Bob Strauss: Listening To The Opera

Bob Strauss's mother Edith was a strong woman who often minded the family store while her husband Charles listened to opera on the radio or, better yet, traveled to performances in Dallas. Edith urged young Bobby to become a lawyer as a first step to becoming, in her view, the "first real Jewish politician" in Texas. Her son, dutiful and smart, won undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Texas. That's also where he met Helen Jacobs, the daughter of a well-off Dallas businessman, whom he married in 1941. Following a World War II stint as an FBI agent, Strauss and an old college chum, Richard Gump, opened a Dallas law office.

And the rest is history.

Here's my favorite Bob Strauss quote: "What I've worked for is to earn the respect of people I respected." Me too, Mr. Strauss. Just look at the list of people I've sent my book Significant Moments to -- Robert S. Strauss, Esq., Elliott Mincberg, Esq., Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Bernard E. Epstein (Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania), Fredric L. Cohen, M.D. (Central High School 1970), Elliott Feldman, Esq. (Central High School 1971), U.S. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, Esq., Claire Hirshfield, Ph.D. (The Pennsylvania State University), Stanley R. Palombo, M.D., Harold Bloom (Yale University) and a few others. I respect these people; I have worked to earn their respect. I wonder if any of these people read my book. Who knows?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,966984-1,00.html