's imperfect. But the fact of the matter
is that anybody walk into the house is going to say, hey,
(17:34):
this is beautiful. I'm not telling this story to say
that we have a beautiful house. I'm telling this story
to say that it does not look like people who
could literally die the next day. Our attitude is and
I think Lois shares it with me, live as long
as you can live, and live the same way and
don't change, and you know, keep your house and don't
(17:55):
have it be a mess, so that people will come
in and realize they just fully in this world.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
How did you two meet?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That's a story. I was thirty one or two or
something like that, and I took a bachelor apartment in
a new building close to Coolest Corner, which is the
center of town in Brookline and a famous place for
various things like the Brookline Booksmith and the Coolest Corner Theater,
which is an art theater from the year one. And
(18:27):
so I took this apartment, and Lois's mother and father,
they were wonderful people. I love them. They loved me
right from the beginning, and they moved in with Lois,
who was unmarried at that time and working downtown. So
one night I was playing Frank Sinatra kind of loud
and maybe Doris Day as well, two of my favorites,
(18:49):
and so Lois's mother, Sophie, a just charming, young, charming
woman who didn't pass aways, was like ninety nine, and
knocked on the door and she was very yeah, well
in this particular instance, she said what she had to say,
that's kind of loud, don't you think? So I said, oh, yeah,
(19:10):
I'll turn it down. No, no, no problem with that,
And so then I did. And I'm trying to remember
the exact sequence of events, but I guess we met.
Our apartment was on the eighth floor maybe, and so
we were taking an elevator. I was taking an elevator
and it was Lois with her parents, and that was
the first time I met Lois. Well that time, was
(19:31):
going with a guy named Lars from Norway or something. Anyway,
Lois and I looked at one another and apparently something
sparked off a relationship that grew into romance. And so
that's how I met her on the elevator. Yeah, that's
(19:53):
not much of a story, but that's how No.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I always loved to hear these stories. At ninety three,
How have you changed over the years, Like, do you
worry less? You said, you know you were, you were
somewhat different when you were younger. So explain what you've
learned that that has changed you. But I want to
(20:18):
know specifically too, about worrying.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, I would say I worry less, and I take
things less seriously. I take this book very seriously. That
that does not exactly worry me. But I'm concerned about
the many aspects of publishing a book that runs deep
in many ways. And there's a you know, I don't
know a publishing business. Fortunately, my publisher's, Torch Flame Books
(20:47):
in California, is run by a very lovely and recognized
person by the name of Terry rider Order, and she
has a twenty seven year old marketing expert who is
an amazing young woman by the name of Jury jri
Anna without the H And they published I don't know,
(21:10):
fifteen twenty books a year, but they've given I'm sure
they give a lot of attention to everybody. They've given
a lot of attention to me, and that's been a
great experience trying to learn the publishing business. And there
are a lot of aspects to the writing, to the
publishing and then the marketing that I don't know that
I'm learning. So it's not exactly a worrying experience, but
(21:34):
I would call it an involved experience that involves that
has a lot of thinking in it, that you're going
to figure out all the angles to get the book
out there, and I want it to be out there.
I don't care about the money very much. I did
well as a lawyer, and it's expensive to do all
(21:56):
the things that make a great book. If it ever
turns out to be a great book, I hope. So
so far, the reception has been very good, great as
a matter of fact, people saying a lot of nice things.
But it's having it out there, it's surviving me. It's
a legacy. That's the way I look at it. It's
(22:16):
my influence carrying on beyond the term of my life.
As to the rest of it, how have I changed.
I think I was more self centered when I was young.
It was more of an EI, and I wouldn't say
that I'm not devoid of that. But I think a
lot of people who have had some success in doing
(22:39):
the things they want to do, they are concerned with themselves.
I don't think that's bad. I think it's bad if
it excludes friendships and close associations and caring for other
people and contributing to other people in society. And as
I've grown older, I definitely have changed to be more so,
(23:03):
you know how I can tell that I'm different here.
In my mid middle years, I was a little bit
hypochondriacal and I used to think that they tiniest thing
might be something terrible. I don't think that way anymore.
And you know, I you know, things have happened to
me that have medical consequences, but I just take them
as they come, and I don't really dwell on them.
(23:24):
And I'm not a hypochondriact anymore. And I think that
the two go together. I'm less of a hypochondriact because
I don't dwell on myself anymore, particularly, And I think
that where I am in life is that I'm ready
for anything or whatever case rats around, whatever happens, happens
and I can deal with it. If they told me
(23:47):
you have six months, well I just have to deal
with that. They haven't told me that, And I'm still
going and still trying. But yes, I do think I've
changed from a person who was more concernedle myself to
one who's much more concerned with everybody else, but not
without some thought for myself. And I don't think that's unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Frankly, Larry Ruttman at ninety three, are you afraid of death?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
How do you see it?
Speaker 3 (24:14):
But you see it as the end. You know, everybody dies,
everybody is headed for the same place. And I think
that what you I think that if you, I say, well,
let me put it this way, I'm not afraid of death,
but I certainly am. If the word isn't afraid, I'm
certainly fearful. Or I don't want to have a bad
(24:38):
death in the sense some people suffer horrendously. And you
know we have this movement to a person, you know,
doing away. I'm not doing it the wrong rate of part,
a person you know, going to his maker by by
taking something that put them to sleep forever. But I
(25:01):
think that, sure, I don't want to have some disease
that makes me a vegetable or something like that. The
best thing would be to be able to work during
the day, go to sleep at night and not wake
up the next morning. That was more or less. How
a great song smith recently passed away, whom I think,
(25:22):
you know, you know, the famous musician in on Broadway,
Stephen Sondheim. But tell me he died and our kissinger.
We may not love him as a politician, we may
love him as a politician, but he was a very
influential politician, and China loved him, and he flew to
China and they gave him a great reception over there.
(25:44):
Last year, came back to New York and died a
few months later, still at one hundred and still in
charge of his in command of his thinking.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So we only have a few minutes left. What advice
do you have in terms of dang healthy? What do
you do well?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I'm not a you know, I try to go into
the physical therapist. That's not for me. I really like
to do things my own way. So okay, what do
I do physically? And you're not a heck of a lot,
But I do cycle every day. I have a bike
at home, not every day, but five days a week maybe,
And when I get up in the morning, I left
my legs ten or twenty times each leg, which the
(26:25):
doctor is a good thing to do. Well. During the
warmer weather, I walk a lot, and so physically, I think,
and I think Lois is a wonderful cook. She goes
out every day and buys fresh food. We eat fresh food,
and I think it's when it comes to vegetables and
fruit and things like that. We have plenty of that.
(26:48):
But we you know, don't eat as much meat as before.
But we eat eat fish. I mean, you know, we
we eat healthy food, always fresh and as I say,
a great cook, and so that we do that. And
as I've told you before, I don't want to repeat
myself about staying young by keeping your mind alive. So
(27:09):
I think it's a combination of mental and physical health.
I think I try and do enough physical things so
that I don't become you know, I still walk without
any any problem, without a cane or anything like that.
I do have a little balance issue. People get that
in their nineties. I gave up driving because I had
(27:29):
periphile neuropathy, which sort of undercuts your coordination in your feet,
so that I think, as I say, I like to
do it my own way. I'm not going to let
myself go to go to pieces and go to you know,
I'm now that's the wrong way to put it. I'm
not going to let myself disintegrate. But I don't love
(27:52):
physical activities. I'm I'm going to do as much as
I can, but probably a lot less than a physical
Ferris this might want me to do. But I'm feeling
better all the time when I do those physical things. Mentally,
I think I'm in good ship.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oh, certainly you are still writing books at ninety three.
So if this memoir and what's the name of it,
because we only have like a few seconds left, what's
the name of the memoir coming out.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Larry Rudman? A life lived backwards, a story of friendship,
maturation and inquisitiveness and something like that. And I think that,
as I say, I look backwards in my life and
I've found a lot of things to write about. I
don't know how many seconds we have left.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Now we're done. You have been inspiring. I thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Well. I just wanted to say to learn more about
me and the book The Intimate Conversations face to face
with matchless musicians. Please visit my website at Larryreutmand dot
com or my publisher's website towrtchbooks dot com, and or
ask wherever books are sold. But if you go directly
to those sites on my side, you'll find out how
(29:08):
to obtain the book much more easily than fishing around
for it. But Amazon and other places happened. Thanks Shelley,
I'm sorry to him.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Larry Rutman, I wish
you were happy New Year.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, the production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
We can all use inspiration for the new year. I
want to introduce you to a man who has reinvented
himself over his ninety three years. He started out as
a lawyer in Brookline, Massachusetts, but he has become an
author and his latest book Intimate Conversations Face to Face
(00:35):
with Matchless Musicians, and those are classical musicians and conductors.
And I want to introduce you to Larry Rutman. Welcome
and Happy New Year. Larry.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Well, the same to you, Shelley. Happy New Year to you.
And I'm really honored to be on your show. I
know of your history as a longtime broadcaster and podcaster
and this, that and the other thing, all the great
things you've done, so it's a pleasure for me to
be here.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, thank you. Okay, let's start with You're ninety three
years old and you don't stop. What motivates you, what
drives you?
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Well, I think I'm sort of an anomaly, if that's
the right word. When I was in practice of law
for thirty five years. I looked around at all my compatriots,
people of my age, and I realized that I was
not aging at the same rate that they were, and
that was and that's held up. And even now at
ninety three, I don't feel old. I don't really look old,
(01:38):
and I don't think old, and I still am ambitious
and think there are things I can do. This book
is one. The next one would be a memoir. I
never thought i'd write a memoir, but people said you shouldn't.
I said, well, what have I done? But they said
you should. And then when COVID came along and I
had time on my hands, I did do it. I
(01:59):
usually he looked forward, but from a memoir you got
to look backwards. And I found that reviewing my life.
It wasn't exactly adventurous, but it was interesting and I
found out a lot about myself just thinking about things
that had happened many years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
So tell me about growing up and your parents. What
kind of parents were they? How did they shape because
I find that the parents kind of shape who you are,
who you become.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, I think that my parents were, you know, well,
I wouldn't say there were ordinary people. My father came
from Revere, which is a community just outside of Boston,
which is famous for its beach and it had a
great amusement park. And my father learned how to live
his life young and he became very prominent in the
(02:50):
retail shoe business. His brother Matt was on the Keith
circuit with Al Jolson and visited Al Jolson when they
were in Baltimore, and so that there was and he
was a very gentle guy. My father, I loved him dearly.
He died really younger, around seventy. My mother was a character,
(03:10):
and I think from her one of the reasons I'm
doing as well as i'm doing at this age is
and it's really unexplainable completely why somebody does well in
their nineties, but some things can be explained. One of
them is the genes you get. And my mother lived
in ninety six. She was a character. She was beautiful,
(03:32):
she dressed impeccably. She worked until she was ninety five
and when she took a fall, and I inherited a
lot of things from her. She was tough, and she
was a women's liver before there was women's live because
essentially what she said she thumbed her nose that men
and said, hey, look, you can't tell you how to live.
(03:55):
I'm going to live the way I want to live.
So I think that some of her personal characteristics jeans
rubbed off on me, although my relationship with her was
a little bit testy because she was difficult, and I'm
like her, I'm, you know, a little difficult myself in
the sense that I have my own ideas and I
(04:15):
want to go by them. An example of that is
when I started writing, I never touched a writing course
because I didn't want to ruin my style. I thought
my style was good and it's worked out that way.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
What did your mom do that? She was working till ninety.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Five issues in the retail business with a friend of
hers who had a shop that was quite well known
Surrealed Cyrald, and she handled all the sutsky, so to speak,
that were in the store. And she was a great
seller because not only was she sufficiently vocal to talk
(04:55):
about what she was trying to sell, but also my
mother was a i'm a looking prison so she can
show these things by putting them on herself, and so
Sorell thought she was invaluable. There were personal friends as well,
and that's what happened. And when my mother died, you know,
(05:15):
I gave the funeral oration. What do you call it? Reality? Yeah,
And so I had to tell everybody what she was weary.
And I said, we're not going to open the coffin,
but she I'll tell you how she's dressed. People wanted
to know that. And close to one hundred people showed
up for women way beyond the generation of most of
(05:35):
the people there. And it's an amazing attendance for a
woman that age.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
I'm speaking with Larry Rutman. He is the author his
latest book, Intimate Conversations Face to Face with Matchless Musicians.
It is his conversations with classical musicians and classical conductors.
But this is a ninety three year old man who
is still working today, who started as a lawyer and
(06:04):
became an author and sort of did everything his own way.
What are your biggest life lessons, Larry, that you would
want to pass on to other people. What have you
learned over your ninety three years when it comes to
what's important in life?
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Well, the name of the title of my yet to
be Well it's been published in a test edition, but
it'll come out in a published edition by a regular
publisher next year, I hope and the three words in
it that I described my life with a friendship and maturation.
I think I'm matured late in life, even though I
was a lawyer from the time I was twenty eight,
(06:43):
but really matured late in life and inquisitiveness. And so
what have I learned. I've learned that. I guess the
biggest lesson I've learned is keep going because you don't
know what's going to happen. I never dreamed that I
would to be an author, and that happened at age seventy.
(07:05):
And so since seventy to ninety three, almost a quarter
of a century, I've been engaged in this second career.
And I you know, as I say, I didn't know
what's coming. But it's been fantastic. And why is that
so wonderful? Because it's life. And if you keep working
and keep doing and keep thinking, you can do things
(07:26):
at any age. You don't have to lie back. I
think that real retirement would be deadly for me, because
I like to be doing something that might have some
value to the rest of my to my friends, to
my fellows, to the rest of people, rest of the
people in the world. That's the reason that I that's
one of the reasons I wrote this book. I want
(07:48):
my legacy when I'm gone to be Essentially, I wrote
a book on baseball that was honored as the top
baseball book. Also it also serves as as a history
of the Jews in this country from the time of
the Great Depression and before. But this one is a
real legacy that it has broad appeal not only to
(08:12):
regular people in bookstores, but also to schools, universities for
any school from K seven or eight to the highest
reaches of learning for advanced degrees. Because it's written in
my own vernacular, which does not test people with big
(08:32):
words or arcane expression. But I write like I'm writing
to you, so that people are looking over my shoulder
as I talk to these people. So I think the
main value is life. And I even response the idea
of the book that music is life, not just about life,
but is life. That's not my own idea, but it's
(08:52):
one I share with a lot of other musicians. Musicians
are fascinating people. But to come back to your original question,
that's it. If you stay active, and you stay interested,
and you stay doing stuff, you're going to live longer.
You're going to be interested longer. Your days are going
to be much more fascinating, and people will talk to you,
(09:15):
not like you're an old person, but like you're a
regular person. You don't time out. You're good forever. So
you stay in the refrigerator in there. Take out the
bottle of milk after three weeks and still fresh. That's
probably a batter.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Larry, How long did you practice law? When did you
stop practicing law? And why did you stop?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I stopped you around two thousand and after, Like I
started when I was twenty eight maybe maybe forty forty
five years.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
I'm so old were you when you stopped?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How old? Yeah? Well I never really stopped. I was
around seventy when I when I toned it down. People
still come to me with legal problems after twenty three years.
I'm not in a swim of it. But we had
a problem right here in the local area where people
on one side of me were changing a one family
(10:09):
house into a two family house, and it caused a
lot of trouble and people ask me to represent them,
and I did. I got another guy who was an
expert in the zoning law in Brookland, and together we
without going into details, won the case in the way
that we wanted to win it. And that was only
a couple of years ago. So I still practice law
(10:30):
when the necessity calls for it. I think lawyers do
a great service. Good lawyers not talking about bad ones,
but good lawyers are great for democracy and freedom and
individuality that we hope is preserved in this country because
good lawyers know the law and really mean it when
(10:51):
they talk about giving their services not only to make
a good living, but also for me kind, for the
preservation of democracy or our customs. So that I'm a
big fan of being a lawyer. I never want to
be identified as a retired lawyer who doesn't think of
(11:14):
law anymore, doesn't practice it when the necessity rises. But essentially,
my writing career began around two thousand.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And what made you decide to write a book.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, as I say, Shelley, I never really thought I
would write a book, and that came as a surprise.
When I was still practicing law, I had a television
program in Brookline on Local Access TV, in which I
interviewed local people. You know, there's a lot of great
people in Brookline. Mike Ducaucus is memorable as a presidential candidate.
(11:48):
And I guess the Goodman sisters. She was a Pulit
surprise winning a writer for The Boss and Globe, and
her sister was famous for her book Lost Boston. There's
so many this. I think at one time there was
seven Nobel Prize winners living in Brookline, so it was
(12:13):
easy to have a program about these people. And I
wrote newspaper articles and people said, well, you ought to
write a book. I said, who me write a book?
I don't know, so but it happened. I wrote my
first book was called Voices of Brookline, and it's all
about Brookline people, four hundred and four hundred and fifty pages.
I don't know how to write a short book. And
(12:35):
so that was, you know, successful, And I liked being
able to write something that people would like, because that's
what an author wants. It wants to be read, just
like a musician wants to be heard. So that that
got me started, and that was in That book was
(12:56):
published in two thousand and five, and in five, I
guess I was around seventy three or seventy four or
something like that. And then I followed that up with
other books and things like that. So does that answer
the question you want?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
That answers the question. I am speaking with Larry Rutman.
He is a ninety three year old author. He started
out as a lawyer. He has not stopped living life. Larry,
you been married for sixty three years. They're sixty one,
sixty one years. What is the secret to a long
(13:34):
happy marriage?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
What is the secret? Well, you know, I'll tell you something.
We're an unusual couple. We're still very popular with young people.
We have We had dinner last night with our next
door neighbor, and they're younger people, and they have a
daughter who's only like five years old or something like that,
(13:56):
and they write us notes like we're so lucky to
be living when they want to go out to dinner
with us all the time. That's very not only flattering,
but nice, pleasant friendship. I told that one of the
keynotes of my of my memoir. And on the other side, well,
Eric that you just met, who's the engineer for this program,
(14:17):
lives next door. On the other side. Now, Eric and Angie,
who's a Micross capist and a very accomplished woman, a
very beautiful woman. They're both young. They have two young children.
And so this pattern repeats itself where we have young
friends as well as older friends. But you know, a
lot of my older friends are gone already, although the
(14:38):
very closest ones have survived. But they all have serious
physical problems, but they're all mentally fine. But I think
that I think that Lois and I have a certain
even though she's ten years younger than I'm sixty one,
I'm married to thirty two, we were natural. We're the
(15:00):
same when we're out with people as we are at home.
Between ourselves. We use the same four letter words at
home as we do outside. Lois is a very outspoken
and funny person within the confines of her friends and associates,
(15:22):
but more shy when it comes to people outside that realm. I,
on the other hand, am I'll talk anytime at length.
I love people. I love to talk to them. You know,
I probably say more than I have to, but people
seem to like that. And so I think that one
(15:43):
of the successes of our marriage is based on the
fact that, whether it's private or public, we're never putting
on an act. People pick up on the genuineness of
our relationship, and even if we're fighting between ourselves in public.
They take it as some sort of a good feeling,
and I'm not sure it isn't you know laws and I,
(16:06):
you know, it's not one of the one of the
She's sort of, you know, temperamental, and I was more temperamental.
I've grown more mellow as time has gone on. But
still there's a and I write about this in the memoir,
but still there's a free give and take between us.
And I think that that is a plus in the marriage.
(16:31):
On occasion it's a minus, but mostly it's a plus.
I mean, how did two people get along together for
sixty one years? It's practically impossible. There's so much divorce
in our society, and there are times that test any
marriage for anybody except those people who for some reason
see each other in a golden light forever. But that's
(16:53):
pretty rare. I think marriage is a terrific adventure. And
I have to be frank to state that. One of
another reason that I'm living so long is because Lois
is wonderful to me. I mean, she she essentially she
keeps the great Immy. You walk into our house, it's
not like walking into the house of old people. You
(17:13):
walk into the house, everything is spick and span. She
was up on a ladder cleaning the beautiful chandelier in
the dining room last week, so that it's brilliant and
the house, you know, to her, it's if it's not
totally perfect, it's imperfect. But the fact of the matter
is that anybody walk into the house is going to say, hey,
(17:34):
this is beautiful. I'm not telling this story to say
that we have a beautiful house. I'm telling this story
to say that it does not look like people who
could literally die the next day. Our attitude is and
I think Lois shares it with me, live as long
as you can live, and live the same way and
don't change, and you know, keep your house and don't
(17:55):
have it be a mess, so that people will come
in and realize they just fully in this world.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
How did you two meet?
Speaker 3 (18:05):
That's a story. I was thirty one or two or
something like that, and I took a bachelor apartment in
a new building close to Coolest Corner, which is the
center of town in Brookline and a famous place for
various things like the Brookline Booksmith and the Coolest Corner Theater,
which is an art theater from the year one. And
(18:27):
so I took this apartment, and Lois's mother and father,
they were wonderful people. I love them. They loved me
right from the beginning, and they moved in with Lois,
who was unmarried at that time and working downtown. So
one night I was playing Frank Sinatra kind of loud
and maybe Doris Day as well, two of my favorites,
(18:49):
and so Lois's mother, Sophie, a just charming, young, charming
woman who didn't pass aways, was like ninety nine, and
knocked on the door and she was very yeah, well
in this particular instance, she said what she had to say,
that's kind of loud, don't you think? So I said, oh, yeah,
(19:10):
I'll turn it down. No, no, no problem with that,
And so then I did. And I'm trying to remember
the exact sequence of events, but I guess we met.
Our apartment was on the eighth floor maybe, and so
we were taking an elevator. I was taking an elevator
and it was Lois with her parents, and that was
the first time I met Lois. Well that time, was
(19:31):
going with a guy named Lars from Norway or something. Anyway,
Lois and I looked at one another and apparently something
sparked off a relationship that grew into romance. And so
that's how I met her on the elevator. Yeah, that's
(19:53):
not much of a story, but that's how No.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
I always loved to hear these stories. At ninety three,
How have you changed over the years, Like, do you
worry less? You said, you know you were, you were
somewhat different when you were younger. So explain what you've
learned that that has changed you. But I want to
(20:18):
know specifically too, about worrying.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Yeah, I would say I worry less, and I take
things less seriously. I take this book very seriously. That
that does not exactly worry me. But I'm concerned about
the many aspects of publishing a book that runs deep
in many ways. And there's a you know, I don't
know a publishing business. Fortunately, my publisher's, Torch Flame Books
(20:47):
in California, is run by a very lovely and recognized
person by the name of Terry rider Order, and she
has a twenty seven year old marketing expert who is
an amazing young woman by the name of Jury jri
Anna without the H And they published I don't know,
(21:10):
fifteen twenty books a year, but they've given I'm sure
they give a lot of attention to everybody. They've given
a lot of attention to me, and that's been a
great experience trying to learn the publishing business. And there
are a lot of aspects to the writing, to the
publishing and then the marketing that I don't know that
I'm learning. So it's not exactly a worrying experience, but
(21:34):
I would call it an involved experience that involves that
has a lot of thinking in it, that you're going
to figure out all the angles to get the book
out there, and I want it to be out there.
I don't care about the money very much. I did
well as a lawyer, and it's expensive to do all
(21:56):
the things that make a great book. If it ever
turns out to be a great book, I hope. So
so far, the reception has been very good, great as
a matter of fact, people saying a lot of nice things.
But it's having it out there, it's surviving me. It's
a legacy. That's the way I look at it. It's
(22:16):
my influence carrying on beyond the term of my life.
As to the rest of it, how have I changed.
I think I was more self centered when I was young.
It was more of an EI, and I wouldn't say
that I'm not devoid of that. But I think a
lot of people who have had some success in doing
(22:39):
the things they want to do, they are concerned with themselves.
I don't think that's bad. I think it's bad if
it excludes friendships and close associations and caring for other
people and contributing to other people in society. And as
I've grown older, I definitely have changed to be more so,
(23:03):
you know how I can tell that I'm different here.
In my mid middle years, I was a little bit
hypochondriacal and I used to think that they tiniest thing
might be something terrible. I don't think that way anymore.
And you know, I you know, things have happened to
me that have medical consequences, but I just take them
as they come, and I don't really dwell on them.
(23:24):
And I'm not a hypochondriact anymore. And I think that
the two go together. I'm less of a hypochondriact because
I don't dwell on myself anymore, particularly, And I think
that where I am in life is that I'm ready
for anything or whatever case rats around, whatever happens, happens
and I can deal with it. If they told me
(23:47):
you have six months, well I just have to deal
with that. They haven't told me that, And I'm still
going and still trying. But yes, I do think I've
changed from a person who was more concernedle myself to
one who's much more concerned with everybody else, but not
without some thought for myself. And I don't think that's unhealthy.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
Frankly, Larry Ruttman at ninety three, are you afraid of death?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
No?
Speaker 2 (24:13):
How do you see it?
Speaker 3 (24:14):
But you see it as the end. You know, everybody dies,
everybody is headed for the same place. And I think
that what you I think that if you, I say, well,
let me put it this way, I'm not afraid of death,
but I certainly am. If the word isn't afraid, I'm
certainly fearful. Or I don't want to have a bad
(24:38):
death in the sense some people suffer horrendously. And you
know we have this movement to a person, you know,
doing away. I'm not doing it the wrong rate of part,
a person you know, going to his maker by by
taking something that put them to sleep forever. But I
(25:01):
think that, sure, I don't want to have some disease
that makes me a vegetable or something like that. The
best thing would be to be able to work during
the day, go to sleep at night and not wake
up the next morning. That was more or less. How
a great song smith recently passed away, whom I think,
(25:22):
you know, you know, the famous musician in on Broadway,
Stephen Sondheim. But tell me he died and our kissinger.
We may not love him as a politician, we may
love him as a politician, but he was a very
influential politician, and China loved him, and he flew to
China and they gave him a great reception over there.
(25:44):
Last year, came back to New York and died a
few months later, still at one hundred and still in
charge of his in command of his thinking.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So we only have a few minutes left. What advice
do you have in terms of dang healthy? What do
you do well?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
I'm not a you know, I try to go into
the physical therapist. That's not for me. I really like
to do things my own way. So okay, what do
I do physically? And you're not a heck of a lot,
But I do cycle every day. I have a bike
at home, not every day, but five days a week maybe,
And when I get up in the morning, I left
my legs ten or twenty times each leg, which the
(26:25):
doctor is a good thing to do. Well. During the
warmer weather, I walk a lot, and so physically, I think,
and I think Lois is a wonderful cook. She goes
out every day and buys fresh food. We eat fresh food,
and I think it's when it comes to vegetables and
fruit and things like that. We have plenty of that.
(26:48):
But we you know, don't eat as much meat as before.
But we eat eat fish. I mean, you know, we
we eat healthy food, always fresh and as I say,
a great cook, and so that we do that. And
as I've told you before, I don't want to repeat
myself about staying young by keeping your mind alive. So
(27:09):
I think it's a combination of mental and physical health.
I think I try and do enough physical things so
that I don't become you know, I still walk without
any any problem, without a cane or anything like that.
I do have a little balance issue. People get that
in their nineties. I gave up driving because I had
(27:29):
periphile neuropathy, which sort of undercuts your coordination in your feet,
so that I think, as I say, I like to
do it my own way. I'm not going to let
myself go to go to pieces and go to you know,
I'm now that's the wrong way to put it. I'm
not going to let myself disintegrate. But I don't love
(27:52):
physical activities. I'm I'm going to do as much as
I can, but probably a lot less than a physical
Ferris this might want me to do. But I'm feeling
better all the time when I do those physical things. Mentally,
I think I'm in good ship.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Oh, certainly you are still writing books at ninety three.
So if this memoir and what's the name of it,
because we only have like a few seconds left, what's
the name of the memoir coming out.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Larry Rudman? A life lived backwards, a story of friendship,
maturation and inquisitiveness and something like that. And I think that,
as I say, I look backwards in my life and
I've found a lot of things to write about. I
don't know how many seconds we have left.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Now we're done. You have been inspiring. I thank you
so much.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
Well. I just wanted to say to learn more about
me and the book The Intimate Conversations face to face
with matchless musicians. Please visit my website at Larryreutmand dot
com or my publisher's website towrtchbooks dot com, and or
ask wherever books are sold. But if you go directly
to those sites on my side, you'll find out how
(29:08):
to obtain the book much more easily than fishing around
for it. But Amazon and other places happened. Thanks Shelley,
I'm sorry to him.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Larry Rutman, I wish
you were happy New Year.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, the production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
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