talk as we are about what we actually discuss. If you have the right
conversation at the right place, you just had the right conversation.
However, if you have the right conversation at the wrong place, you just
had the wrong conversation.
I don’t think people grow old. I think they just lose their imaginations
and end up looking old. Tom Sawyer Island reminds me of who I am and
who I’m becoming. It’s a place Walt Disney created where people
wouldn’t stand forever in lines and could run and jump and remember
who they really are. Most people spend more time looking for their car
keys than they do their imaginations. I want to keep my imagination close
where I can find it. I find it every Wednesday at my office.
After several trips to Uganda, I asked the chief justice if he would ever
consider coming to America. He said if he came to the United States
someday, he’d like to see my office because I’d seen his. A few years
later, when the chief justice arrived at Los Angeles International Airport,
I asked him if he still wanted to see my office. He said he wanted it to be
our first stop. We drove past all the high-rises towering above Wilshire
Boulevard in Los Angeles and kept heading south. I’m sure he wondered
more than once where we were going. A short time later, we pulled into
the parking lot at Disneyland. He stepped out of the car and asked me,
“You have an office here?”
“Of course I do,” I shot back. “You should see my pirate ship!”
I had Mickey Mouse ears made for him in advance. Embroidered on
the front were the words The Chief in yellow stitching. As I slipped on his
ears, I told the chief justice it was kind of a rule that anybody coming to
Disneyland for the first time had to wear the Mickey Mouse ears all day
long. So he did.
I took him on the Jungle Cruise so he would know what Africa really
looked like, then we made our way to the Indiana Jones ride. When the