 Welcome to the Runlet in Baldachi Report. We hope you enjoyed the show about the Dennis DeShane case. That's the case that's gonna be going on for quite some time, I think. But we're moving to, I'm gonna tell you, I think this will be one of my favorite shows. I've had a bucket list for 22 years at this station and on that bucket list, the top of the bucket list was to interview George Mitchell. My good friend Harold Pacius who has the same show on this station has had a wonderful opportunity to interview George Mitchell twice. And I love those interviews. And thanks to my co-host, my dream is coming true. Imagine back in the early 1900s, three sisters coming from Lebanon to emigrate to United States. One sister ends up having a son who later becomes a United States Senator, Senate Majority Leader, and a man who brought peace to an entire country. The other sister becomes the grandmother of one of the best governors in the history of the state of Maine. And also the grandmother of my co-host, Rob Baldachi. Rob, tell us about George Mitchell. Thank you, Gary. Very, very proud to co-host the show with you and to be interviewing my cousin, Senator Mitchell. Your cousin, blood cousin. Yeah, and I remember as a young kid, my grandmother and my mother taking us to Waterville, sometimes on the train, when they used to have a train from Bangor to Waterville, visiting my cousins, visiting the Mitchells, who lived in a very modest home on Front Street in Waterville. And my grandmother and her sister, Mintaha, who was George's mother, were very, very close and loved each other. And we were very close growing up with the Mitchell family. So very proud moment to have the senator with us and to spend that kind of time with him at this point. And Rob, tell us what you consider your brief history of his rise to fame while you were watching him grow up. Well, George was always away. He was either in Washington working for Senator Muskie, being a judge in Bangor and then as the United States Senator. And we watched his rise to prominence with a lot of pride. I was also very close with his brothers and his sister, his brother, Robbie, Johnny, and Paul. We were very close. They're all basketball stars. They were huge basketball stars. And I remember one time I was in Boston and Ted Kennedy was at the restaurant and we introduced ourselves to Ted and saying, I'm George Mitchell's cousin. And his eyes lit up and Ted says, well, I remember playing with his brother, Swisher. And he went on and on talking about what a great guy Swisher was who was quite the basketball star in his own right. Swisher, Johnny Mitchell. The only, I think the only main high school basketball team that went on to win the New Englands at the Boston Garden. So it was quite a feat at that time. Oh yes, oh yes. But I also had the opportunity to work with George directly. After he came back from Northern Ireland, we worked together in my capacity as Vice President with Ocean Properties, Tom Walsh, who was like a father to me and a real mentor. I miss him every day, I think about Tom. But we were working on a project here in Portland. George was intimately involved. And I got to see right up close what a fair, decent and honest man he was and is. Anytime we made a public statement, anytime we went before the public, the Senator always wanted to make sure that we had a fact straight. We were dotting the I's, crossing the T's and never say anything that was incorrect or misleading. And it was a real privilege for me to be working side by side with him in that project. Can we agree, Rob, you and I, who know him quite well, that this man, George Mitchell, could have easily become one of the greatest presidents in the history of the United States? I know, I totally agree with you, Terry. Not much question in our mind. No, not at all, not at all. And of course he was asked to serve in the Supreme Court. We know that he had other possible jobs. One of them was mentioned was baseball commissioner. And but little did he realize that he would become the person that would bring peace to a country that had been war-torn, ravaged, violence, the worst violence going on, and that he would be the person that would bring peace to Northern Ireland. And of course, as we know, he was not, he was given an award, which in England is the equivalent of being a knight. That's correct. He would be called Sir George Mitchell if he was born in London. That's right. Instead of Waterville maid. Yes. And so he is the equivalent of Sir Lancelot. Sir Gallagher. Sir Paul McCartney. And that's what I enjoy about him, that you could give him any title. Rob, I want to share with the audience a few of my moments with George Mitchell folks because I met him right after college in 1968 at Bowdoin. He came to speak on a service with Lusky and I said to my fraternity brothers, this is one of the most astute man I've ever met and he was in his late 30s at the time. But little did I know that, ladies and gentlemen, I would end up a few years after law school trying my only federal case in federal court against George Mitchell, who was the U.S. Attorney. He charged my client with perjury because a number of men broken in the Coast Guard base stole some marijuana that had been confiscated. She was called to testify because she was the girlfriend of one of the members. He was a rather notorious person, a kind of a folk hero around here in Maine. They kind of get to know him. A well-known person, well-known in this community. And when she testified, she was not quite truthful and he charged her with perjury. Well, I came up with the defense of a duress that she would be afraid to testify against such a person. And the judge bought it, let me present it. But George Mitchell comes up to me at the close of the trial, and I said, Terry, I got eight pictures, I'd like to show you. And he shows me, do you mind if I put these into evidence? I looked at the pictures, there were a bunch of people standing around in marijuana bails, and I said, sure. When he got to the closing argument, those pictures were 18 by 30. And he said to the jury, does she look like she's in the duress in this picture? Does she like, and I sat there and watched myself get pounded into the ground. The jury came back with a guilty verdict. And I recall, however, that George and the judge took some pity on her and she was sentenced to probation. If you had to do it over again, what would you have handled it differently? If I had to do it over again, I would beg for a plea bargain. And I would have said, George, could you give a probation and charge her with something less like telling a fib or something, you know? But anyway, I know, it was, but I did learn a lot from trying that case with him and people did recognize that after a while I tried to emulate George Mitchell in the courtroom. But my other favorite stories include what you just said. One day you were playing golf with me and Ken Elshula at the Marriott and Sable Oaks. And the phone rang and you took it and you go, it's George Mitchell, I got to take this call. And I yelled across the green, I said, hey, Rob, Rob, tell George I said hi and you did. Only one out of 100 would have said, let's do it. And he wants to talk to you. I take the phone, he goes, Derry, Derry, I'm looking out towards French Barrel right now, which is a place. Which is where you have a home. Which is where I have a kid. And I remember about a few months after that, he was being awarded an award at the Holiday Inn and he was on camera. And as he was talking, he goes, excuse me, wait a second, Derry, Derry, I was out at French Barrel the other day, had a lobster roll. Anyway, the incident, and I just remember that's the kind of man that he is. And I will tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that one of my other favorite moments about George Mitchell was I bid to have lunch with him at a boys club auction. Hoping that I'd be going to the Senate dining room for lunch, I was gonna go down to Washington. I've always wanted to eat. As it turned out, we had lunch at the Eastland and with two other women, elderly women, who had bid in another event. And George and I started talking, we were best of pals. And they say, excuse me, Senator, we don't wanna hear about him. We don't wanna know about him. We don't know about you. And the phone rang and it was Bill Clinton. He goes, excuse me, the president's on the phone. I gotta take this call. He takes the call and when he comes back, he sits down across from those women. He gives me a look and goes, why don't you women tell me all about yourselves? And they went on and that is George Mitchell. Absolutely. And my final one, folks, is this. This is gonna be one of my favorites. That after he did the interview, which we're about to show, he wrote to the group that's doing a documentary on George Mitchell. And he wrote to them and said, please watch the Runlet and Baldachi report because they've asked me some questions I think you ought to see the answers to. And I'd like to have you watch this show before you do your documentary. And that, Rob, it was one of the best moments was reading the email from him. And I sure hope, George, that you like this interview and that you like how much that Rob and I appreciate so much. So, Rob, why don't you tell us what this interview is gonna be about? Well, we made it, we tried to make it as personal as possible to talk to George a little bit about his career, some of the highlights, and to reflect on where we are today as a country. And it was a fascinating interview. I think it could have gone on and on and on. But I'm sure our audience will appreciate it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you're about to see my bucket list moment at this station top of the bucket list. Our interview with one of the greatest human beings that ever lived in the state of Maine, a man who's been revered by everyone and especially the people in Ireland who now live mostly in peace, saving thousands of lives and preventing thousands of injuries. This man, George Mitchell, on our show. Ladies and gentlemen, this may very well be a historic moment in television because 24 hours ago, a 77-year-old man goes under the knife for back surgery and just 24 hours later is gonna be interviewing one of the most highly respected statesmen in world history, in my opinion, George Mitchell, a dear friend, a man I've known for 55 years. And with me today is his cousin, Rob Baldacci, my co-host on the Ronald Baldacci Report. My friend, you got the first question. Senator, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. The question I wanted to ask you was looking back during your term when you were in the U.S. Senate, Senate Majority Leader, working across the aisle on a very much of a bipartisan basis, George. That was the way things were done back then. You got a lot done. And now fast forward to where we are today. And thankfully, Biden and McCarthy were able to hammer out a bill that would protect our economy. But our country is split and there are some serious threats against our democracy. How do you, what's your feeling now, George, after all the years you've been in public service and working across the globe to look at the United States right now and where we are as a country? What are your thoughts? Well, I take the long view. It is true, as you said in your question, that during the time when I was there, we were in a phase in which there was a good degree of bipartisan cooperation. When I was elected Senate Majority Leader by the Democrats, who were then in the majority in the Senate, Bob Doe was elected as the minority leader, representing the minority Republicans in the Senate. And on the day that I was elected, literally minutes afterward, I called Doe and I asked if I could come to see him. He agreed and I went to his office and I said to him that, look, you've been in the Congress for nearly 30 years. I've only been here a few years. I said, you know more about the Senate than I'll ever know. But there's one thing I can see from my own limited experience here is that it's a tough place, it's a tough place to get anything done and it's especially difficult if there's no trust between the two leaders. So I said, I've come here to tell you how I intend to behave towards you and I ask you if you will reciprocate in the same way. I could tell by his reaction, it was positive. I then set out just the most basic standards of fairness, honesty and fair dealing. He was delighted, reached across the table, shook my hand and from that moment to this moment, not once did a harsh whatever pass between us in private or in public. We disagreed very often on legislation and as a tradition in the Senate, when it's a major bill, the minority and the majority of leaders make the closing arguments, not unlike Derry a closing argument in a courtroom, which you've done many times of course. And we tried to make our arguments on the merits, not make them personal. We made it a practice to have dinner together once a week. We often had lunch with a group of other senators in a small dining area reserved for senators. And so there was a period where while we clashed, it was tough at times, there was some on both sides who took a hard line, and nonetheless we were able to get a lot of things done on a bipartisan basis. Bob was one of the leaders, along with several Democrats on the Americans with Disabilities Act that was a very important bill for him because he'd been badly disabled when he was injured in World War II. I was able to get past what had been a major effort of mine, a clean air act to clean up pollution and a number of other environmental and other laws were able to get a budget passed, although that was not on a bipartisan basis. That led to balanced budgets and a reduction of the debt. It's kind of hard to believe now, but that happened during the time that we were there and when Clinton was president. But if you look back, that has not been the historical record all of the time back. In other words, it was different than the now, but there have been phases in American history where you've had bitterness and hostility. The best known one, of course, is the Civil War. But we don't remember this much, but the issue of slavery and its abolition dominated American politics for nearly a half century prior to the Civil War. The Civil War was not the beginning of the era of conflict. It was the end of the era of political conflict culminated in actual war. You go back to some of the earliest elections. There's a professor at the University of Maine, Amy Fried, she writes a column for the Bangor Daily News periodically. I've not met her, but I read her columns. And I remember a few years ago, she wrote one on the election of 2000 for President, no, I'm sorry, the election of 1800 for President. And the candidates were John Adams, the incumbent, and Thomas Jefferson, the challenger, two icons of American history. But if you read what was said in that election, we would now call it mudslinging, of course. They were, yeah. But of course, then, there was no television. There was no radio. It was all in print. The print was very partisan on both sides and reached a limited number of people. And it didn't have, nor just the impact of electronic media, but the repetition that electronic media had. What is different now about then is once a mistake is made or a particular insult is made, it's not just made once. It's then repeated a thousand times so it's drummed in to everybody. So there have been periods of hostility, then periods of bipartisan cooperation, other periods of hostility, bipartisan cooperation. Personally, at the end of a long life and much of it involved in the politics, I'm somewhat optimistic that we're going, yes I am, that we're going to come out of this. We have been through crises of one sort or another from the beginning of the country. I mean, the settlement of the West was a tremendous historical event filled with violence. The Native Americans were essentially exterminated, driven off the land and essentially historical estimates of the numbers killed range from 15 to 50 million. Disease was the largest factor, but there were others as well, viewed in historical terms, it was both a tremendous event in terms of the settlement and expansion of the country, but in terms of what happened, it was a very tough period. And we've seen over and over again how even the greatest leaders in our history have made very grievous errors, but the greatness of American democracy, I think, has been a willingness to acknowledge error and to take steps and to deal with it. Recall, if you will, Franklin Roosevelt, who in my judgment was one of the two or three greatest presidents we had, the only president to serve more than two terms, he served for 10 years, two and a half turns before he died, made tremendous errors. He was responsible, signed the documents, authorizing the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, none of whom had been charged with any crime, except that they happened to have a certain heritage. Terrible mistake, which we subsequently acknowledged took steps to deal with it. Roosevelt refused to let the passenger ship, the St. Louis, filled with Jews fleeing, it was Germany, to land in the United States, and the ship was forced to return to Europe, and of the 1,300 passengers, nearly half of them were killed in the Holocaust. So even the best men make great mistakes, but there is a constant striving for improvement. Now I've mentioned a lot of the enormous negative factors. There were many, many others, obviously. Human beings are all fallible, and when you get to be president or Senate Majority Leader of Congress, you're still just as fallible as you were before you had the office a title. So, oh, we all are subject to error. But look at it now from a different perspective, the positive side. When the United States was created under our Constitution, the only people who could vote were white men who owned property. The Constitution itself designated African Americans as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of counting the numbers of citizens for congressional votes, which gave the South an advantage because of slavery. I mean, it's kind of incredible. The Constitution gave them a political advantage, which helped to continue that practice for nearly three quarters of a century until the Civil War occurred. It took 75 years and by far the bloodiest warrant of history of the Civil War until slavery ended. It took another 60 years for women to get the right to vote. Now, think of that in this era when we're finally realizing the tremendous contribution that women make in every aspect of our society when new and great women leaders are arising on a regular basis that for the better part of our nation's history, they couldn't even vote. Look at what has happened with respect to disabled persons. They were for almost all of our history shunted aside, didn't have the opportunity to lead full and independent lives. It wasn't until the 1990s when, as I said, Bob Dole and others led the way to enact the Americans with Disabilities Act that gave them that freedom. So we are constantly expanding the notion of what it means to be a citizen. How do you define rights? The Declaration of Independence said that all men are created equal. Well, we know, although it didn't say it, that it doesn't mean physically. Right. No two people are equal. Some people are smart, some are not. Some are strong, some are not. Some are aggressive, some are not. And so you see huge disparities in the experience of individualized, but in terms of their rights, political and civil under our society, they are equal. Well, we're still struggling to make that a reality for many others. So the way I'll end this overly long answer is, our proudest aspiration is opportunity for all, right? You can't find an American who would disagree with that, right, but there ought to be opportunity for all. And so that's our aspiration. Our reality is trying to do that, but not yet succeeding. And so I think the challenge in the coming decades in the coming century is to lift our actions to the level of our aspirations. How perfect. While we know that in a country of 330 million people from all over the world, every race, every religion, every language here in the great melting pot of democracy, you're not gonna be able to achieve it perfectly, but if you strive toward it, you make improvements and the notion of what are the rights of Americans continues to expand and grow as it has, I think it will overcome the negativism that we have now. George, with the short time we had, I had 10 things that I wanted to tell this audience, 10 of the greatest moments I've had with George Mitchell in my lifetime, the first being the first time I met you 55 years ago, almost today, Bowdoin, when you gave a speech on government service. You and I finished about one hour of talking and went back to my fraternity and I said, I'm telling you, I just met the most politically astute guy I've ever met. He's gonna be a governor, he's gonna be president, he's gonna be something, he's gonna be incredible. And I remember that moment because you did run for governor and we all know about that, think about it, but when you didn't win that election, did you ever conceive in your own mind that even that election that went by the wayside that you would end up being Senate majority leader? Did that thought ever enter your mind ever? That you would? No, no, not at that time, I might. But it just happened and the thing I wanted to ask you, we know that you work for Muskie, I work for Muskie, you and he, in my humble opinion, the two brightest statesmen from Maine history, but other than Muskie, did you run into a government, a politician that you revered more than Muskie? Good question. Well, I didn't get to know anyone as well as I knew Muskie because as you recall, Derry, I worked for him for several years. And back then, things were different, much smaller and much slower. He had a very small staff I had when I was majority leader, a much, much bigger staff. And so he was able to interact with his staff, guys like me, more than I was able to because I had hundreds of people. And I recall so clearly, fond memories if I could tell another long story. Muskie and I got along very well. He was born and raised in Rumford, but he married his wife, Jane Gray, who was from Waterville. And he moved to Waterville where he practiced law, ran for mayor, ran for the legislature, and then was elected governor. And so his wife, Jane, went to high school with my older brothers. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, so I did not know Muskie personally before he hired me, but he knew my brothers and we knew of each other, at least each other's families. And so when he used to come to Maine and travel around the state during congressional recesses and other times, I would come and drive him around. And back then, it wasn't like now, we used to stay at friends' houses. We often stayed in small motels in one room with two beds, I didn't think anything of it at the time. He had a cottage on China Lake just outside of Waterville and Winslow. And we stayed there when we were in central Maine. And so we talked and chatted a lot. And I have many, many memories, but one that's relevant to your question is one of the things I did for him was research and preparation for speeches. And occasionally he would write drafts of speeches, but he was such a superior orator that he really didn't need me. But one week we came up and he gave a speech in Rumford and then in Newport. And then in, I think it was in Orono and then we traveled to Calus on the road that is known as the airline. And it was basically one speech and I had written most of it and he gave it in Rumford and gave it the other three times. And then I was driving from Orono to Calus over the airline, it was dark and it's just woods. We all know about that. Quite a lot of ways it was raining. And so he said to me, he said, well, how do you think my speeches went? So I felt, I felt internally a crisis. Should I tell him the truth? That's exactly what I'm thinking. He had quite a temper. I knew that, yeah. Might get men throw me out of the car or fire me or something. Or should I just say, oh, great, great. So I decided to tell the truth. And I said, well, honestly, I thought the speeches were great. I said, the problem is you repeated it two or three times. And I said, by the third time, the audience was kind of gruggy and couldn't wait to get out. Well, there was a long silence, a long, probably 10 miles pass, and I couldn't win the show. It's going the way I'm thinking. Oh, here comes the worst. He says to me, you know what? He said, you're a smart young guy. He said, I think someday you're gonna be in public office. He said, and when you do, you'll learn that there's nothing in the world like the sound of your own voice. We know that, don't we Rob? I mean, it's a lesson that applies not just to politicians, but to a lot of lawyers. You said you had like 10 things. That's one. George, I think one of the most impactful speeches I ever heard you make was during the Iran Contra hearings with Oliver North. And you talked about what it means to be a patriot, patriotic American. Now you've talked a lot about patriotism and the love of our country. Most nations derive from a single tribe, a single race. They practice a single religion. Common racial, ethnic, religious heritages are the glue of nationhood for many. The United States is different. We have all races, all religions. We have a limited common heritage. The glue of nationhood for us is the American ideal of individual liberty and equal justice. The rule of law is critical in our society. It's the great equalizer because in America, everybody is equal before the law. We must never allow the end to justify the means where the law is concerned. However important and noble and objective and surely democracy abroad is important and is noble. It cannot be achieved at the expense of the rule of law in our country. And I think a lot of that is lost today. Yeah, yeah. Well, they claim it's a patriot. They claim it, yeah. Yeah, and I just, I mean, that stuck with me and I know millions of other people. Do you have any reflection on those statements that you made back then to today? Yeah. If there is one consistent theme in politics, not just throughout the history of the United States but throughout the history of mankind and civilization, it is that there are some who always claim a relationship with God. Yeah. Being seen as God's messenger on earth has throughout recorded history been one of the claims to power that have been made by people on every continent, in virtually every society, and from every aspect of politics, right, left, center, that people have claimed a relationship with a greater power defined in different societies in different ways. Communism is one of the few isms that denied that and for unrelated reasons, it was a complete disastrous failure, as we've seen in the history of our own lifetimes and so forth. Communism failed because it is internally inconsistent with human nature and represents just another mechanism by which one group achieved power by force and terror and retained power in that way. But there aren't really any communists left in the world anymore, for sure, non-China. They all want to be entrepreneurs and communism is simply a mechanism by which the group in power maintains power by a monopoly on force and arms and the control of lives of others and try to satisfy them by providing some increase in their living standard as a way to offset the loss of freedom. And that's true in our own country. To this day, people claim to be God's designee, sent to us politician X, sent to us by God or Jesus or some other higher power. And that really was the issue that I felt that was being raised in those hearings because the claim was made politically. If you love God and you love America, then you must agree with my policy. And if you don't agree with my policy, that means that you don't like God and you don't like America. Well, obviously, when you speak of it in the terms we're speaking about, it's an absurd claim. And everybody, historically over time, I say everybody, many, many groups, leaders and others claimed that mantle. And that was the issue that I felt dominated. It wasn't the specific actions that were taken wrong as they were because they violated American law. It wasn't because of some higher deity, it's because we are a nation of laws. And if you violate a law, it doesn't make any difference if you believe in God. You may pray 12 hours a day, but that doesn't entitle you to go out and break the law. And so that's the issue that I wanted to address. And I tried to present as forcefully as I could in the hearings that we ought to be able to disagree on policy. So I think policy ought to be this way, you disagree, you think it ought to be that way without either of us claiming that you're un-American or you don't believe you're an un-Christian or another some religion if you don't agree with me. That was, to me, that was the central message of the hearings, the rule of law in America and the right of people to disagree with the government, with the policies of the government without being deemed un-American or un-Christian or un-religious. George, that brings me to my point number two. I have a daughter who's transgender. She was my son for 40 years and then turned to my daughter. I turned into my daughter. She was born while I was at Bowdoin. And I wrote a book on that topic called Full Circle, A Father's Journey with a Transgender Child. In that book, I mentioned that my counselor once asked me, he said, who was the man you most admire in this country? I said, George Mitchell. He said, when George Mitchell meets you in the airport with your daughter, your now daughter who's transgender, how is he gonna treat you? I said, exactly the same. And now we realize George was an editorial on the paper, Sunday Telegram, that the Republicans, not just Trump, not just the Santas, but the Republicans have this all-out attack. It's like their primary thing about the gays, the lesbians, the transgenders. And I ask you, since you know the Republicans, why would it, with all the things happening in Ukraine, the kids getting shot in school, why would the Republicans pick on such as what seems to be an issue already decided by the Supreme Court? Can you tell me why they're doing that? Well, first, to be fair, I don't think it's all Republicans. Okay. Well, not all. There are many who hold that view. Some, perhaps, in their minds, genuinely consistent with their religious beliefs. Many others, because they represent an opportunity for political gain, a so-called wedge issue, which is designed to divide opponents. So I don't put it so much in the political arena, that is, in terms of partisan politics, as in whether or not we are to continue as a nation the trend which I described earlier of expanding our notion of civil and human rights to enable every person to live as they see fit, providing they are in compliance with our law, whatever their religious or other belief system may be. We have expanded it, as I said earlier, in the beginning, only adult white men who own property could vote. Gradually, the property requirement was dropped. Gradually, non-whites were permitted to vote. Gradually, then women were permitted to vote. In a parallel way, we dealt with differences in human beings and human lifestyles in a similar way within our lifetime and within the lifetime of most of the people watching this program, homosexuals could not marry. And homosexuality was deemed such a moral failing that most homosexuals were fearful of even acknowledging it. But while I'll friendly with, when you were in college, when you were there, when I was there, we knew people who were homosexual, but they would not acknowledge it. They didn't fear the consequences and outcome. Think of the changes that have been made in society since then, people have come to understand differences in lifestyles. And so I believe that we're going through now a period of trial and difficulty, just as we did with respect to each of the expansions of the concept that Americans have of freedom, liberty, the right to live one's life as one chooses. And it probably won't help you, or me, given our ages, but hopefully your children and a generation or two from now, it will, I believe, with near certainty, will be accepted as a way of life that it's a relatively small number of Americans, but numbers don't matter in terms of rights. The Constitution doesn't say, our law doesn't say that these are rights that are possessed by the majority. And if you're in a minority, even a tiny minority, you're not entitled to these rights. Everybody's entitled to a full and free life. So it's difficult, I'm sure it's difficult for you because you experience it directly in your own family and it's true for others. But I believe that we're going through a period that is identical to that which we've gone through in other forms of human relations. I appreciate your optimism, George, very much. Well, I don't know what we have for time. We've got about five minutes. George, as you look at your life and hopefully you'll have many more years to come, what do you feel has been your most important legacy, the most important thing that you're proud of looking back? How many fingers have you got going? Well, the time went fast, it's not the question, it's the length of the answer. I'll take a few minutes because that's something that's important to me. As both of you know, my father was the orphan son of Irish immigrants. He never knew his parents. He was born in Boston, but he and his siblings were raised in Catholic orphanages in the Boston area. Back in those days, the nuns at the orphanages would take the children out on weekends to the rural areas of New England and they would go to Sunday Masses in the Catholic Church. And after the Mass, a half dozen or 10 kids would be brought in and stand in front of the altar rail. And anybody in the church who wanted to adopt one would just take the child by the hand and walk out. The potential for abuse is obvious. Abuses were horrific. Gradually laws were adopted and certainly the New England states, and I don't know about elsewhere, but probably elsewhere, that required something more than that. But my father was lucky at a Catholic church in Bangor. He was adopted by an elderly childless couple who were themselves immigrants, but from Lebanon, not from Ireland. And they, shortly thereafter, moved to Waterville where they eked out a living along with another group of immigrants from Lebanon who congregated in a really an industrial slum area of Waterville where most of them worked in textile mills. There, my mother, who herself was an immigrant from Lebanon, she came to the United States when she was 16. She could not read, speak, or write English. She always thrust her life, spoke with a very distinct accent, and they never learned to read or write. My father left school when he was 10, worked in menial jobs, ended up as a janitor at Colby College. So we were very poor in the sense that we didn't have, my father didn't own a car all the time that I was growing up, but nobody ever went hungry, nobody ever was cold. We got by and most people we knew lived the way we did, so we didn't really have any sense of being at the bottom of a ladder. But my parents had a dream that sustained them, and this is true of many parents, including Bob's, and probably yours somewhere back along the way. I have ours, sir. And it sustained them that their kids would get the education they never had. And so I and my three brothers and my sister all were very fortunate to have such loving parents, especially my mother, who she worked 50 years, nights in textile mills in Central Maine, raised five children, and was the overwhelmingly most important force in my life. And so once I reached the age where I understood for the first time what my life was and meant and what my parents had done and where I was, I wanted to succeed not only for my own sake, but to vindicate and justify their lifetime of effort in my behalf. And so just for that, and now I'm at the age where in the closing years of my life, I think a lot more about that than I did during the growing up. So the fact that I was able to demonstrate in real terms the meaning of America, vindicating my parents' lifetime of struggle and effort in my behalf and on behalf of my siblings is probably the most important part of my life. Now with respect to specific things, I'll mention just a few. First, Northern Ireland, of course, was a big factor in my life. I spent many years there and helped with others to end the very long and bitter and brutal war. It is never finished. On the evening the agreement was reached, I commended the men and women who wrote and signed it. But I also said that it would take other leaders in the future to safeguard and extend their work. And so it has. I am here with many others to sound that bell one more time. Life is change for every human being, for every family, for every government, for every society. All human beings, every single one of us is fallible as are all human organizations and institutions. And in human affairs, the answer to every problem contains within it the seeds of a new problem. Today, a quarter century after the agreement, the people of Northern Ireland continue to wrestle with their doubts, their differences, their disagreements. This, of course, is only natural. And they will continue to do so no matter how successful their political leaders are. The answer is not perfection or permanence. It is now as it was then for the current and future leaders of Northern Ireland to act with courage and vision as their predecessors did 25 years ago, to find workable answers to the daily problems of the present, to preserve peace, to leave to the next generation peace, freedom, opportunity and the hope of a better future for their children. Many people killed and you stopped that pretty much. Many people killed many, many more permanently and brutally injured and paired for life. I was able to enact quite a bit of important legislation, probably mostly environmental, clean air and protections against chemical pollution and so forth. And finally, here in Maine, and mostly primarily affecting Maine kids, excuse me, is that when I was in the Senate, I made it a point to speak at the graduation of every high school in Maine. I remember that. I don't think there's any other persons ever done that. No. And that took me about almost 15 years because they all graduated about the same time. And so I met thousands and thousands and thousands of young Maine people. And over and over again, when I speak with these kids, boys and girls, I would see in their eyes and hear in their voices images of myself as a child, insecure, uncertain, not really understanding life in general and my own role in life. And so I formed in my mind an idea as a life's goal is to try to give as many of these Maine kids as possible a chance to have the same experience that I did in life. The Mitchell Scholarship. The Mitchell Scholarship. So we now give out and have for 25 years a scholarship to graduate from every high school in Maine. And having gone to the high schools in the small towns, I knew they were just as important as the big towns. So we do it every high school in Maine no matter where it gets a graduate. And so we've given out now, I think close to three and a half thousand scholarships, 20 to $25 million. Oh, jeez. I mean, these kids a chance. And I'll tell you, it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in terms of seeing people develop because now they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're teachers, they're businessmen and women, they're nurses, and they're making a tremendous contribution. Most of them go to school in Maine. The vast majority stay in Maine. Many go and come back to Maine. It's one of the most meaningful things in my life. And I really do feel that we have so much to offer here in Maine that is unfulfilled. We haven't come anywhere near reaching our potential. Life is still very, very tough for Maine people. We have to create opportunity and I close with words I used earlier. We have to take our actions up to the level of our aspirations. And we gotta give every kid in Maine, I feel the same chance in life that I had and that you had Derek and that you had Bob. George, you were so kind to come here today. We know that you're on your way to our alma mater, Bowdoin College to pay your respects to Clayton Rose. But I'll close with my final comment about George. I already mentioned to you folks that George and I tried a case in federal court, my only federal case, George, in which you literally clocked me. I think the jury had just enough time to go to the restroom when they came back with a guilty verdict. But George, I had three days to watch you. So in my trial career, I began to emulate you. And one day a judge said, Gary, is it my mistake to think that you are possibly trying to act like George Mitchell in the courtroom? I said, well, your honor, I am very proud to say yes. He goes, well, Gary, you have a long way to go and a lot of work. George, thank you so much for coming today. Warm's my heart. Warm's Rob's heart. And you have lived many lives, sir, with your accomplishments. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you both.