 Think Tech Away. Civil engagement lives here. Aloha and welcome to Talk Story with John Wahey. We got another great show for you all today. You know, I know I keep saying that, but today is special, special. I have as my special guest this afternoon to talk to all of us, Mr. Don Chapman. Hello, John, Governor. How are you? It's fantastic to have you. You know, you're, first of all, you are a well-known journalist in Hawaii, right? I think you worked for years with the... Thirteen years as a daily columnist at the advertiser. Yes. And 22 years as midweek's editor. And you built, you helped build midweek into one of the major publications in Hawaii. It became the best red paper in the state of Hawaii with more than a half a million readers. Well, I tell you what, a lot of people don't realize that you also have a, you know, a bigger life in the sense that you're also an author. This is actually book number 10, The Godfather, the story of Larry Mayhouse, in his own words. It's The Good Father. Did I say Godfather? Yes. Well, it's a layout word. And for those of us, those of you out there who may not be aware of this, is that one of the great injustices, in my opinion, of the contemporary Hawaii was the fact that Larry Mayhouse was identified as a Godfather and associated with the negative aspects of all of that. And, oh, but your book is called The Good Father. Now, tell us how, well, first of all, which means folks, it's a vindication of a good man. But tell us how you got started with this, huh? Governor, first of all, I want to say that there's a chapter that I did with you. And it's one of my favorite chapters and some great stories. And I hope you'll be able to tell one later. How it all started was at midweek, if you remember the columnist, Eddie Sherman. Right, right, Eddie. He was pals with Larry going back to Eddie's days as a columnist at The Advertiser. Larry was running something called Metro Squad, which was very hands-on and amazing at HPD. And the allegations had been made of Godfather, Godfather, Godfather. And Eddie set up an interview with Larry at his ranch on the Big Island, and it turned into a two-part midweek cover story. Okay, good. So that's how it started. And that basically takes up the first couple. So that was how you got to meet Larry, I mean, how? I had met him once previously on an opening day at the legislature, I think in Malama Solomon's office, but it was just a brief hello, hello. And I had heard the name and I'd heard the rumors, and I was, hello. And I was off. But then I got to go to his ranch, sit down at his kitchen table at the ranch at Waimea with Eddie, and ask him the question, are you the Godfather? And he said no. You know, and I love your book, okay? I want to talk a little bit about the format of your book, because the first half of your book, and folks, this is really interesting stuff. I mean, I had a chance to read it this weekend. And you know what you do when you read some book, you look for the part that you say something, and then you go back and you start reading it. And I just read it. I read it all. I mean, it's just, it's fantastic because it starts off, half of the book starts off with Larry telling his own story, where he grew up, who his family was, what, you know, the whole, the whole bit, which is so fascinating. And then you take him about, I think about 11 or 12 different people, 20 people. And you have little vignettes about their interaction with Larry Meijow. And not all of them could be considered close friends. Not all of them at all. In fact, one of them was his arcane. Tell us how this whole thing about the Godfather got started. It started in 1977, if you remember a journalist named Scott Shirai. Oh, Scott, yes. Actually, a good journalist. He was a great journalist, had a long list of sources. And on the KHON news, when it was then an NBC affiliate, he reported that the head of a state board had been involved at a heroin bust at Punchbowl Cemetery. And he didn't name names, but I tracked Scott down. He's now in Cleveland. And he said, I knew who I had in mind. And it was Larry. Yes. And from that point, it was about six weeks later, a guy named Rick Reed, ran a little newspaper on Maui called the Valley Isle. And he had been backpacking around. Maui had heard some stories about Larry being involved in a couple of murders, Mitchell and… Which, by the way, are not factual. I don't want to even give the impression that this was even charged or anything. But this was like a rumor that he had heard. With certain people on Maui. And he published it, that Larry was the Godfather, up the ante by saying he was also involved with a gangster out of Chicago and Los Angeles named Marcus Lipsky. So that was also in 1977. And so the allegation was there. Then later, 1985, Reed had been hired by Chuck Marsland at the same time. And he really played it off. And he really played it off, running for Congress. Well, I tell you, I don't know where to begin because this is such an interesting book. But what the book does is show that that is not correct. That if anything, that Larry's role in law enforcement was very much on the side of enforcing the law as a policeman and then acting as a, I guess you would call it community outreach person or something. That's a good way of putting it. When Larry was named to head something called Metro Squad, there was 12 guys, big local guys. And he put them through martial arts training before they went out every night. Each guy had his own car. They're dressed in jeans and a lo-ha shirt. And they would crack heads if need be. Yeah, it was a time when there were tough cops, when there were a lot of tough cops. And they needed to be. Well, I tell you what, I know who the Metro Squad was. I grew up going to school when the Metro Squad was in its peak, you know, in Honolulu. And guys, I never knew until years later that Larry Michal was part of this Metro Squad, but I knew who the Metro Squad was. And they all wore these white kids. You know, these white kids, they would wear white kids and you would be on the beach, you know, doing what teenagers shouldn't do like drinking or doing something else on the beach. And all of a sudden, you'd see white kids coming and you'd be gone. You would disappear. You would be gone. And so, and by the way, they weren't just, they didn't just throw people in jail. I mean, what they did was keep places safe. And it was a different Hawaii, but it was a place where you just wouldn't do something that you shouldn't if you were in their territory. And people understood Larry, I mean, excuse me, Eddie Sherman tells a great story in the book. He was doing a ride along with Larry one night, and Larry had heard a rumor that there was going to be a gang fight at a downtown dance hall. I don't think they have dance halls anymore. Oh, right on Hotel Street. You got to remember, you're talking about my era. And so I know exactly where this dance hall was. And so Larry goes up to the microphone, and he goes, folks, we understand there's going to be a gang fight tonight. I want everybody to line up against the wall, walk single file to the center of the room and give up your weapons. And as Eddie Sherman explains it, you've never heard such a clanking of guns and knives and chains hitting the ground. And people did what Larry wanted them to do. Yeah. And that was good for Hawaii. And I guess what happened was that in the course of doing all of this, well, you get to know some of these bad guys, you know? Yes, exactly. Francis Keala, the former chief of police here, told several people that Larry's reputation is directly attributable to what Larry did at HPD. And HPD asked him to go out and mediate gangland disputes, syndicate disputes. And he'd go and sit down two tough guys who, as Larry says, you know these guys, there is no backing down. And he would talk to this guy, talk to that guy, and they walk out, shake hands in their pals. Well, that was wonderful. But so, okay, so what this book was, was an attempt for you to clarify the record. That's exactly right. Because it really talks about all these community-based things that he had done, you know? Yes. And so he had the reputation. He was called Godfather. And it stung him. It hurt him. He was a big tough guy, the biggest and toughest guy I think I've ever met. And he was stung by this stuff. And yet he came out. It was so unjust. Thank you. It was so unjust, you know? And I tell you, well, in my case, for example, you know, we worked on the same side politically. In fact, he campaigned against me with annoying regularity. Which is crazy, because you're both from the big island. We're both from a great, great background. And by the way, but I never believed or saw any evidence that he was any of the things that people accused him of. In fact, he was the exact opposite. I mean, even my own family, my mom had an interaction with him, and he helped her. And she would, you know, no matter what they said about Larry Mehal, my mom, Mary Purdy Waihei, would immediately correct everybody and say, Mr. Mehal is a good man. And that's how, you know, and she told me, she used to tell me regularly. You always remember he helped your family, you know? And so it stuck. So, you know, while he was campaigning against me, I had to sort of be nice just so you know that. And that's a story that's in the book, by the way, right? Yeah. And there's so many stories. But I want to hear about Larry. I want to hear about his life. So tell us a little bit about the guy growing up in Hawaii. So I'm very pleased. His family helped me with the book. I've got 50 photos of Larry. From a barefoot kid in Hilo with rolled up jeans right on through. He was the son of a single mom born out of wedlock. And so Mehal was the mom's name. The father was a big five executive. Larry's never named. And I know the name, and I'm not going to name it. So he came from that background. He came from a tough background. I mean, but a loving one, apparently. His mother is very native native Hawaiian. And even though he grew up on the bayfront in Hilo, he loved horses and being a cowboy. And so every weekend, every holiday, every summer, he was up at Waimea riding horses and learning from the Ponte Hilo up there. Right, right. And so he also took up Sumo. Yes, he took up Sumo. Aikido in all the martial arts. Aikido. He was so good at Sumo. He went on a tour of some local boys up to Japan. He competed in six tournaments and won five. Wow. So he's the big, I mean, you know, what, what is it? Kunishiki, Musashi Maru, Aki Bono, all of those guys are following in Larry's footsteps. And it started with Jesse Kuhalua. Yes, Jesse, right. Yes, yes. And so Larry had his friends in Sumo that he met in Japan. And they said, look for some big island boys. And he knew Jesse on Mau and he tried to talk him into it. And Jesse didn't want to go. And Larry said, what are you going to do? You're going to work on the plantation. Nothing wrong with working on the plantation. But if you go to Japan, you're going to become a legend. You're going to become immortal. And which he did. And he did. And it changed the young man's life from Hawaii and our relationship with Sumo and Japan for that matter. And so that led on to Aki Bono and the other local. Well, I know one thing. I know that from, you know, I spend a lot of time in Japan, you know, especially post-governorship and even while I was governor. And I can honestly say that Larry's name is Gold in Japan. I mean, people like him. They do business where they trust him. And they have a legend about how much he can consume beef prime beef steak. Yeah, it's like this Kobe beef that Matsuyaki beef. And he would, well, there is right next to the Okura Hotel. There is this, there is this restaurant that Shabu Shabu restaurant. And if you're from Hawaii, and this is famous, it's a world, I mean, famous Japanese Shabu Shabu. If you're from Hawaii, they'll immediately tell you about this big guy from Hawaii who consumed something like 27 plates or something. Now, you've got to remember, he's a real thin, which must cost a fortune, right? But it was like, I could do this. And he was a big guy with big appetite. Yeah, I try to consume that much. I couldn't afford it. Anyway, we're going to take a short break right now. And folks, come on back. We've got more interesting stories to talk to you about, about a great new book called The Good Father, the story of Larry Mehal. Aloha. I'm Marcia Joyner. And I'm Beatrice Gantelmo. And we have come in this series, young and old alike, to take a look at our past, your past, and the fastest not seeing history books. History books are his story. And what we refer to as mirrors of the past, but we, as colonized people, indigenous peoples, and people of Kola, look into the mirror and do not see ourselves there. On The Ties that Bind, we will examine those underlying causes. Please join us with The Ties that Bind on Wednesdays at noon, twice a month. We look for you there. Aloha. Aloha. All right. Here we are back with Don Chapman, the author of The Good Father. And thank you, Don, for being with us. Tell us a little bit about Larry and his family. So interesting people. I mean, he's got a lovely wife. Beverly Rogers was the maiden name. They met at Kamehameha Schools. Larry came over as a boarder in the 10th grade at the Boy School. It was that. Right. And Bev was a year ahead, but she started in 7th grade. They dated in high school. Larry graduated in 1948. Bev in 49. They got serious after that, married in 51, and ended up having five children together. Wow. He had five children, right? And unfortunately, a couple of... Two of his three sons preceded him in death. And I believe, and several of the people that I spoke to about the story, including his wife, Bev, believe that the Godfather allegations played a role in that. It just caused so much stress on the family. I can imagine. I can imagine. I know what it's like. There's a terrible price that the family pays when you're a public figure. In this country, it's accepted that if you're going to put yourself out there, you're going to have some barbs being thrown on you. But what never is calculated is the cost on your family. It was huge. It was huge. And this is such an outrageous... Well, okay. So I didn't know that he'd grown up in Hilo. All right? I didn't know any of this stuff. I'm a teenager in the middle of growing up in Waimea, in cowboy country, where just like I guess the decade before Larry had been spending time being playing cowboy. And there's something unique about Waimea. People don't realize this. But the cowboys up there spoke Hawaiian. So it didn't matter what your nationality was. If you were a cowboy, you had to speak Hawaiian to function. And so I can see young Larry going up there and learning these things. By the way, that's why my cousin Larry Kimura, whose father was Japanese, but who was all cowboy, actually learned how to speak Hawaiian as great as he does. And because he was a panayolo. Well, because he was surrounded by this stuff. In fact, I was surrounded by people speaking Hawaiian. I just never was taught it, you know, yet to either pick it up. So this is the kind of background we shared. Now, I didn't know Larry who had gone through this and everything. Meanwhile, I'm living up there. And Larry is a bunch, gets a homestead. Right about the time I'm about a... I think I was about 10th grade, or ninth grade in high school. And I was actually in school in Oahu. And so, you know, what was interesting about him was that he actually knew what to do. He could ride a horse. He could ride a horse. He could ride, not like some of the early guys, you know, came from Honolulu. He and a few others like Kalani Shooting and others basically were, you know, knew what they were doing. And so anyway, back in those days, if you're, you can't shoot pool. You can't go to a pool hall unless you're 18 years old. Right? So I'm going to tell this to your audience, this story. 18 years old. But lucky for us, one of my friends had a pool table at home in this little shed. And we would go there and bat, like, you can't play pool. Pool's not fun unless you have a little bit to risk, right? And so we would take a little bit of our money, mostly nickels and maybe a quarter. That would be the last big bet. Yeah. And we'd be shooting. And all of a sudden, my friend's dad walks in with this big Hawaiian guy and it's Larry B. Hall. You know? And he, we're standing around, you know, you want to shoot, you know, so he shoots pool with us. And he takes all our money. He just wins. He's a good pool shooter. And when we're done, I was standing around, sorry, we don't have any more money, you know, like this. And he's just, and then he goes up and he said, well, okay, he puts the stick, he reaches in his pocket, takes out all the money he want, and he puts it back on the table. And he said, you know, and we're all looking at him and he pushes it. And he says, very sternly, he says, that's why you shouldn't gamble. And he walks out, you know, and this is Larry May Hall, the famous Larry, this is my introduction to him. And that story is in the book. Yes, thank you for that. But I subsequently learned that he was part of the Metro Squad, which by the way, you know, this is the disconnect. We play pool in Limea. But the Metro Squad is on Oahu. And I'm going to school on Oahu. That's how I know about the Metro Squad. You know, like I say, I guess in the book, if I had known this was, you know, in fact, even then, if he had told, none of you should be doing this, get out of this room, I would have run through the wall. I think I told you that I would have gone right through the wall. I mean, this was that kind of guy. So you know, he in a sense, really personified a generation of people from Hawaii that grew up in a different time in a time of tremendous change. And he overcame a lot of barriers to become quite successful, you know, voters personally and his family, great family. I tell you his, well, you know, his reputation is very immaculate in that sense. Yes. And so sort of back to the Godfather charges, he was investigated as much as anybody in the state of Hawaii ever, ever has been. And nobody ever found anything that he did wrong. The FBI file ran to 2,000 pages. Wow. And they found nothing wrong. IRS looked at him, nothing wrong. HPD looked at him, nothing wrong. And yet the charges persisted. And so that's large. Yeah. And it's all by indowendo. And it's all, okay, I have my own theory done. And I didn't say this in the book. Well, let's hear it. But I do think that a lot of it had to do with kind of a latent racism. Okay. And I'm going to say this, a lot of it did with a latent race, a racism, because he was a tough looking, big Hawaiian guy. That's it. And you wanted this, you know, if you're going to have an image of the boogie man, the guy that's out there, and you know, he looked the part in a sense. If you, you know, this is, that's why I'm saying we all are, even those of us that might be native Hawaiian, sometimes slip into stereotyping. And there's a kind of stereotype going on. This big guy must be that I think coupled with the fact that he was successful. I mean, he's a guy, you talk about up from polity, you know, he was a good businessman. I know for a fact, with some projects that I worked on years later, that, you know, what he had done with it, not with me, but with others, was, was very, very intelligent, very good. He was a smart businessman. He was. So you had a smart businessman that looked tough and could talk to everybody and ran a security company. And it was like everybody that wanted a story loved to talk about this one. But they don't realize how much it hurt. Larry said it used to drive him crazy. He would walk into a room into a restaurant and heads would turn. Oh my God, do you know who that is? And you could see it or, or I talked to somebody the other day. Larry walked into a big ballroom. Hush. Yeah, yeah. Well, here's the story. And I forgot about this story. So this is an original. This is an original. I'm governor of Hawaii. And I had this thing where I'd like to go out to these little hole in the wall restaurants and eat Hawaiian food. And there was this place way out in Kalihi called Leong's. Great, great Luau stew. And I went there for Luau stew. So one day, I go there and I walk into Leong's and Larry Meijau is in the corner with a few friends and they're eating lunch. And so obviously I wave and I sit down and I and with I think I was with Chuck Friedman. So some ate a mine and we're over there and we just finished lunch. And I get back to my office and I get a phone call from the advertiser. No, asking me what was I doing at Leong's with Larry Meijau. And actually outside of saying, Hey, Larry, how are you doing like this? We had no contact. So I can I can understand we're traveled that fast. Yeah, the price that that that was was was, you know, that the family would have to pay. By the way, I don't want to get beyond this. But this book is coming out. Yeah. And you're going to have a few signings. Yes, Island Heritage is the local publisher. Island Heritage. Nice, nice comma Ina Company. Yeah, good comma Ina Company. I hope, you know, support the book and comma Ina Company. So on Saturday, May 5th at three o'clock, there's a big book and music festival on the city hall grounds at three o'clock. I'll be doing a presentation and then a book signing at four at the Barnes and Noble tent. The following Saturday, May 12th, one o'clock Barnes and Noble, Alamoana. I'll be doing a presentation and a signing there. And we're working on some other places as well to do signings. Well, fantastic. Why don't you why don't you just take a little something and give us a sense of your book. Let's just take it right to the end, Governor. Okay. And I'll pick this up in sort of what I call my my afterthoughts. There are there comes a time when a lack of any hard evidence requires a squaring of the record. The FBI file alone on Larry runs hundreds and hundreds of pages, really 2000. And despite all the bureaus investigating proves no wrongdoing. Likewise for investigations from myriad other government agencies, Operation Firebird, which was HPD and the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Operation Cocoa, which was the IRS among others. When a government agency labels an investigation and operation, it's a big deal. Yes. If there were any punishable lawbreaking by Larry, don't you think there's some career minded prosecutor or AG would have pounced? Oh, right. They trade that and failed. So that is what the Good Father attempts, the writing of a monumental wrong lest it become eternal. Better late, I hope than never. Fantastic. So everyone, the new book, The Good Father by Don Chapman. And and it's the story of the life of Larry Michal and his own words and a few others, actually 20 of us, many of us like Congresswoman Pat Psyche is in here. There were classmates in Hilo in the 30s. You've got people like Walter Dodds in here. Yes. Three governors, Ariyoshi, Cayetano and myself. And well, just and you even got Rick Reed. Tracked him down in Snohomish, Washington, his own old hometown. The person that actually started the life started it, you know. And so everybody's got a shot. And we get a chance to read about a good man. Thank you. Thank you, Don. Governor, thank you for helping with the book and for this opportunity. Well, I really appreciate your showing up there and you know, you're proud of anybody from my hometown. That's so here we are. Why male boys, one more time. That's it.