Carol L. Voss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rich Hunn Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I know and I was about half teasing, he's a
> tough
> > guy to figure out, other than maybe who his
> > "other" friends are.
>
> Norm's rise in the San Jose political scene was
> carefully orchestrated and supported by the movers
> and shakers in the Japanese community. He pissed
> those people off when he divorced Mae to marry the
> non-Caucasian woman. Up until he resigned as
> congressman to undertake lobbying for Lockheed, I
> firmly believed that there were only two men in
> the world that you could put the words
> "politician, honest, ethical integrity" in the
> same sentence with their names: Leon Panetta and
> Norm Mineta. I have never quite understood his
> rather sudden resignation from congress---but then
> again he resurfaced as Sec of Transportation for
> Dubya and naturally he favored and understood
> airline stuff because that is the committee he
> served on while in congress. Note that Rod Diridon
> runs his Mineta Transportation Institute at SJSU.
> Politics is a snake pit.
> C.

Correction: Norm and his Japanese wife Mae divorced so he could marry a Caucasian woman. I did not write that correctly above. He and Mae had two sons and Mae was in Junior League with me. Norm also appointed me as a Bicentennial commissioner in 1974, a position from which I had to resign because of the demands of my employment. This was at a time when women were just transitioning from home to workplace for economic reasons-------interesting time. Matter of fact, there was a strike at San Jose Hospital in 1972 or 73 and Norm's parents were living in the hospitals senior facility-----I left my job early every day to deliver food trays as a volunteer to the patients and etc including Norm's parents--I recall talking to Mae one night and asking if Norm (the mayor) would relent on this issue---he didn't. He was true to his beliefs even tho his parents were involved. I give him credit for that whether I agreed with it or not.
C.