At age 73, he is senior advisor for the public relations firm Dix & Eaton, serves on a number of corporate and civic boards including Continental Airlines, and has an active arbitration and mediation practice. He and his wife Pat take frequent trips to the New York area to visit their three children and seven grandchildren.

Tell us a little bit about who you are.
I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. My family lived in Boston, Paris, New York City and Summit, New Jersey, but when I was 10 we moved to Washington, D.C. I'm the oldest of three brothers; the other two are doctors. My father is 102 years old. My mother just died in September at age 97. She and my dad were married 75 years.

So longevity runs in your family?
It seems to. My grandparents lived to be in their 80s or 90s. There is longevity on my wife's side as well. Her parents lived to be 96 and almost 107.

Did you ever expect to be such a prominent leader in Cleveland?
When Pat and I arrived here in 1957, we intended to stay five years, and then move on to a larger city (laughs). But I liked the firm, I liked the client work and we both liked Cleveland; and so we stayed. It was because of my antitrust expertise that we came here. When I was in the Pentagon from 1954-57, I spent nights and weekends helping a professor write a casebook on antitrust. I mastered all the current cases. Allen Holmes, a brilliant young antitrust lawyer from Cleveland, got my name from the Dean of the Michigan Law School. Sometimes when Allen was in Washington we would have lunch together. I guess I dazzled him with my knowledge of all the most recent cases. I'd never been to Cleveland and knew nothing about it. Allen started introducing me to other partners at Jones Day, and I was impressed with them. So I joined the firm. There were 53 lawyers at the time, which was a pretty good-sized firm then (there are about 1,600 now). I started out practicing antitrust law, then in later years I got into corporate takeover work. I also did a fair amount of non-jury litigation.

Was there a certain expectation at Jones Day to become involved in the community?
It was up to the individual, but our leadership had always been involved in civic affairs, and their example tended to influence the rest of us. I started at the Goodrich Settlement House as a volunteer, working with teenage boys. Then I joined their board, and later became president. Gradually I became more and more involved in the community.

Was there anyone in your life who was exceptionally inspirational?
I guess I could say my father was; he's the former chairman of the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Board. He still does a lot of writing and speaking. I recently had the pleasure of seeing him receive an aviation award in Washington. He gave an excellent 30-minute acceptance speech.

It sounds like your parents were an inspiration.
They were indeed. Jack Reavis was also a great inspiration. He was dynamic, tough-minded and civic in a subdued kind of way. He inspired a lot of us; he knew how to get things done. I had a peculiar connection to him: his father ran against my grandfather for Congress in Nebraska many many years ago. I didn't know that until long after I joined the firm. Also, when I was an undergraduate at Cornell, I had a friend named John Reavis, who was Jack Reavis' son. So I knew Jack socially before I ever started working here.

In early 1984, Allen Holmes, who by then was Managing Partner, was unfortunately disabled, and I suddenly became Acting Managing Partner. Reavis was still at the firm--at age 84. I often went down the hall and asked him for advice. Unhappily, he died later that year.

Interestingly, he and my father became great friends after we acquired my father's law firm in 1967. (I had become a Jones Day partner in 1961.) In those days we had a small Washington office. My father formed a law firm, Pogue & Neal, when he left the government in 1946, and his firm was really growing. But their clientele were strictly aviation and airlines. He wanted to combine with a general practice firm and we wanted to do have a larger presence in Washington. And so the two firms combined, and L. Welch Pogue became the Managing Partner of the Washington office of Jones Day. Thus my father and I were partners for 12 years.

What is your capacity here at Dix & Eaton?
I do a lot of different things here, but the firm is really a base of operations for me. I'm active with the company: I'm a director, and one of the largest shareholders; I bring in some business for them, provide internal advice, and occasionally help service clients. The people at Dix & Eaton are extremely nice.

On my own, I do quite a bit of commercial arbitration and mediation work. And I remain involved in various civic activities. Just recently I completed an eight-month stint as Interim Executive Director of the Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education, a consortium of 22 universities and colleges in the area.

Do you ever see yourself retiring?
I am afraid that I haven't really given serious thought yet to retirement. I am not ready for it, I guess! In fact, Pat and I seldom take vacations, because after two days I get so restless.

How do you spend your free time then, or do you have any?
I don't have a lot. I play casual tennis once or twice a week, golf about once a month, and work in the yard. I'm a director of Continental Airlines, so Pat and I fly whenever we can to visit our three kids. They're all on the East Coast, so we like to go up to the New York area and see our them and our seven grandchildren.

I don't watch television much, maybe some sports. I usually arrive at the office by 6 a.m. and arrive home by 7 or 8 p.m. I usually work at the office on Saturdays, from around 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

If you were to encounter someone your own age who was complaining about their pains and their limitations, what would you tell them?
I'm not a good person to ask about that (laughs). I've had such good health all my life, I just don't understand pain and discomfort. I've been very lucky in that regard. But my wife Pat would be wonderful about listening to their concerns and trying to help them.

I've been very fortunate in another respect, and this has been true since I was born: I've never needed much sleep. During my law career I was able to get by on about four hours during the week; I now have to get five hours of sleep. That's a tremendous advantage, because most people need more. My wife says it's unfair (laughs). I was that way when I was one year old; my father likes to tell the story that I used to wake up early and bang on the crib until my parents got me up.

How would you say your perspective has differed as you've gotten older?
I'd say what bothers me most is that I feel out of tune with the younger generation. For example, I'm not a fan of casual dress in the office. I feel that it leads to lowered work standards. But I know that I'm way out of step with most people on that one.

I don't seek offices, mainly because I don't want to stand in the way of younger people. I was very lucky at University Hospitals. I was chair there for five years, and then I had some other things I wanted to do. One of the best things I ever did was to talk Henry Meyer into succeeding me.

I've been fortunate in my civic activities. I've made a lot a friends; I have colleagues of various ages, and age doesn't seem to matter in that regard. In the corporate community, corporate policy tends to require you to retire at age 65. In the professional world sometimes that's true, I think that the main reason for that conformity is that when your clients retire, it's sometimes hard for a guy who's over 65 to relate to someone in the company who's 45. I can understand why professional firms have retirement policies, and I'm a strong believer in that.

Do you have any philosophy about growing older?
I don't think age has a whole lot to do with one's level of activity. It's just a mind set. Most of the partners who retired from Jones Day at 65 were perfectly capable of going on and doing other things. But the prevailing psychology seems to be that when you're 65, you retire and you go play golf or something. And I think that most people sort of accept that proposition. Of course, a lot of people look forward to retirement. I know many executives who can't wait to retire. But as life moves on and longevity continues to increase, 65 as the "magic number" for retirement just stays the same. It doesn't move with society, which is sort of arbitrary, and even irrational. Many aspects of aging are a matter of mind set, in my view.