Every Other Weekend: Lessons Learned Growing Up With Two Different Fathers ~ Anthony Mohr

Podcast Episode Transcript

Jason Montoya (00:00)
Welcome to an inspirational people interview on the Share Life

and today I'm here with the author of Every Other Weekend, Anthony Mohr. Anthony, say hello.

Anthony J Mohr (00:10)
Thanks for having me on. It's good to be here.

Jason Montoya (00:11)
Yeah,

yeah, Anthony Mohr served for 26 years as the judge on the Superior Court of California. In January 2021, he became a fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and is now a senior editor at the Harvard, is it Alley or ALI, Social Impact Review, ALI. His stories and essays have received six Pushcart Prize nominations. He's worked on staffs of Evening Street Review, Fifth Wednesday Journal.

Anthony J Mohr (00:28)
ALI, ALI.

Jason Montoya (00:39)
Hippo Campus Magazine and Under the Sun and he now has a book. And so yeah, I want to dive in. The book is really your story as far as I can tell. I haven't had the chance to read it, but I do want to tease out some of your stories. So tell us, where should we start?

Anthony J Mohr (00:54)
Basically my teenage years, it's not an autobiography at all. But it's just basically from the time my mother and dad divorced, I was nine at the time. And then two years later, they both remarried to different people. And so through high school until I left for college, I was shuttle cocking back and forth from one household to the other. They lived near each other in LA. well, they divorced in 1956.

Jason Montoya (00:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

So what year was that?

Anthony J Mohr (01:20)
They remarried in 1958. This is a time when divorce was very, very rare and not heard. And it wasn't well received either. But in any case, they both remarried. My father was an actor. He had appeared on a number of TV shows, often playing the bad guy.

Jason Montoya (01:20)
Okay.

Yeah.

What

was his name and for anyone that's familiar with that era, what are some of the things he was in?

Anthony J Mohr (01:41)
His name was Gerald Mohr and he was in radio before TV. He played Philip Marlowe on the radio. That was his big name to fame on the radio, but he was in something like 500 radio plays. And then he appeared on lots of Westerns, Gunsmoke, Maverick, Outlaw Cheyenne, The Rifleman. We can keep going.

Jason Montoya (01:48)
Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah,

my mom's cousin, he's in his 60s and he's in a retired home and whenever we go over there, Rifleman is playing like he watches it over and over.

Anthony J Mohr (02:10)
Chuck was

a nice guy. I was a lawyer before I became a judge, obviously, and he was a client. So Chuck and I knew each other pretty well. And I enjoyed his company. We used to hang out together and sometimes go out and have dinner. And I'd see people come running up to him and ask for his autograph. It was fun.

Jason Montoya (02:14)
Okay. Yeah. Okay, wow.

Okay.

Now what was it like being a kid? Like did you understand what was going on or are you just kind of living your life as a normal kid?

Anthony J Mohr (02:32)
living my life as a normal kid. You it didn't feel special, if you will, because he was an actor that he was known. You know, he was just, and I went to a school where there were lots of children of celebrities and much better known celebrities than my father. And, you know, we didn't walk around going, my God, there's Danny Kay's daughter, or there's Lee J. Cobb's daughter. We didn't do that. They were just other kids in the school. And, you know, we didn't venerate them, revere them, worship them. They were just...

Jason Montoya (02:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (03:00)
you know, kids like us, because there were so many of them. It didn't really strike me that this was a rarefied or a unique environment until I left high school and got into college and people started saying, what's it like to live in Beverly Hills? For me, was like, you know, the fish doesn't really know what the water is. They're just living in water. It's the same kind of thing. And then the other side of it, you know, my mother's second husband was a very conservative businessman, an entrepreneur.

Jason Montoya (03:01)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, What's water?

Anthony J Mohr (03:28)
And he was very successful in what he did. His best known claim to fame was that he built the machines that imprinted and embossed credit cards. that's the imprinting. And the embosser was the one that put your name on the credit card. It would say, Jason Montoya, number 53485 or something like that. And that was, again, 1958, 59, 1960.

Jason Montoya (03:39)
Okay, is that the thing that you slide it over the credit card, like the slider thing? Okay.

Okay.

Okay. And what year was that?

So there were

credit cards that far back Yeah

Anthony J Mohr (03:59)
Oh yeah, oh

yeah, there were, mean, initially I think it started with Diners Club, but it became popular around 60, I think, with the Bank of America card. And my stepdad, Stan, made the machine, sent it and printed it and embossed the Bank of America card. He worked with the Bank of America to do that. Bank of America card is now Visa, so you can see what their trajectory is. So they were very, sorry.

Jason Montoya (04:12)
Okay.

Okay.

wow. Yeah. what was, like who

had credit cards during that era? Was it pretty normal or was it just like rich people or famous people? Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (04:31)
It was people well off.

Mad Magazine, I'll never forget this, they did a spoof on credit cards and they had a panel where this rich guy with a mustache and white hair is flashing hundred dollar bills at everybody. And then in the next panel, the same guy is flashing credit cards at everybody. yeah, credit cards were not as everyday as they are now.

Jason Montoya (04:54)
Yeah. So.

Anthony J Mohr (04:55)
But with the

Bank of America it became more ubiquitous, if you will.

Jason Montoya (05:00)
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty wild. So tell us a little bit more about him. So he invents this technology, I guess, or what he's...

Anthony J Mohr (05:06)
Yeah, and

he was very conservative, much more of a disciplinarian than my father was. My dad was very live and let live and let's have fun and live a good life and be out there. And Stan felt you had to work, kids have to work. Quote unquote, he said, children shouldn't have that much fun, which struck me at the time as something I didn't want to hear and didn't sound pleasant. Right, exactly.

Jason Montoya (05:15)
Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, no kid wants to hear that,

Anthony J Mohr (05:35)
He was very political. you know, come from Michigan and they helped get Gerald Ford on his way. He and a group of other business people. And out here he had connections with Richard Nixon. In fact, Nixon asked him to join his administration in the Department of Transportation and Stan said, no, he wanted to be his own boss, have his own company. But he did very well, was very successful, very rich. By contrast, my father, even though he was well known, wasn't rich. In fact, money was very tight.

Jason Montoya (05:41)
wow. Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (06:01)
following the divorce, he really didn't make that much money at all. There weren't such things as residuals, or if they were, they were minor. And he was scrounging for his dollars. So at one weekend, I'm in a family that's not that worried about their money, quote unquote, money is tight, that was my dad's phrase. The next weekend, I'm with my stepdad, he's on a 58 foot catamaran that he built for us.

Jason Montoya (06:05)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (06:26)
lives in a great house in Beverly Hills. He had a place down in Newport Beach for a while. Everything was up roses, if you will.

Jason Montoya (06:33)
Yeah, yeah, so that's quite a contrast. You have these two men that are essentially, because you're going back and forth because of the divorce, right? And one is strict and very financially well-off and the other is very kind of loose. It almost seems like you're bipolar in a way of like every weekend you're one and then you're another. How did that affect you?

Anthony J Mohr (06:53)
It's the best preparation you can have for becoming a judge. Now, back then I had no thoughts about becoming a judge at all. It never really struck me until I was sort of out of law school. And even then I saw it as something out of reach because I didn't know the governor, I didn't know the president, and those are the people who appoint the judges. But looking back, it prepares you because you're dealing with two different cultures.

Jason Montoya (06:57)
wow.

Wow.

Anthony J Mohr (07:15)
It's like spending one weekend in Japan, the next weekend in Spain, and getting along. But at the time, I was just trying to live my life. And often over my father's because his second wife was not the nicest person to me. We didn't get on that well.

Jason Montoya (07:19)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (07:33)
And I think she was disappointed. She married a guy who she thought was going to be a big, wealthy Hollywood star. And he may have been a Hollywood starlet, if you will, or a mini star. But he wasn't wealthy, and I think she was disappointed. But she was always talking about not having money. And so I'm over there and thinking, God, I wish I were back with my mother and Stan.

Jason Montoya (07:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (07:54)
Then I'd get over to my mother in Stan's and Stan would be lecturing about how kids who'd work, you're not working hard enough, you're a spoiled brat. And I'm thinking, I really wish I were back over to my father's, because we had fun together.

Jason Montoya (07:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. But did that instill some, you know, I think in terms of raising kids, I got five of them. So my oldest is 15, my youngest is six. But in terms of like parenting, like we can only do so much as a parent. I think in a lot of ways our kids have to, you know, from my own experience, we have to learn from other people as well. So were there things that, what were kind of some of the things you learned from him that even though you didn't necessarily like his strictness,

Were there some things that were really valuable to you as you became an adult? Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (08:39)
I mean, just basically

stick to a tiveness. Keep going. Stan just felt if you're knocked down, get up and keep on going. Don't let them keep you down. Fight your way back. Stan was not born into wealth or anything. He was self-made. And so that was certainly a lesson to be learned. And then there were lots of little lessons along the way in terms of handling business.

Jason Montoya (08:42)
Yeah, okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (09:06)
and how to handle yourself in a negotiation. Stan was sold to several companies, including the one that made the credit cards. And he would negotiate with these very large corporations. The first one was Hughes, Hughes Dynamics. And he walked out of the negotiations twice. He said, I'm sorry, we just can't make a deal. Pack up his little briefcase and walk out. And they'd come back and say, well, wait a minute now. They'll call him. We've got some other ideas. Let's talk some more.

Jason Montoya (09:10)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (09:33)
And I never thought about that. I never thought, God, you know, that's not how you negotiate. If somebody says no to you, they say no when you walk away. I never realized no can mean yes. No can mean let's talk some more. Stan taught that to

Jason Montoya (09:41)
Yeah.

you

Yeah.

Yeah, well there's also something there too about the idea of like having nothing to lose, like not being held hostage to a deal that you don't want. So dive into that idea for us.

Anthony J Mohr (10:00)
phrase from I think it was Janet Joplin, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. And you know, Stan, know, when he was negotiating sometimes he had all his net worth on the table. And he had told my mother before they got married I could be a rich man or I could be a poor man. You know, and I want you to know that before you, you know, you and I get married. And she bought into that. And there a couple of times Stan really didn't have enough money to make the payroll but darn it, he just...

Jason Montoya (10:05)
Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (10:26)
said, okay, if I lose, I lose. I'm throwing it all in and things worked out for him.

Jason Montoya (10:32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, how did, with your parents being divorced, give us kind of, help us understand the context of, you mentioned it was looked down upon. So how was it, particularly in society, but also in your part of the country, how was it seen and did that have any unique effect on you as the child of that divorce?

Anthony J Mohr (10:51)
Fortunately,

it did not have an effect on me. Nobody teased me, criticized me. As far as I know, no girl refused to go out with me, at least as far as I know. Maybe their parents said, he's from a divorced family, don't go see him. But I never knew about that, I don't think it happened. was.

Jason Montoya (11:03)
Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (11:14)
in with a very good group of friends. They were all quote well behaved, got good grades. And you know, I really wanted to belong to that kind of a group. was lucky not to fall into the wrong crowd. Many times children of divorce go the other way. I was fortunate not to. I'm sure my mother was a force behind that. so, you know, I know though that divorce was very rare. You know, in my crowd, I was the only child of a quote broken home. At the time that phrase was

Jason Montoya (11:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (11:40)
Well, used, now you don't hear it anymore because half the world is coming from a blended family. But back then, no. But people were really, you know, there were people who really would look down on someone who walked out of a marriage. My father lost a lot of friends when the divorce happened. A number of people just said, that's it. And he was very close with them. And then they walked away.

Jason Montoya (11:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. Did they

even take the time to understand the situation? Okay.

Anthony J Mohr (12:03)
don't know. I was too young

and I didn't ask those questions.

Frank Sinatra got a divorce and I forget who it was. I mention it in the book. But some woman literally refused to play his records after that. She was so angry at him. A couple of my father's very close friends.

basically sided with my mother and that was it. They wouldn't talk to him anymore.

Jason Montoya (12:23)
But did they

do any kind of a, did they spend any time to get both sides of the story and understand the situation or they just kind of make, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (12:29)
doubt it. I doubt it. But I don't know. I really

don't.

But that's how divorce is, people side. It really did, they sided galore back in the late 50s, early 60s. So as I said, my dad lost a lot of friends.

Jason Montoya (12:39)
Yeah.

Yeah. So how did it?

Anthony J Mohr (12:48)
But my parents were very

good at not criticizing each other. My mother wouldn't sit down and say, your father was an ogre and a monster. And my father never said that about my mother. They talked about the divorce. They said a few things about them, especially as I got older. Once I was in my late teens and onward, I started to hear more of the story. But when I was 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, they were very careful not to put each other down. Yeah.

Jason Montoya (12:52)
Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's good. Yeah,

that's, I think if it's gonna happen, that's definitely a way to proceed, I think. I mean, if someone's a kid and their parents are going through that now, what advice would you give to that person? In terms of, how, for the kid, well, how about both? We'll start with the kid. What would you tell that kid?

Anthony J Mohr (13:29)
to the kid or to the parents?

Advice to the kid? Well, it's easier now because you're going to have friends who are also coming from divorcing families. So don't be afraid to open up to your friends, talk about how you feel, share their feelings, and just kind of work together to kind of get through this because you will get through it and understand that the parents are not divorcing because of you. They're divorcing because of something with each other.

Jason Montoya (13:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (13:56)
As I said, it should be easier these days to adapt. For me, I was kind of the lone ranger. I didn't know anybody except one kid who did come from a divorced family and he was very maladjusted. He was brilliant. He was clever. He had a fabulous rapid fire piercing wit, but he could also be very unpleasant. He got into trouble all the time at school and as a result, I tried to limit the friendship.

Jason Montoya (13:59)
mm-hmm yeah

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (14:21)
But he lived very close to me. He literally lived on the same block when we first moved back to Beverly Hills. But he was a difficult, disturbed kid. Advice to the parents. Get the kid into therapy. The child may feel totally fine, totally adjusted, doesn't feel as if something's wrong. Something is wrong.

Jason Montoya (14:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (14:46)
go get the kid into therapy. I wish somebody had done that with me. But back then, if you went to see a psychologist, everybody thought you were crazy. my God, you see a psychologist, what's wrong with him? So, but it would have been very helpful.

Jason Montoya (14:49)
Yeah.

There was just the stigma. Yeah. Yeah, so what happened,

and the reason for that is I assume if you bury it down, like you have to process it. So if you bury it down, then it comes out in other places. Is that kind of the general, yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (15:12)
mean, it'll lie dormant, they say it'll sound and stay sounded somewhere until it comes back at whatever age that will be.

Jason Montoya (15:21)
Yeah, yeah. So the book is trekking your story through this, I guess, like what's the beginning and end year of the story in the book?

Anthony J Mohr (15:30)
The

beginning is basically happy days with my dad as I'm a child. He got me on a TV kids panel show, we horseback riding together, we did some hiking up at Vasquez Rocks, which was a great park, still is, and a location for a number of his Westerns.

Jason Montoya (15:34)
Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Hmm.

Anthony J Mohr (15:46)
I remember listening in on some of the parties he had where all their industry friends came by. I would sit at the head of the stairs and listen to all these people cracking jokes and having a wonderful time together. And then suddenly with no warning at all, they sat me down and told me they were splitting up. And my father was leaving my mother to marry a woman that he met in Sweden. We had been there for a year when he was filming a show, a TV series, which he never should have accepted. He never should have.

Jason Montoya (15:51)
Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

wow.

Anthony J Mohr (16:13)
taking that series. But he did. Taking it actually meant he turned down the lead in Wyatt Irv. Because he wanted to live in Europe. Huge miss out. I Hugh O'Brien got the part next. And the series that he jumped into, which was the third year, failed. I it was on the air for one year and then went away. But he met the script supervisor and they fell in love or whatever and he ditched my mother for it.

Jason Montoya (16:19)
Oh wow. So he missed out on an opportunity because of it? Yeah.

Yeah.

And how, yeah, and so where does, so the book kind of treks through that, where does it go from there?

Anthony J Mohr (16:39)
Anyway.

It goes from, then it goes to the remarriage, part two is the remarriage. And I inherited a brother and a sister in the bargain, which was good. Skip was five years older, Leslie was two years younger. So I came right in the middle. Skip and I got on fine. Leslie and I had some sibling rivalry. When you're nine and I'm nine, 11, she's nine. I'm not that interested in her. Come on, she's a little kid, I don't wanna be around her.

Jason Montoya (16:48)
Okay.

wow, yeah. What age difference were they for you?

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (17:13)
But we grew very close, we still are to this day, both of them. And we started having parties and mixing our groups together because she still went to high school over in Van Nuys because she stayed with her mother against her wishes. But Stan said, look, you've got to stay with your mother, who was a problem as well. But in any case.

Jason Montoya (17:17)
Wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (17:34)
We'd have parties and Leslie would bring her girlfriends, I'd bring the guys. And actually one marriage came out of it and they're still married. She was more than me, but yeah, the two of them got married and they're still married. I talked to them about three months ago. So there you are. There you are. God, they got married prop over 50 years ago now.

Jason Montoya (17:40)
wow, you are a matchmaker. okay.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. How long have they been married?

Okay, yeah, wow, yeah. That's pretty wild. All right, so part two, what else happens in part two and is there a part three? Okay. Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (18:02)
is basically the every other weekend. I wrote it in scenes. One weekend

here, Skip and I are having fun, we're listening to the radio, I'm top 40 radio, which I didn't know about until Skip came along. Next weekend over at my father's, I remember one of the times we went to the showing of one of his movies, The Angry Red Planet, it was an interesting little, that was like 19,

Jason Montoya (18:16)
Yeah.

What year was that?

Anthony J Mohr (18:27)
59 I believe. And so we all went to it. It was at a theater that was kind of seedy. The movie was kind of a cult flick, but it didn't do that well. But I wrote about that. Next weekend back with Stan on the boat, his boat, we're over to Catalina. Following weekend back at my father's, Maya's having a hissy fit because they don't have money.

Jason Montoya (18:29)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Anthony J Mohr (18:51)
It was sort of back and forth, back and forth.

Jason Montoya (18:53)
Yeah, so you kind of got the pros and cons of both sides. Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (18:58)
Right,

one chapter takes place in high school with my father missing. He just sort of took off for a few days and nobody knew where he went. He did that because he was sick and tired of Mai. He just wanted to be alone for a few days. I think he was with some other woman because he definitely was not a faithful husband. He was out there. He was.

Jason Montoya (19:04)
wow. You didn't tell anyone?

well.

Yeah, yeah.

How did that affect you? Or did it really, did you really comprehend what it was?

Anthony J Mohr (19:18)
It did, and I've got

two chapters about that because one of the women, Miriam, was really attached to him and he used me as sort of an excuse to get out of the house. You know, I'm having lunch with Tony and he would have lunch with me and then Miriam would show up and they'd go off and do their thing. And I wasn't quite sure what was happening. I was very naive. But Miriam, eventually he broke up with her.

Jason Montoya (19:33)
Yeah.

Okay.

Anthony J Mohr (19:41)
And she called me, I was away at USC at a debating institute that summer, and she called me and said she was going to kill herself if my father didn't take her back. And that was...

Jason Montoya (19:50)
wow. Why did

she call you? Trying to manipulate the situation?

Anthony J Mohr (19:53)
That's

the question all America's asking itself. I'm not quite sure why she called me. I guess she was just desperate for a way back. And she figured I'm a path back to, you know, back to her Jerry. And that was very upsetting. So I write about that.

Jason Montoya (19:56)
Ha ha ha.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, that's pretty, horrible.

Anthony J Mohr (20:10)
And then

I write about life in West LA and Beverly Hills, going to the beach, some parties, buying clothes, because I'd gotten with...

Jason Montoya (20:18)
Yeah, what would you say

is distinct about that area? Like for people that maybe haven't been there or haven't spent a lot of time there, what's so unique about it from your point of view?

Anthony J Mohr (20:30)
easy back then. You LA was its own little place cut off from the rest of the world if you will. You know to get there you had to cross mountain ranges and deserts and you know it wasn't just a quick plane ride although starting around 1961 or 62 it was but before that you know it took eight hours to fly across the country and or if you're going to drive you're going to drive across deserts and all sorts of things.

Jason Montoya (20:45)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (20:54)
So we were in our own place. Beverly Hills was a very small town. was a Mayberry in the middle of LA. was surrounded by Los Angeles, but it was a small town. And yes, there were lots of stars there, but we gave them their space. We didn't jump up and down if we saw one. Doris Day would walk down to one of the drug stores. I forget which one every day and get herself some ice cream or something.

Jason Montoya (21:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (21:17)
She'd hand out candy on Halloween as did many other celebrities. They were just there.

Jason Montoya (21:21)
Did she give a

lot of candy or did she keep it pretty minimal? Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (21:25)
think she came out a lot. She did. So it was

just, and then you had the beach culture. Everybody was surfing. I wasn't. I would body surf, but I never learned to get up on a board. But the surfers were kind of idolized in the high school society, if you will. And what else? The car culture. LA began the car culture. You had lots and lots of...

Jason Montoya (21:30)
Yeah.

okay

Anthony J Mohr (21:45)
places here that would where you could buy parts easily. The streets are very long, long boulevards, multi-lane, even the surface streets. So it was a great place to race, drag race, carry on. people got their hot rods and their muscle cars, their flame jobs.

drove all over the place and then they sang songs about it, especially the Beach Boys and the Hondels and other groups. And that culture spread around the country. But we were the home for it.

Jason Montoya (22:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So what would, you you've been there for so long, like how has it changed since when you were a kid to now?

Anthony J Mohr (22:20)
Completely. Completely. We had no paparazzi in Beverly Hills back then. Now you do. Beverly Hills at the Taya Rodeo Drive was a small street. had a little Hawaiian restaurant called The Luau. You had small stores. You had an F.W. Woolworths. You'd go and get a Coke there or something like that. You didn't have places like Tommy Heelfigured, Ted Lapidus. You didn't have Gucci.

Jason Montoya (22:24)
OK. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (22:44)
You didn't have what we have now, which are extremely expensive outlets. And people coming in to kind of be part of the action, see all the stars, you just didn't have that. It was like going into a little town somewhere in Iowa or wherever and walking around and people are just being people.

Jason Montoya (22:48)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah. Is that a rotary phone I hear in the background? A landlide.

Anthony J Mohr (23:06)
You hear a landline, which I'm ignoring. It's loud. It's two rooms

over, but I'm going to ignore it.

Jason Montoya (23:13)
Oh,

so you still have a landline. That's an antique there, right?

Anthony J Mohr (23:18)
I know, we have a landline.

But I almost never give it out. Here's my phone here.

Jason Montoya (23:23)
Okay,

yeah, yeah. Now, what else, you know, what's a couple other highlights from the book that we haven't already teased out here?

Anthony J Mohr (23:31)
I mean, there's just a lot. There's one scene which was very, very hard to write where Stan and I got into a fight. He wanted me to clean up the kitchen. I had come home from a Friday night activity in school and I had eaten some jello and left the plate in the sink. Other than that, the kitchen was immaculate. And Stan and my mom are in bed and we're talking and I'm sharing what happened during the day. And then out of the blue, he said, go clean up the kitchen.

Jason Montoya (23:35)
Yeah. Okay.

Hmm.

Anthony J Mohr (23:57)
And I said, well, there's only one plate in the sink. And he sprang out of bed and grabbed me and he started hitting me. And he said, you go clean up that kitchen. And I was shocked. Actually, I hit back and it turned into a fight. And I was very, very upset by it. I mean, to this day, I'm not quite sure what prompted this. My mother ran interference. She was there when it happened. And she actually got us back together again.

Jason Montoya (24:03)
wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (24:21)
The following night we had dinner together and that was a Saturday night and know she and Sam really wasn't talking nor was I and she said well you know are you do either of you have anything to say to each other? And I said all right I'll admit that I'm wrong but if you have to admit you're wrong too and he did and we shook hands but you know it never really I never really got over it which is why I put it in the book never quite understood.

Jason Montoya (24:25)
you

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (24:51)
And when you beyond that, going beyond that chapter, you said, what else is in the book? I never really planned to put my mother into the pages, but she kept popping up there because she really was the unsung hero of the story. She was the one who ran interference with both fathers. You know, with a problem with Miriam, she's the one who called my father and said, look, you can do whatever you want with any of your girlfriends, but you're not going to bring my son into it.

Jason Montoya (24:59)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (25:17)
And with Stan, when he was talking about how you have to work all the time, she said, look, he's having a good time in high school. He's enjoying his friends. He's happy for the first time in many years because of the divorce. He's busy debating, he's writing for the paper. You're not gonna take him away from that to go work at your office. So she was very, very helpful in kind of keeping me going where I wanted to.

Jason Montoya (25:38)
Yeah, what were some of the key values that she held that you inherited or that you adopted or embraced?

Anthony J Mohr (25:43)
in education, you know, she believed

and she was, she had not gone to school. She was a depression child. She worked after high school. She never took another class, never went to college, although she took classes as an adult. But she said, look, you've got to do well. You know, you've got to study, you've got to do well. She was very friendly to everybody. You know, I don't care who you were. You could be, you know, the lowest, you know, person laborer or you could be

Jason Montoya (25:50)
Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (26:13)
the CEO of a major corporation and many CEOs of big companies came to the house. In fact, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came to visit Arthur Radford. Stan met him and they actually were on the board of a company together. But whoever came, she treated them all equally. Everybody got equal respect. And I think that was definitely a lesson.

Jason Montoya (26:23)
I will.

Yeah.

Yeah, wow. So who, who, yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (26:37)
People loved her by the way. Jason, people

loved her. People would come up to me and say, your mother was wonderful. She acquired her own culture, which turned into a problem when I became an adult because no woman I went out with who met her thought she was good enough for me. In other words, she would say, your mother doesn't think I'm good enough for you. I don't want to see you anymore because your mother will never approve.

Jason Montoya (26:43)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's wild.

Ha ha.

Anthony J Mohr (27:03)
This happened over and over and over again.

Jason Montoya (27:03)
Yeah. wow. So you had to you had to you had to go out of L.A. to find a woman. Is that what happened?

Anthony J Mohr (27:10)
The came from, the

woman was out of LA but she came here. She came here.

Jason Montoya (27:14)
Okay, now how did

your mom end up in LA?

Anthony J Mohr (27:17)
Well, my father came out here to work in radio and somewhat movies at the time. That was in the mid to late 30s and they had known each other in high school. And then he called her and said, look, I have $750 in the bank. Take the super chief and come out and let's get married. She did it.

Jason Montoya (27:20)
You're okay.

Okay.

wow.

Wow, so she didn't know the train she was getting on. Yeah. So who would be a good person to read the book? if you're like, hey, you'd be interested in this book if you're this person. Describe that person for us.

Anthony J Mohr (27:37)
Yeah, she had no idea. No idea.

Well,

the first person would be any classmate of mine from school. Okay, the second person would be anybody our age, you my age, not yours. You look a lot younger than I am. But you know, some baby boomer, you know, who kind of grew up at the time, maybe in the place, but even if not in California, you know, somebody would want to read about that time, that culture. And finally, which is interesting,

Jason Montoya (27:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (28:11)
But in some of the readings at bookshops that I've had, younger kids who want to know what it was like back there. What was it like to come of age with the Beach Boys or to come of age with surfers or to come of age with all the hot rodders? This is a book to read because I try to write about that and light up the culture. And I'm told I did. I'm told I succeeded in doing that.

Jason Montoya (28:18)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's cool, yeah. Well, I want to kind of pull out some your life lessons and insights. And so when you think about just the idea of living better or working smarter, when you hear those phrases, what do they mean for you? Like, what does it mean to live better?

Anthony J Mohr (28:47)
these other people. You you do what you want to do. To work smarter, you know, do something where you feel you're good at it, okay? If you don't like your boss, quit. Don't worry about the inability to find another job. You will find another job. Stan came of age in the 30s with the depression and he said to a couple of bosses, take this job and shove it. And he ultimately found plenty of work.

Jason Montoya (28:49)
Okay.

Hmm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (29:11)
So

now, of course, we may not be a full employment economy, there are lots of jobs out there. And I would say, don't be afraid. If you've got a bad boss, walk away. I made that mistake when I started practicing law. I joined a firm, the second law firm, and it became clear to me on the first and second day that the managing partner was just a first class jerk. I can say some other words, but I won't.

Jason Montoya (29:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (29:37)
And I remember coming home almost in tears. I remember Stan said, give him notice, walk away. And I didn't do that. I lasted another couple of months and finally I left it. But by then the relationship had become poisonous. I should have walked out the second day. I really should have. And I was just, I was too craven, too nervous to do that.

Jason Montoya (29:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (29:57)
So, you know, work smarter if it's not working out, if you're not enjoying the day, get the heck out.

Jason Montoya (29:58)
Yeah.

Yeah, did you, after that event, were able to live that out in subsequent situations or did it take a while? Yeah. Okay.

Anthony J Mohr (30:10)
own. I decided to practice law alone. So I set up my own

office and did that all the way until 1994 when Governor Pete Wilson put me on the bench.

Jason Montoya (30:21)
Okay, and what was that like?

Anthony J Mohr (30:22)
Lovely. Being a judge was for me it was nirvana. It's the chance to make a difference, chance to quote unquote do the right thing, not worry about what other people think of you. You're not going to get sued from out practice. You're going to get paid regardless of the result and you're trying to follow the law. Wherever the law takes you, you follow it.

Jason Montoya (30:26)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (30:43)
I found it and still do because I still sit part time. I found it to be a great fit. Now lot of my friends were lawyers would never want to be a judge and they tell me that. said, look, no way I can't make those decisions. I don't want to sit through trials and be with boring people and all of that. I respect that. But for me, this has just been a much more of a pleasure and much more fulfilling.

Jason Montoya (30:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, one thing I guess I would ask you since you're a judge is I feel like we're in an era where the law, don't appreciate the importance of the law and justice. And what would you tell the people, like how would you tell them why it's important and why we should value it and cherish it and not take it for granted?

Anthony J Mohr (31:29)
Because if you're not living in a rules-based society, who governs? Is it the law of the jungle? Is it loyalty to one person who decides what he or she wants to do and you better play along or you're through? You need a rule of law. And that rule of law has to apply to everybody.

Jason Montoya (31:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (31:53)
I don't care who you are, know, the CEO of the company, the President of the United States, the Governor of the state, the law applies to everybody and nobody is above it.

Jason Montoya (31:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So I think this kinda ties into that, really the next question is about mentoring and what do you think about the idea of mentoring? How's it played a part in your life, both as the mentee and mentoring others, but also being mentored by others?

Anthony J Mohr (32:18)
Well, I was fortunate

to have a couple of better judges. And they were very generous with their time. And they would give me advice, let me know when I'm falling off the rails or something. And that's golden. You want that kind of advice. You want that feedback, if you will. And then people would call me and say, hey, how can I become a judge? Or how should I handle my cases? And I was always delighted to help.

Jason Montoya (32:21)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Anthony J Mohr (32:43)
Because if you've been successful, you want to pay that forward and make other people understand as best they can what they ought to do or not do. And the times that I would have lunch with somebody and give them that advice, I always felt very good at the end. I felt like, yeah, this is worthwhile, time well spent.

Jason Montoya (32:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (33:02)
I remember there was one judge who I appeared in front of when he was on the municipal court, again when he was on the superior court, again when he was on the court of appeal. He was one of our best known judges, Norm Epstein was his name. And then I was asked, and Norm asked me to sit pro tem on the court of appeal with him. And so I did, I spent five months handling a couple of cases. And I remember the first time we had oral argument and I'm sitting up on that bench with Norm, I'm thinking, my God.

Jason Montoya (33:10)
Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (33:26)
I started all the way down at the bottom as a solo practitioner, just trying to make a go of it, appearing in front of this guy who seemed brilliant at the time and was. And he taught me at judicial college. And now years later, we're next to each other as colleagues. Albeit for me temporarily, as I was a pro tem, not a permanent member of the court. But it was a very heady feeling.

Jason Montoya (33:40)
Yeah, yeah

Yeah. So here's your moment to speak to that aspiring judge or someone that's on the cusp of becoming one of those judges. What's the advice you would give to them?

Anthony J Mohr (33:57)
Well, the first quality that anybody's going to look for is temperament. Okay? You're going to get into squabbles and disagreements with opposing counsel. But don't lose your temper. Don't scream at them. Don't threaten them. Don't get personal with them. Just, and if they get personal and threaten you, just, you know, kind of lean back and relax and say, okay, I appreciate your comments.

But I'm gonna tell you right now, that's not what the law says. Or I'm gonna tell you right now, my client won't do that. And if you insist, I can ask the court for sanctions, but don't yell at me. And if they start screaming in a deposition or something, you can always say, sir, you finished? You're not gonna yell at me anymore? Can we talk about the merits of this case without having temper tantrums? Just stay calm.

Jason Montoya (34:24)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (34:41)
Temperament is all important. The next thing

if you want to be a judge is Be prepared, you know walk into court knowing your case and knowing what the law says don't wing it Because we'll see we'll know if you're winging it and judges gossip You know in the lunchroom we gossip and somebody will say you know You remember that guy was in my court and then what he was talking about so, yeah, I remember him He was in my court, you know to Excuse me two months ago

Jason Montoya (35:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (35:07)
He had no clue what was going on as opposed to, hey, I had this lawyer in my court today and she's fabulous. She's so good if I ever get into trouble, I'm gonna hire her. And I've said both in the lunchrooms and others too, So you wanna be a judge, that's what you need to do. Know the law, be prepared, have the right temperament and then unfortunate but true, you really need somebody to go to bat for you with.

Jason Montoya (35:09)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (35:38)
someone who knows the governor or if you want to be a federal judge, knows the president, knows your senator who can, you will recommend you to the White House. You've got to have somebody like that. And, you know, there are many ways to get there. One is bar politics and bar activities. Another is politics itself. You know, doing something, you know, to hopefully connect with somebody who will have that influence for you.

Jason Montoya (35:46)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, advocate for you on your behalf. Yeah. So let's talk about stories. How have stories, narratives shaped you as a person? Are there any that you kind of really resonate with either now or at?

Anthony J Mohr (36:05)
Yeah. Yeah.

Golly,

that's a hard question to answer, but I'll try. Believe it or not, it's a mid-brow book, but Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Woke had an impact because there's a character named Wally Ronkin. Wally Ronkin always liked Marjorie, but they didn't get together.

Jason Montoya (36:20)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (36:34)
And the book ends with Wally Rodkin visiting her after she's been married and she's a housewife and maybe a little frumpy and she's no longer the Marjory Morningstar who wanted to be the star. And he says, I'm the only one who remembers who she was. The only one who remembers the real Marjory Morningstar. And that always got to me. Always got to

Jason Montoya (36:42)
You

Yeah.

What about

it? It's just resonant.

Anthony J Mohr (36:56)
Well, there

are a couple of people I knew back in high school, one of which was a wannabe girlfriend. And she's changed, things have not worked out for her. And I've seen her the last time probably five years ago, and I would never ask her for a date now even if I were single. But I remember that I think I'm the only one who remembers what she was like. I'm the only one who remembers her in high school, this happy, successful, bright-

little girl quote unquote, who had the whole world going for her. And so Wally Rankin is a person I remember. Who else? Oh golly, Michael Henshardt and the mayor of Castor Bridge, somebody who made a horrible decision early in his life, horrible. He auctioned off his wife and daughter, literally. I mean, this takes place obviously many, know, a couple of centuries ago.

Jason Montoya (37:32)
Yeah.

Okay

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (37:55)
But he auctions

Jason Montoya (37:55)
Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (37:56)
off the wife and daughter. And at the time, he's very poor, has no money. He then becomes extremely successful and he becomes the mayor of Castor Bridge. But things start happening and the former wife shows up, the daughter shows up. And at the end of the day, he can't get away from what he did. And at the end, he writes his own epitaph, which is, you

Jason Montoya (38:14)
Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (38:18)
Keep my name off the headstone. Keep my name out of everything. Totally forget me. I never existed.

the lesson learned.

Jason Montoya (38:27)
So

yeah, I think one of the words that comes to mind is the word regret. you're further along in your journey, you have lived a lot of life. So people that might be, I'm 40, but people that are my age or younger, or maybe even your age, we don't wanna live with regret. So what advice would you give to those people on how to live a life without regret?

Anthony J Mohr (38:31)
Yeah, perfect.

So again, do your job well, do what you think you're good at. You can be funny, that's okay, you can be funny. In fact, I think that's a good recipe for a good marriage as well. George Marshall, who was the head of the Marshall Plan, he was very kind of soft-spoken. He didn't try to upstage anybody, he just did his job.

Jason Montoya (38:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (39:11)
He wanted to be the supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II. And of course, Roosevelt had Eisenhower there as under consideration. Marshall never asked Eisenhower for the job. Had he, Eisenhower would have appointed him. But he didn't do it. Eisenhower said, who should this be? Who should I pick?

Jason Montoya (39:15)
Go on.

Anthony J Mohr (39:31)
And Marshall said, please pick me. said, Mr. President, that's your job. I'm not going to advise you on that. You pick whoever you think is the right person. And Roosevelt picked Eisenhower and said, George, we need you back here in Washington. I need you nearby where I can get advice from you. And Marshall saluted and went to work. He's an absolute soaring success at what he did.

But he didn't get what he wanted, but he was okay with that. He accepted that and continued to do wonderful work and then pulled out of retirement for the Marshall Plan.

Jason Montoya (40:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think there's something to be said about how do we act and react when we don't get what we want.

Anthony J Mohr (40:10)
Yeah, yeah. And sometimes if somebody says no, that's not really no. That's like no, try again. Try again. That happens in schools. My college turned me down when I first applied. And I reapplied and they took me.

Jason Montoya (40:14)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

wow.

Okay. Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (40:27)
And there have been a number

of literary journals that said no to me. I tried them again and they said yes. So no doesn't mean no all the time.

Jason Montoya (40:31)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and sometimes persistence is how you open the door.

Anthony J Mohr (40:40)
No means can mean this time no. And the next piece of advice is if you want something, ask for it. George Marshall aside, asked for it. People who run for elective office usually don't know this, although the ones who do well do. And that is if you want votes, you ask for them. If you say to somebody, sir, will you vote for me? The chances are very good they're going to say yes.

Jason Montoya (40:42)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Can I have your vote? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. I know you've got to go in a few minutes, so why don't we wrap it up here and what final words of wisdom do you have for us before we close?

Anthony J Mohr (41:15)
Gosh, other than what I've said, you know, just live your life as best you can. You know, take what you've learned and try to apply it. As I said before, I'll say it again. Don't get stuck trying to please everybody. Don't get stuck doing something that you really don't want to do because you think it's going to get better. Move on. Move on. And that would include even a bad marriage.

Jason Montoya (41:33)
Yeah. Yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (41:38)
I mean, there's inherently evil about a divorce. Some people make mistakes and they should acknowledge it and try again.

Jason Montoya (41:46)
Yeah, well I think the key there is humility, to admit that. So tell us a little bit about humility as.

Anthony J Mohr (41:54)
Well, you said it better than I can. You you admit the mistake. You admit the mistake and try to rectify it, try to do better.

Jason Montoya (42:01)
Yeah, Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Anthony. Where can people find you? Do have a website? The book's probably on Amazon and so forth, but yeah.

Anthony J Mohr (42:08)
The book is on Amazon every other weekend

and the subtitle is coming of age with two different dads. it's on Amazon. just Google my name Anthony Mohr, M-O-H-R and the book or even my own name in the book should pop up. I do have a website. It's www.anthonyjmohr.com. All one word there Anthony J. M-O-H-R.com. The book is also available on

Jason Montoya (42:15)
Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

Anthony J Mohr (42:34)
Barnes and Noble, Thrift Books, Indie Bound, it's out there. It's out there. And if you go on my website and you want to get in touch with me, there's a contact place, you click on that, I'll get your contact and get your message. And I'm also on social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, so you can find me. I'm not hiding out.

Jason Montoya (42:38)
Yeah. Yeah.

All right, all right.

Yeah, yeah, well if any of this resonates with you or if you read the book and you wanna reach out to Anthony, go ahead and do that. Anthony, thank you so much for sharing your story today.

Anthony J Mohr (43:05)
Thank you, it's been a pleasure. You take care, Jason.

Jason Montoya (43:07)
Yeah, you too.