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A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Time now for StoryCorps. Forty years ago this weekend, a New York culinary bastion closed its doors. Dubrow's Cafeteria in Manhattan was a magnet for workers from the surrounding Garment District. In its heyday, though, Dubrow's ran four cafeterias, including one in Brooklyn, where comedians Van Harris and his wife Shirley fell in love. They talked about their romance in this StoryCorp conversation from 2012.
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VAN HARRIS: I met her when she was about 10 years old, and she was beating up a couple of guys. The boys had taken her hat off her head, and they were tossing it around. She's, give me back my hat. They wouldn't. So one by one, she punched out every boy. I said, jeez, I'd like to meet a girl like that. Later on, I used to take you with me when we'd go to our hangout, which was Dubrow's Cafeteria.
SHIRLEY HARRIS: We'd come in late at night. We'd have a cup of coffee. And then, who was our friend who would have dinner? And he was...
V HARRIS: Oh, Herbie the Nibbler. He ate so much.
S HARRIS: And they gave him a discount on his food.
V HARRIS: They sure did, at Dubrow's. Here comes Herbie. So they'd give him a table, and he'd sit all by himself, and we'd gather around and watch Herbie the Nibbler eat. We used to say...
S HARRIS: He had a tapeworm.
V HARRIS: He didn't have a tapeworm. We used to say he has a snake. Then we had a guy called One-Ball Barney. I don't think I have to explain it. And there was a guy named Mendel Berman. Mendel had a leaky ear. And he'd go to dances, and he'd sit there, and he'd put a handkerchief in his ear. And it was a terrible habit. He would smell the handkerchief. How could you pick up a girl when you're there sniffing a handkerchief that's got the deposit from a bad ear, you know? But that's the way these guys were. Oh, Shirley, you grew up with these fellows, too. They loved her.
S HARRIS: Yeah. We'd sit around, and everybody would be telling jokes. You just felt at home.
V HARRIS: Filthy Milthy was my friend. And when we got married, Filthy Milthy was our babysitter, and he was crazy as a bedbug. While we were out wherever we went, he would take the dresser drawers and he would exchange them. He moved the top drawer to the bottom, the middle drawer to the top. So if we went looking for, let's say, underwear, it wasn't in the same place. This was Milthy.
S HARRIS: And it turned out that all of our children have a great sense of humor as a result of being surrounded with these guys. And I'd say to you today, thank you for a wonderful life.
V HARRIS: Well, thank you.
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MARTÍNEZ: That's Van and Shirley Harris in 2012. They have both since died. But each year, their children remember them by listening to their interview on their wedding anniversary. Their interview is archived at the Library of Congress. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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