John McGown and Kathleen Hotham

[00:03] JOHN MCGOWN: My name is John McGown I'm 73 years old. It's Wednesday, August 17, 2022, in Boise, Idaho, and I'll turn it over to my interview partner.

[00:16] KATHLEEN HOTHAM: My name is Kathleen Hotham. I'm 72. Today's date is Wednesday, August 17, 2022, and the location is Boise, Idaho. And I am. I am John's friend.

[00:41] JOHN MCGOWN: So one of the reasons I chose Kathy as the person to interview me for this is I've been very interested in Storycorps for many years, and this is the time they were coming to Boise. Cathy is here in Boise, so the timing gets meshed wonderfully. And I'll also say that over the past couple of years, Cathy and I have shared an awful lot of very personal items. She knows me pretty well. And so I'll start with a very general observation, and I feel very fortunate to have lived a very, very good life. And I'm going to walk through the chronology of my life, and I'll start with 1949. And as I was thinking about this, I had some hindsight and said to myself, you know, that was a wonderful time to be born and raised in the United states. We have a prosperous country at that time. A lot of appreciation to be an American. I had very caring parents. I had two very good older sisters. And my childhood friends were Joe, Larry, Allen, and Fred. And I'm pleased to say that they are still friends, despite the fact that I grew up in Kentucky. And let's just say Idaho and Kentucky are not very close. My father was a very accomplished athlete in high school. He played baseball, football, basketball. He got a college basketball scholarship to Western Kentucky University. And it's long time coach, coach Ed Diddle. And I wasn't any of those. And to my father's credit, and something that I truly appreciate, he had one son, the youngest child. And I never felt like I let him down by not being a good athlete. I went to college at University of Kentucky, majored in accounting, had a girlfriend that lived in Tennessee whose name was Cindy chaffin. And we exchanged a lot of letters. I don't know that we were ever serious enough to. I don't think either one of us thought about marriage with each other, but it was a nice relationship. And I. She was actually a bridesmaid in my friend Allen's wedding, and that's how I met her. I was in Sigma Chi fraternity and pleased to have done that. My first job was in Jacksonville, Florida, with a big, at that time, big eight accounting firm. So it was a nationwide accounting firm. And, you know, I like Jacksonville, I think I had a good experience with Haskins and sells, but it turned out to be only a ten month job. And I did pass the CPA exam, and there are four parts to it, and you need at least a 75 to pass any particular part. And I would say, you know, less than 5% of the people at that time, as I recall, passed all four parts the first time. And I had a 75, a 75, a 75, and a 75. So I had the lowest possible passing grades for the exam. But, you know, if people have remarked to me, I didn't over study for it. So the reason I left Haskins and cells was to go to law school at the University of Colorado, located in Boulder, Colorado. And I think in part, I'd never really spent time in the west, and I wanted to explore the west. University of Colorado is a, you know, a high quality law school. And I. So I can recall driving from eastern Colorado headed toward Boulder. And when I did that, I was looking on the horizon and I could see something kind of white in the background. And I just was not sure if I was looking at mountains or if I was looking at clouds. And it turned out I was looking at mountains, but I'd never seen mountains like that. And, you know, snow covered, etcetera. And I can also recall my very first conversation in Boulder. I was low on gas and pulled into a gas station in Boulder, getting gas. And the guy walks up to me and says, hey, man, you need any grass? And I. So I was wondering how much different University of Colorado was going to be from University of Kentucky. University of Colorado had bit of a hippie reputation. And in the end I would say there really wasn't much difference between the two schools. I did go summer school, graduated early, two and a half years instead of the normal three years. And I would just say that academically, I definitely was not a star, but did well enough to graduate and then to take the bar exam. A little story about the bar exam is I went back to Kentucky after taking the bar exam, which was in February of 1975. And I had started law school in the fall of 1972. And so I was going to do a little raft trip with my buddy Alan, who lived in Lexington, and we were going to do the rock Castle river. And so I had a little inflatable raft that I had bought. You know, it's very inexpensive. And stopped at the gas station at the put in point in this rock Castle river in very eastern Kentucky. And filling up the raft with air. I wanted to top it off and topping it off was boo. It popped. So we could not do the raft trip as we hoped. But we found a concessionaire that you could rent a canoe. And so we decided to go ahead and do the canoe. We were running late, and let's just say I don't recall ever canoeing with Allen before we had the same boat. And I remember one time we made it through rapid and, you know, felt quite good about it. We both looked back at the rapid the same direction and flipped the boat over. And so it was not our first time to be in the water. And after a while, it started getting dark, and we decided, well, we can't be too far from the end, though. We didn't quite know where we were, and decided we'd better hike instead of going down the river in the darkness. And there are no real roads back there. I mean, this is remote eastern Kentucky. And I'll just say, if any people listening to this has ever seen the movie deliverance, it would be a similar sort of setting. And so after a while with the canoe, decided, you know, carrying this canoe on our, you know, over our heads is not ideal. So we left the canoe, and there was just a trail along the river, and then there was a junction that kind of went away from the river. We took the junction and the. And then it started raining. Not that I dried off that much from being in the river, but with the rain, we found some spot underneath, some trees, and that was maybe at midnight, one in the morning. And then we started going up again about seven. And we had hit a road at this point, and I. I mean, just a very basic gravel dirt road. But there was an individual came by on a pickup truck, and he gave us a ride into Cold Hill, Kentucky. And so the first thing Alan did, because we're supposed to be back in Lexington that night, was to call his wife and say, you know, we're safe. And she had called the Kentucky state police saying, you know, they're supposed to be back. And, you know, her art, you know, and whoever she talked to was not very promising and said, ma'am, that's a remote country. We couldn't find them at night for sure. And in the meantime, my parents knew I was staying with Alan in Lexington, and they had called to say I'd gotten a letter saying I had passed the bar examined. And that's a big deal. But I will say I got on the phone with Alan's wife, Susan, and she told me that. And she could have told me, you know, the sun rose today. I had no emotion whatsoever or learning I'd pass the bar exam. So to move on, I spent three years as a deputy district attorney in Greeley, Colorado. I wanted trial experience. I don't think I was ever going to be a premier trial attorney, but I got comfortable in the courtroom. I tried a couple of homicide cases, and you kind of build up from speeding cases to more sophisticated cases over time. While I was in Greeley, a neighbor was going to take a young lady to Denver for a new year's Eve party. And I think it was December 31 to 75, and there was a big snow, and so they decided they couldn't go to Denver. And so the neighbor was having this lady over and invited me to come over because the lady Washington going to bring her sister. And it turned out the lady and I, not her sister, but the lady and I, who was going out with my neighbor Tom. We got along quite well that night and well enough that we ended up getting married and stayed married for almost 42 years. And so just. And her name was Mary Grunwald. Her sister was Jane and Jane and I just didn't share much in common. But Mary and I hit it off well enough that she moved into the neighborhood. And as Kathy well knows, I can be a charmer and turned on my charm from Mary. And I figured the best way to impress an attractive young woman is to go over and knock on her door and ask if you could borrow their vacuum cleaner. And she said yes. And things developed. I can remember we took a long, almost three week trip to Florida, driving, and I, we were on the beach in Panama City, and Mary had previously told me that she loved me. And that's when I first told her that I loved her. And certainly a touching moment. And I don't recall telling any other women in my life at that point that I was in love. But. So our proposal, we were driving in a car, and I had heard that my parents were coming to town to visit in a couple of weeks. And so I just said, kind of, Mary, would you like to get married? We can both answer on the count of three. And fortunately, we both said yes, but not a very elegant proposal. And then talked to my parents again, and I asked, why are you going to come visit? Could you stay a couple of extra days? And this is Green Lake, Colorado. And they said, yes. And they kind of said, well, why? And I said, well, Mary and I decided to get married while you were here. And so it came together pretty quickly, but it was a nice wedding. And the. And then on our honeymoon, I can recall, we went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and this would have been. We were married on April 20 of 1978. And the. So anyway, at Steamboat, I remember going cross country skiing on our honeymoon. Just some other things I wanted to mention about Mary. And the right after we got married, we bought a pickup truck and travel trailer and decided I would leave the district attorney's office just because we didn't have any clients as such. And if you're in private practice, it's harder to take off. And the. We had to drive the pickup truck and travel trailer, wanted to back it into this long driveway where we were. And I would say it took an hour. And it was one of the most contentious parts of our relationship, her telling me which way to go. And I said, no, that's not working. I mean, it took forever, but we made it. And so that we had about 15 months river rafting went through most of the country, made it to northern part of Maine, the end of the appalachian trail, Mount Katahdin. We did spend two and a half months in Ocala, Florida. I worked for a CPA firm, and Mary worked in the fry checking department at Crystal restaurant. And she worked about 20 hours a week, and I was probably working 55, 60 hours a week. And I can remember she had a lot of extra time. And there was talk radio. And one time I was not very empathetic, but she was complaining about the people on talk radio. And I would say, mary and I are both fairly liberal, and talk radio, even in 19, 78, 79, was very conservative. And so she was frustrated, and I was not empathetic. She got mad at me, walked out the door of the trailer, and it was raining, and she had to come back in. So just another one other thing about the crystal restaurant. In high school for Mary, there was one black student, and that was it. And that was an exchange student from Africa. And so, you know, she didn't have much experience with blacks. And so at the fried chicken restaurant in crystal, she was certainly in the minority. And I know that her supervisor was black and, you know, realized that, you know, she was 29 years old, didn't have children, and offered to help out if he couldn't. Anyway, she declined. We moved to Denver. Mary had a three year masters in landscape architect program. I got my LLM in tax, and I would say that I did much better academically at the University of Denver for the LLM and tax, largely because it was very practical. University of Colorado Law School was very theoretical, and I just dealt better with the practical. Where we lived was very important. To both of us. And we chose Boise over Denver, which is where we're living. And we just said, Denver's going to be too big in 20 years. And moved on and moved to Boise. And I would say again, that was 1982. So it's been 40 years. And I'm especially pleased with the choice of Boise. I think Mary had a few frustrations over time because it's very politically conservative, but I think it worked out. We're glad to. They have her children raised here. Okay. And so Mary first worked with the landscape architecture firm Beck and Baird. Then she decided to get a PhD at University of Idaho, which is about six hour drive north of Boise. And the. And I would say we handled the distance pretty well. We were even able to conceive our older daughter Erin during that time. And so when Aaron was born, Mary still had to spend time up in Moscow at the University of Idaho. And much of Aaron's first year of life was in Moscow. And I would find five or six tax deductible reasons to go up. I would guess lecture at the law school. I'd guest lecture at the accounting school. And of course they would come back to Boise. And I would say we averaged roughly every third week. We'd have a long weekend together. And of course, it was Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break. Her major professor was a bit of a chauvinistic male, and there was some friction, and I think it was male female. Mary was ready to give up the PhD when she was even 90% through just frustrations. But we had a conversation and she was willing to finish. And I know Erin Brenna and I were able to go up for her defense of her dissertation. And that's, you know, it is an accomplishment to get a PhD. Just some of the things that Mary has done. She was chair of Boise Parks and recreation. She was chair of Idaho Rivers United. She was chair of a regional nonprofit called Northwest Energy Coalition. And just all of that. She was very low key of being chairs of these various organizations. And I can recall going into the Riverside hotel in Boise for an Idaho rivers United annual meeting. And we sat at the head table and, you know, I kind of said, well, Mary, I know you're on the board, but why did they put us at the head table? And she said, well, I am the chair. And that's the first time I knew she was chair of the Idaho Rivers United. Some of the things she did for Beck and Baird. She worked on environmental impact statement in Alaska, worked for Idaho state parks, Idaho department of Water Resources. She was the state floodplain manager. And I can remember when she retired as the state floodplain manager. Her office was Idaho department of water Resources. And the. They ended up for the afternoon break, somebody brought in a little package of donuts and said, congratulations on your retirement, and deservedly so. That was not what very. Was appropriate. So we ended up hiring a band, went to the Unitarian Universalist church, had a big party, and free food and free beer brings people out. And I can still remember the band was at chancellor's, and I asked them to revise one song instead of make it Mustang Sally, make it Mustang Mary. And she had a red boa. Both girls were there, and it was a lot of fun. Mary was also somewhat involved in politics. I think she was chair of the League of women Voters. She went to protest at the Idaho state Capitol. We were in DC one time for a meeting I had, and I know she went and protested at the White House. And the. And I was not about to tell Mary what to do, but she'd been recruited, potentially to run for United States congress. And in Idaho, she would never, ever, ever get elected. And the. And I also say Mary wasn't shy about expressing her feelings. You know, politicians can make things sound innocuous and never answer a question. And that was one time. The children were still pretty young, and I just said I couldn't support that because I knew how much travel there would be, and I knew at the end it would just be disappointing. But that's one of the very, very few times that I was not supportive. Another thing that Mary and I did was she. And through her work, she got to know an individual that had contact with the Newport outdoor group of Newport, Wales. And Mary went on. They had these week long trips that were a bit like a Sierra club nonprofit. Let's do something outdoors. And, you know, an individual would arrange all the lodging. You weren't paying any travel guides or anything else. And she went on ten. And of those ten, I went on six with her. And we went in Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales. And the very last trip that we did, which was in September of 19, we spent about ten days in Bulgaria walking. Mary was having some physical issues. And then on the last walk we did on the welsh coast, she was just afraid that if she started walking, let's say it was 14 miles that day, she could go a couple of miles, but couldn't go any further. And you really. Once you started, you had to finish those walks. Another important part of our lives was we bought a cabin right after 911 of 2001, which was the. I think even I don't know when people might be listening to this, but 911 was a big event in american history, and. But we bought the cabin, and so now had it 21 years, and the great place to hike from. It's right on the very edge of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. It has no electricity, but we spent a lot of time at the cabin. It became very meaningful in our lives. And initially, I was teaching at Boise State, and I had summers with a lot of extra time. I was still working part time at the law firm of Holy Troxel, but so Brenna and I think that's where she got love of the outdoors. And for daughter Erin, who's the older daughter, she would call the cabin that place and was not enthused initially, but I think it's become very close to both girls at this point. So, you know, what are some of the fun things that Mary and I did? We'd go to movies at the flicks, we would dance. There was a Halloween dance, and the chancellors played at it, and Mary would put on a blue dress, and she had this little thing she put on her head that had little devil horns, and always hoping that the chancellor to play the song devil with a blue dress on. Certainly we have a group of friends that kind of raised their oldest tail together, and they've been close, you know, daughter Erin is now 34, so. But New Year's Eve party, 4 July, at the south fork of the Payette river. We go out to McCall, and I dare say that travel was fun. You know, we'd done a lot of rafting, and the something we did recently was we kind of trade surprises, and I'd have a month and would not tell Mary what we're doing, and she'd have the next month, and just that uncertainty of, you know, set aside 5 hours, and this is what you need to wear a and whether or not you need to eat beforehand, but get in the car and have no idea what was going to happen. And for any people listening to that, I would just highly recommend it. It was great fun for us. So some of the things I've done professionally, I worked for, again, Haskins and sells in Jacksonville, Florida. And the, and that was a short period, but good experience. And then while we were in Denver, I worked for a law firm, Montgomery, Little, young, Campbell, and McGrew. And then I decided to go back and get my LLM in taxation, so I really couldn't work, you know, at the law firm, and I got a part time job at the Internal Revenue Service more as an intern sort of job. But I wanted to learn the IR's from the inside. And I think that was a real benefit to me, to know the IR's from the inside because I am a tax attorney, estate planner. And then because Mary's program was three years and I had the law firm say for roughly a year, the LLM program for a year and an extra year while Mary Washington finishing hers and I worked for Price Waterhouse, which is now one of the four remaining nationwide accounting firms. And that was a good experience. It's almost a given that many people start there but they, you know, very few people advance the partnership. And I didn't really want to work for a law firm knowing that I was likely just to be there for a year. But for the large accounting firm, in my view, you know, there's not that commitment to stay long term. And again, we chose Boise. I ended up working for the Holy Troxa law firm where I've been for 40 years. Very pleasant experience. And, you know, I'm a bit of an outlier to the extent I might be one to ride my bike to work. I might dress quite casually but, you know, I had the freedom to do what I wanted and work for some excellent attorneys but I was really the only tax attorney there at the time. And so I had that niche to fill. And again, I'm just very pleased looking back as to how that's worked out. I've done well over 100 seminars. I've written, you know, maybe that many articles that have been published. And so I've always kind of liked the academic side. And Boise State University had a masters in accounting with a taxation emphasis. And I decided I'd like to try teaching. I had already probably done some teaching but not more guest lecturing than actually teaching. So I stayed at Boise State for, I think it was two and a half years, enjoyed the teaching and we had an economic downturn and I was kind of the last hired and the first to be let go. And I was okay with that. I was still working at Holy Troxel sum and I went back. Instead of being a partner, I came back to be of counsel, which gave me even more flexibility. And we're talking about teaching from roughly 2000 to 2002. And one of the courses I taught was tax exempt organizations. And I think it's fair to say that I'm one of the very, very few attorneys in Idaho that has that skill set. And so often when you're practicing law you get little narrow rifle shots of this issue. That issue. But when you teach the course, you get that breadth. And I think that's been very helpful to me. I've been the outside attorney for the Idaho community Foundation for close to 30 years. And then I have guest lectured for the University of Idaho a couple of times. And I was actually a visiting professor one time concentrating on estate planning and teaching partnership tax. And I would say that professionally, the Idaho state bar has something called distinguished lawyers and they recognize two, three, four a year. It's kind of like getting in the hall of fame. And I have been recognized as a distinguished lawyer by the Idaho state bar, which is something that, you know, I'm very proud of. I'll talk a little bit about my health. I've done 17 races to Roby Creek. My very best finish was in the top ten of the bottom half. And I never made it to the top half of those 17 races. But it's one of those things that I think, you know, is you do train for it kind of year round. I go to the y and lift weights and I've been doing that for maybe six or seven years. I have had some issues with medically and I've had prostate cancer. And that was eleven years ago. And hopefully it does recur. And I'm just hopeful it will not recur for me. I've had a little bit of heart issues. I don't, you know, at this point, I'm not especially concerned and. But I do have a high calcium score and there's a lot of calcium built up right around my heart. One of my favorite things to do is there's a walking trail that we can take from where I lived, a place called table rock. And it's the equivalent, about a thousand feet higher or close to that from where we live. It takes me a little bit longer every year. It seems like I used to do it in an hour and a half. In fact, I probably initially could probably do it in 70 minutes, but it got to be an hour and a half. And now it's about an hour and 40 minutes. And I'm guessing I've been up there more than 1500 times. And one of the things that I've started to do recently, recently being the last six, seven, eight years, is as people would be walking up and I'm walking down, I'll stop them and say, you know, I've got some bad news. And they'll say, what? And I'll say, you know, at the top, the milkshake stand is closed. And almost everybody realizes that I'm joking. It's not serious. But I will say that one time daughter Brenna and I, and Mary was at the bottom and Brenna and I got, I think I got like 30 milkshakes at Fancy Freeze and we gave away milkshakes at the top and Mary was at the bottom handing out little coupons and good for one free milkshake. And there were people that would decline and say, you know, what are you selling? They were wondering what the catch was. And the only catch was to give back for all my jokes of people walking up saying that there's no. The milkshake stand is closed. So I've not. One thing I've not talked much about are the two daughters, and I hope to do maybe another one of these. And the daughters are Erin and Brenna. And I can fairly say that Mary and I have been quite pleased with our parenthood, maybe a challenge or two, but couldn't be happier with both daughters.