Tom Howard (TH) and Bill O’Hara (BO)
TH: I coulda went to work for the city right out of high school. I had my electrician job all lined up. But my friends were down there. You see them driving a new car, and you were wondering what the trading pits were all about. I remember when you first came down there. It was the wild wild west. You felt that roar. The hair on your arms would stand up. You’re on top of each other shoulder to shoulder his sweat’s your sweat.
BO: You’d jump out of bed in the morning to go down there and get more of it–
TH: Couldn’t wait, couldn’t wait.
BO: It was a drug.
TH: Stood in that pit for six hours and didn’t even leave to go to the bathroom on some days.
BO: What do you think? Eight, ten thousand people used to be down there total?
TH: Yeah.
BO: And now?
TH: That computer does what I do. I get an order I fill it. What’s the computer do? It gets an order it fills it.
BO: I was trading until ’95 or so, and then I decided you know I’m missing something. My mom was a school teacher and she would say to me ’what do you bring back to the world?’
TH: Yeah.
BO: How’s the world a better place–
TH: —a better place for what you do.
BO: Right. I don’t know. I just tried to come home with more money today than I started the day with. That was the goal. It was so like–
TH: —self-centered.
BO: Self-centered, all about me. So tell me what you’re gonna be doing.
TH: Something I always wanted to do. I opened up a car wash with a buddy.
BO: You always wanted to be a trader yet you were a trader who always wanted a car wash.
TH: I wanted to make enough money to buy a car wash. Now I go to work with construction boots on and I’m cleaning cars. I’m good.
BO: But the Board of Trade building is you know where you wanted to be. I fell in love with the place and fell in love with the majority of the people that I met. It was and is a great run, until this day.