When Georgia Supreme Court Justice Hugh Thompson retired from 45 years on the bench in December 2016, he told the Daily Report's Kathy Tucker that judges were like tools, their deliberations were like a bag race and that his own success occurred because he happened to be available.

“I think people saw things in me I didn't realize I had,” Thompson said. “I was always lucky to be standing around on the platform when the train was leaving. I had friends who'd say, 'Get on board,' and I'd say 'OK.'”

As Tucker reported it: His list of those who called him to the train is long, starting with the U.S. government for giving him a war orphans scholarship after his father was killed in World War II. That included a battery of aptitude tests. “Novelist/journalist was No. 1. Lawyer was No. 2,” he said. “That gave me some direction in an otherwise open gestalt to figure out where to go.”