I had a great interest in sports. I had three older brothers who were great athletes. I was not.

So I developed very early a massive inferiority complex, and I've told the story often about how that inspired me later in life to get involved in other things, because I couldn't out-do my brothers in sports, and it's a very competitive relationship.

And I spent that time working as an insurance adjuster and going to law school in the evening, and then when I left law school, I joined the Department of Justice in Washington.

My parents were very poor, but we never felt any sense of need or want. It was a very close, loving, tightly-knit family growing up, and I never felt any sense of deprivation or anything like that.

I was the United States Attorney for Maine for three years, and then was appointed a federal judge.

So my father grew up in an orphanage in Boston. He was then adopted by an elderly childless couple from Maine, who gave him the name of Mitchell. He moved to Maine, and there he met my mother and was married.

I got a job with a law firm in Portland after a couple of years with Senator Muskie. But by then, my interest in politics had been sparked, through meeting Senator Muskie, through seeing what he did.