I know that I was conscious of all the aspects of the war, having had cousins who were in the army, who would send me notes and memorabilia. I began to collect things that they would send me.

Jack Sturtzer, one of my cousins, had gone to art school and suggested that I might be interested in a private school called the Art Institute of Buffalo, and in fact that is what happened. So upon graduation in 1948, I then went to stay with my cousins on Seventeenth Street and enrolled in the program at the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue.

My parents never prevented me from doing anything, but they didn't have the knowledge of the arts that Mrs. Ranger had.

I learned from books that I picked up. That was something that just came out of nowhere but continued to be an attraction. So there was a continuum of my interest in the arts and involvement in creating that was strong enough that it later blossomed into much more.

At home, the radio was a big source and the classic radio programs we would listen to like Amos and Andy and whatever other ones there were.

Fortunately, I had cousins who lived in Buffalo and would often go to visit them, which I loved to do because I liked Buffalo as it was a big city. Even today, the bigger the city, the better.

People, even children, aren't really afraid of change. They're afraid of not being prepared for change.