In 1951 I took my first art course. And one day I looked over my shoulder and there was this tall gentleman standing, very well-dressed and groomed, and he asked, "What is your name? I don't know you. What is your major?" I said history. And he looked at my drawing and looked at me and said, "You don't belong over there; you belong here." He was James A. Porter.

My parents were not formally educated. Both were cognizant of the importance of education. The teachers and ministers were the role models, and they would say, you should want to be like Miss Gardiner, you should want to be like Mr. Freeman, or be like your dad. Shun the people who don't value education.

I established relationships with so many of those Iran students that went on for years.And they were so different from American students. They seemed to worship their teachers. The professors were major to them. They wanted to give gifts, and you'd have to say, oh, no, no, you can't do that.

When I became an adult, I had absolutely nothing against drinking alcohol. Many of my friends drank. I would often make wine and offer it, but I never sat down and drank it myself. That affect my religious practice.

We were told, no, you don't do. There was this high standard of morals and a sense of responsibility. That didn't mean that everybody stuck to those laws, but we were cognizant of the importance of trying to live up to that code.

There was a young man in our community who said he wanted to be a minister, and my father was trying to mentor him in the ministry, and something supposedly happened in town.And this young man was jailed. I remember my father lamenting and saying, well, regardless of what happened, he's human; he's human like the rest of us and he deserves, to be heard and to be seen.

That emphasis, from my parents, was always, "if you want something different from this" - they didn't say "better than this," because I'm not sure that they knew anything better, "then get an education."