According to one of the obits, he served as a rabbi in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He must have had a hard time finding a good Jewish restaurant or deli in N.C., alas. No wonder he left the clergy for stand-up. I remember taking a day trip with friends and playing a Jackie Mason tape most of the way. Many funny bits that have stuck with me for years. One of the bits was about how Italians in suits are dangerous, but put them in uniforms and they are clowns, whereas Jewish guys in suits are pacific, whereas if you put them in uniform they're deadly. And about how non-Jews always want to show you how they've remodeled their houses, but Jewish people make the best food. "That's our department." Funny how his jokes translated to other ethnicities, even the ones that don't think of themselves in ethnic terms so much ... really a universality. He really was one of the best, and I'm glad he had a long and often successful life. One of my favorite novelists is Saul Bellow, and Mason provided an insight into some of Bellow's non-humorous work.