b'food. The Union pays me to do this. If other things come up and they ask me to do it, I do. Once in a while, Ill go to Tai Chiclass, but I haven\'t been going too often.It\'s there for the members to come and participate in these things.Do you cook at home?Sometimes, if my wife lets me. She likes to cook. I cook once in a blue moon. I mostly cook fora lot of people whowant me to cook for them, in summer. They\'ll want me to do barbecues and stuff. Different people want me to cook forparties. I cook mostly when I go visiting, less just for home.I go to South Carolina, Jersey, any place. They find a way toget me in that kitchen. I want to get in there anyway because if I see something going wrong, it\'s hard for me to stay outthe kitchen.And then, I like serving the people, I like seeing people happy. And I like to get compliments too. At the Ethical Culture School, the kids were writing me notes, We love your macaroni and cheese. If you cook for kids, like I say,you can do anything.What was your favorite job?I liked all my jobs!Now one job I didnt like was years ago, eyeglass frames, the flu season. When one personcaught the flu, everybody caught the flu, that was years ago. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. I remember one time, I had to cookfor the whole hospital by myself.It was a snowstorm, I had to get that tram. I got there early. Other cooks couldnt makeit. I made a lamb stew. But I had to make it all low sodium. You serve everybody the same thing. You got the paddle; yougot the big pot. I used the big steam pot that you use to make soups, everything goes in one pot. You use a big paddle tostir it. You scoop it out, and you put it in the pan, put \'em on the truck, put \'em on the table, cover \'em up, put \'em in thewarmer and they take it from there. It was ok for the hospital, but it was different in the restaurant. You have to cook allthe different things that people order. That would have been much harder to do alone. Sure. I couldnt have done it if I had to make different meals. I had issues with some waitresses too.I made a vegetable soup or somethin and the waitress walked up to me and said, "Campbell\'s?" and I said, "What you meanCampbell\'s?" [laughing]. I almost cussed her out. I had so many different experiences with the cooking. I think about thestudents I fed at the high School in Riverdale. I wonder where they are now. I use to try to entertain then. I sang a little bittoo. I did a l couple recordings.Did you? What kind of singing?I like ballads, been on the road a couple times with a couple of acts. I was an entertainer too. We traveled to theSouth. They got us mixed up with the Freedom Riding buses and stuff. You couldn\'t eat here, couldn\'t eat there and allthat kind of stuff.You were a political activist as well?Yeah. We were on tour in the South. They thought we were Freedom Bus riders. But I was with the Lloyd Price tourthere. Yeah, Lloyd, Clawdy and stuff. I was at the time singing with the Hollywood Flames, I would lead. The song I didwas There\'s Something on Your Mind. We went to places on the road. When they saw a bus with a lot of black people,132 '