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PF: What made you decide to come back to Hawaii after law school as opposed to staying on the mainland or going somewhere else?

TT: Oh, I had no thought of ever settling in the mainland. I was always going to come back home. Most of my fellow graduates, well, the real smart ones, they aspired to get jobs as clerks of the U.S. Supreme Court or some federal judge's office, and that was a springboard into high paying jobs with the big firms in New York or other big cities. But I was just content. I may have said it, but those guys... you know, in other words, all through law school, my idea was not to try to run a four minute mile, but just to finish the whole thing. Likewise, as far as job concerns, I just wanted to be a general practicing lawyer and not seek a career like those guys on the mainland where they had very high ambitions. Some of them wanted to be high-placed judges, or especially get, become partners in these high-priced law firms in Washington, D.C. or New York City. Well, there were a lot of others from around the country, they, too, wanted to go back to their hometowns and practice. There were those.

PF: Were there other minorities besides yourself while you were in law school?

TT: Well, like I said, it was just, I think ninety-nine percent all Caucasian. We did have a few blacks, few blacks, and of course, they were smart.

PF: Did any of your classmates make it to the big time?

TT: Well, yeah. Like I remember when we used to go back for law school reunions, one of them ultimately went in from law practice being general counsel of, say, Aetna Life Insurance, to become the president of Aetna. Or there was this guy in Milwaukee who started out as counsel for Allis-Chalmers and ended up as their president. So that when he came to a law school reunion, he came in his private jet. And then going home, he offered me a ride on his jet to Chicago. So talking about guys who really made it. And a lot of them, of course, didn't stay in law. Like one of my closest friends, Jerry Katcher, settled down in Florida and somehow got into the banking business, and he became president of a bank in Florida which did so well that he got, his bank got bought out by one of these big banks, Chase Manhattan, some big New York bank. And so he retired from banking with a big pile. And now, I noticed that in public radio, PBS, all these rich guys sponsor various programs, and I see every now and then Gerald Katcher Trust. So, yeah, some of them got very successful. I mean, far beyond the kind of ordinary level of law that I experienced.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.