I was hurrying to take a final examination in college when I realized that I had forgotten to take a writing instrument with me. You know how kids will take, like, 15 pens and pencils to a final, just in case 14 break or don't write? I was never one of those kids but I didn't have a one. When I realised this holocaust I got exasperated with myself. Was there a place on the way where I could buy one quickly? There wasn't and if there had been it would make me a few minutes late to the final and being late for ANYTHING causes me stress. Should I ask a kid if I could borrow from his sacred stash? I never said anything aloud, I didn't grab people at random and start begging for a pen or pencil. I did not give voice to my agony, I just kept walking purposefully with my head down keeping my anxious thoughts to myself. With these potentialities whirring in my mind as thoughts whir, at near the speed of light, I had only taken two maybe three steps when I looked up and saw two or three steps ahead of me a blue-collar worker walking toward me holding upright a perfectly sharpened pencil with a full eraser head. For me. He didn't say a word, I took the holy object and said, exclaimed, "Thank you!" and we each kept walking in opposite directions. Don't know who he was, how he came to proffer the exquisite possession to me, never saw him again, but I can see that man and that epitome of the writing instrument craft and the street I was walking on, and the exact spot where this hand off took place as clear as day forty years later. It was my first visitation by the Divine.
Lawyers rushing to court are the instantiation of anxiety, I was today, the more so because I was rushing to parts unknown or very unfamiliar, the Civil Courthouse. I am as at home in the civil law as a fish is in riding a bicycle. I only take a civil case when an existing client works on me and works on me and works on me until he wears me down. I had spent hours and hours AND hours preparing and rehearsing for today's five-minute, so denominated, hearing. Could I introduce myself in five minutes? Wtf was a five-minute hearing? How could I make my many learned arguments in five minutes? I decided I would talk as fast as an auctioneer and shorthand my answers..."Motion to Strike, judge"..."Motion for Summary Judgment, judge," JudgmentonthepleadingsjudgeDONE! if Time were about to
silence
my
voice
FOREVER.
I walked into this Temple of Doom absorbed in thought and realized, "Oh yeah, two separate banks of elevators, one that goes from the 12th floor to the 30th floor, one that goes from 1-11. Eight was my destination. Realizing this annoying complexity in elevator transport I quickly glanced to my right, saw the infernal 12-30 bank, looked to my left, saw 1-8 and was now master of the case when a most congenial lawyer, who I had never met or seen before, who had noticed that I was lost in thought and lost in space-time, who saw me glance from the evil 12-30 bank and then walk toward salvation at 1-11, came up to me and said reassuringly, "If you want to go to eight, you take those." How did he know I was going to eight? That's where I was going but how did be know? He knew, somehow, like the blue collar worker who knew I needed a pencil. We got into the same elevator and made the smallest, briefest of talk but he had a preternatural calm and good nature about him, he smiled and I could tell that he smiled frequently, it came naturally to him, he was a happy, nice man, and you can wander for hours in courthouses and not see a happy, nice man. It was a little thing, it was a small gesture but it was a solicitous, courteous, small gesture by a perceptive, good man. I was impressed and before I left the elevator I put my file under one arm and retrieved my wallet with the other in order to give him my business card. I fumbled hurriedly and the business cards stuck together and I ended up giving him two. "If I can ever do anything for you, call me," I said as I got off and the doors closed. He did not have a chance to give me his business card, I did not know his name and thought I had lost him forever as I had the blue collar worker in college two score years ago. But my email address is on my business card and this evening he sent me an email, "It was nice to meet you today" was the subject heading. "Sorry we did not have more time to chat before you left the elevator. I trust your hearing went well."
Signed, Aaron W. Tandy.
From now on, when my clients work on me to take their civil cases, I have the perfect out. Call Aaron Tandy.
Lawyers rushing to court are the instantiation of anxiety, I was today, the more so because I was rushing to parts unknown or very unfamiliar, the Civil Courthouse. I am as at home in the civil law as a fish is in riding a bicycle. I only take a civil case when an existing client works on me and works on me and works on me until he wears me down. I had spent hours and hours AND hours preparing and rehearsing for today's five-minute, so denominated, hearing. Could I introduce myself in five minutes? Wtf was a five-minute hearing? How could I make my many learned arguments in five minutes? I decided I would talk as fast as an auctioneer and shorthand my answers..."Motion to Strike, judge"..."Motion for Summary Judgment, judge," JudgmentonthepleadingsjudgeDONE! if Time were about to
silence
my
voice
FOREVER.
I walked into this Temple of Doom absorbed in thought and realized, "Oh yeah, two separate banks of elevators, one that goes from the 12th floor to the 30th floor, one that goes from 1-11. Eight was my destination. Realizing this annoying complexity in elevator transport I quickly glanced to my right, saw the infernal 12-30 bank, looked to my left, saw 1-8 and was now master of the case when a most congenial lawyer, who I had never met or seen before, who had noticed that I was lost in thought and lost in space-time, who saw me glance from the evil 12-30 bank and then walk toward salvation at 1-11, came up to me and said reassuringly, "If you want to go to eight, you take those." How did he know I was going to eight? That's where I was going but how did be know? He knew, somehow, like the blue collar worker who knew I needed a pencil. We got into the same elevator and made the smallest, briefest of talk but he had a preternatural calm and good nature about him, he smiled and I could tell that he smiled frequently, it came naturally to him, he was a happy, nice man, and you can wander for hours in courthouses and not see a happy, nice man. It was a little thing, it was a small gesture but it was a solicitous, courteous, small gesture by a perceptive, good man. I was impressed and before I left the elevator I put my file under one arm and retrieved my wallet with the other in order to give him my business card. I fumbled hurriedly and the business cards stuck together and I ended up giving him two. "If I can ever do anything for you, call me," I said as I got off and the doors closed. He did not have a chance to give me his business card, I did not know his name and thought I had lost him forever as I had the blue collar worker in college two score years ago. But my email address is on my business card and this evening he sent me an email, "It was nice to meet you today" was the subject heading. "Sorry we did not have more time to chat before you left the elevator. I trust your hearing went well."
Signed, Aaron W. Tandy.
From now on, when my clients work on me to take their civil cases, I have the perfect out. Call Aaron Tandy.
