Old School.

My daughter, Caroline, spent last week with her brother, Davis, at his college, Sewanee. My only little girl is plenty smart, but needs some motivation to apply herself in her Senior year, so she might also get into the small, Southern, Episcopal, liberal arts school that is Sewanee. Sewanee is set on a beautiful 10,000 acre campus in the middle of Tennessee, on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. In addition to a full regimine of sports, Greek, and community service outlets, Sewanee has a lot of outdoor adventure stuff, including caving. Davis took Caroline caving. The picture at left does not include my chilluns, but is a picture of Sewanee yout' after a round of caving. I attended Sewanee, and although my diplomas read "The Florida State University" and "Stetson University College of Law", most of my memories of higher education are from Sewanee. Some things have changed at my old school: the dress code no longer requires, as it did in 1978-1980, that men wear coats and ties to class and that women wear dresses or skirts; no longer are there classes on alternating Saturdays (with no classes on alternating Wednesdays); Freshmen may now have cars on campus; and drinking to retched excess is apparently now a bad thing (though, college kids being college kids...). Even the name has changed from the politically incorrect "The University of the South, Sewanee" to the milder "Sewanee, The University of the South". Many things are the same: Sewanee is still beautiful; the professors are still interesting; the standards are still high (yeah, I know, I got in. I played football, so they cut me some slack); the place still reeks of tradition. I'm rooting for Caroline. She's funny, has wonderful energy, a will of steel, and, as I mentioned, she's abundantly smart. Hmmm. Still, wouldn't hurt if she played basketball...

Kiwi Time.

My first exposure to New Zealand came about seventeen years ago when I met Cindy and Gavin, who were from the place. This was a fairly extreme party time in my life, when we'd go through bartender books to prepare drinks with things like layers of liquors, frequently topped with flames. Perhaps you've had one of those nights where someone starts calling out names of drinks- new and old- that sound "interesting"? Slippery Nipples, Flaming Doctor Peppers, Sidecars, Rusty Nails, Pink Ladies, and Sidecars, anyone? On quiet, still mornings, I can still hear my head throb from the hangovers those nights produced. Anyway, Cindy and Gavin definitely came along at the right time. I remember Gavin's boast that he could drink my well-stocked bar dry. He didn't, but not from lack of effort. Those days were a long, long time ago. Three glasses of Scotch qualifies as a "wild night" these days. In any event, though I haven't heard a thing about them in probably fifteen years, I think of Cindy and Gavin from time to time. This post is dedicated to the Land of the Kiwi. A tip of the hat to anyone that can name the link between each photo or clip and New Zealand.

Swords, Sorcery: Get a Virtual Life

Why use crack, when you lose hours of useful time without leaving your living room? I'd reformed. Really, I had. Hadn't touched it in more than a year. Then that smarty-pants Quaker mentioned katanas. Katanas, yeah, those are a kind of sword that you can get in some of those Final Fantasy videogames. Maybe I'll just start a new file, you know, just for old times' sake. One minute of Final Fantasy is too many, a million isn't enough. Twelve step programs? Shoot, twelve steps won't even get you to the Aerodrome. If anyone needs me, I'll be on my couch until Saturday, when it's time to pick up the twins. If I remember.

Poll Winner: To Kill a Mockingbird

My running partner, Cathy, a/k/a Sunny, said she got into the practice of law because of Atticus. My role model was Perry Mason. I wanted to win. I wanted to beat the other side. Perry never lost (well, I think he did twice. But almost never). My clients? Well, if I won, it helped them, right? But it really wasn't about them. At least, not for a long time. A friend of mine, Steve (also a lawyer) told me along and along, "Be a decent guy. There are plenty of winning asshole lawyers out there, but not that many decent guys". He's right. It's taken a really long to find out that he's right. I still try to win, and mostly I do. But winning isn't worth my soul. My peers are more important than my ego. My clients are more important than their cases. Fighting the good fight is more important than a result that we can't control anyway. I like Vinny. I like Tom and Jack. I like Al. But I respect Atticus. He lost his trial, but he didn't lose his soul. And he won this poll. Says a lot about you guys and gals, too.

Easter Flowers

Spring sprung a couple of days ago. The azaleas are in full bloom, and are beautiful, as always. It's maybe 60 degrees outside, and a gorgeous morning. I snapped a few pictures of the flowers in my neighor's yard and mine. Happy Easter. Happy Spring.

It's Go Time!

As I've already mentioned, Wednesday was prison day. After leaving the Broad River Prison facilities in Columbia, I began the trek back to the Boro. First of all, I've got an admission to make: I have, at times, driven in excess of the posted speed limit. There have also been occasions when I have reacted, er, less than kindly when other members of the motoring public, evidently believing- erroneously in my opinion- that they had adequate space and time to maneuver their autos in front of mine, thus moving sharply in front of my vehicle. When these misinformed motorists react on this faulty presumption, I generally wave to them; folding my thumb and three of my fingers against my palm to give them my estimate of their driving IQ. Mess with the bull, you get the horns (or, more accurately, the bird).

Well, it turns out that even fabulous drivers like me can make choices that turn out to be less than optimal. Around Orangeburg I decided to stop for gas, and glanced to my left at the exit, saw an approaching black Dodge 300 (equiped with a Hemi!), but figured I had time to turn. I did have time... because the dude braked. I proceeded to the next gas station, and to my horror, saw the the Dodge pull in to the pump next to me. I got out of the car and gave my best tough-guy look. This is not easy, because I'd thrown my back out last week and could barely move. Anyway, dude gets out of the car. It's Izzy Mandelbaum. Remember Izzy Mandelbaum from Seinfeld? C'mon, the character played by Lloyd Bridges that's, like 70 and is always looking for a fight? It's Go Time! Well, I'm imbedding some Izzy in case you forgot. Anyway, dude's looks at me, figures I'm probably 15 years younger than he is, but apparently can't help himself:

Izzy: Wow, that wasn't even a Hollywood stop at the exit there.

SD (suppressing my testosterone urge to request that he perform an impossible sexual act by his lonesome): Yeah, sorry about that.

Izzy: You didn't stop at all.

SD (feeling liberated by his desire to continue the discussion): Well, I figured you'd stop, plus, I had to beat you to the gas station.

Izzy: You couldn't beat me, you don't have the horsepower.

SD (a little hurt at the insult to the SpongeBobMobile): I did beat you.

Izzy: Grrr!

He then limps off into the foodmart. It's obvious his back is killing him even more than mine's hurting me. It's a good thing, too. For both of us. It was Go Time!

Let My People Go.

Today was prison day. I visited three clients at three different prisons today. On was in Allendale/Fairfax in Allendale County. Allendale County is one of the five counties that comprise the fourteenth Judicial Circuit. It's Northeast of Colleton County, and borders Georgia on the Savannah River. There's not a lot going on in Allendale, generally, but they do have a State prison there.

You'll note that the S.C. Department of Corrections does not permit tobacco products. Violent gang rape? Well, they are criminals, but at least we don't permit tobacco. We're not savages, you know.

After Allendale, I scurried over to Columbia, where I went to the women's prison there, then the the Reception and Evaluation Center at Kirkland (also in Columbia).




My trip home involved road rage and very nearly ended badly, but I'll tell that tale tomorrow.

Whose Your Daddy?

Been following a lively discussion on Kate's Blog, Out in Left Field, about birth control and parental rights. Obviously, this is a very important topic. Jodi, a friend from work, sent me the video below, advertising a new DNA test. If I can just help one poor soul out there...

Henry, Prince Valient and... what was I saying?

Country singers George Jones and Barbara Mandrell had a duet right after John Travolta's Urban Cowboy made country music cool for about three weeks in the early 80's, called "I was Country, When Country Wasn't Cool". Well, one of the vogue diagnoses of the day is ADHD or ADD. It stands for Attention Deficit, something or other. I'd look it up, but, well, that'd be work. Anyway, I have been ADD pretty much my whole life. My brother, AndyMan, while not nearly so bad, has a low tolerance for boredom. We were ADD, when ADD wasn't cool. AndyMan has reminded me that I've gotten a bit wordy lately.




He commented that he's more of a "Henry" guy, than a "Prince Valient" guy.




Personally, I like 'em both. Even if I occasionally need a bookmark to finish Prince Valient.

Hail to the Boro.

The region has been getting some bad weather the past few days. Maybe not as bad as Atlanta, but not nice. Last night we had a hail storm. My covered front porch was, well, covered in it. Seemed like there ought to be some use for it.


Here we go. My "dogs playing pool" needed a new cueball, applied by My Friend Amy. What? You don't have a black velvet "dogs playing pool" in your home? I'll interpret your condescending tone as jealousy, thank you very much.


Hail is ice, which is just what I needed for my, er, applejuice. We need another hailstorm. I'm thirsty.

It Begins.

Alright. I've looked through the clips, reviewed your thoughtful comments, and narrowed the field to four movie trials/trial movies.

1) And Justice for All. Al Pacino at his best.
2) My Cousin Vinny. Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, and Herman Munster. What's not to love?
3) A Few Good Men. Jack and Tom, trying to handle the truth. 'Nuff said.
4) To Kill a Mockingbird. Gregory Peck as a noble Southern lawyer, fighting the good fight.

It pained me to leave out Bogie as Captain Queeg, and Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow, but you can't have everything is this world. Monty Python and the Holy Grail didn't make the cut because, even though I loved the trial and the ridulous logic resulting in a witch's conviction ("It's a fair cop"), the trial wasn't central to the movie. I've also included a movie where the trial itself may not have been stellar, but it was central to a great movie with wonderful ideals. Vote for your favorite. Vote for more than one, if you want. Vote often. May the best candidate(s) win.

Trials, four

The philosophy of "And Justice for All" is a little scary (sort of the anti-To Kill a Mockingbird), but Al Pacino offers a pretty good Summation (or Final Argument, or Closing), up until the end, at least.

We're always supposed to try as hard as we can for our clients, even if we find them or their offenses vile. At a minimum, Al Pacino would be disciplined for selling out his client. Probably he'd be disbarred.

Sometimes you know you're going to lose, like Atticus Finch did in to Kill a Mockingbird. Sometimes you know you're going to lose at the trial level, but figure that there is something wrong with a statute and they only way to get the law thrown out is to lose at trial level to get a higher court to throw it out on appeal. Rosa Parks made her mark by first being convicted of an unjust law. Same for Scopes, the Tennessee teacher that was convicted of teaching evolution. In real life, Scopes (or Capes, as he was called in Inherit the Wind, the movie from which the next clip was taken) was represented by Clarence Darrow, a legendary lawyer upon whom Spencer Tracy's role was based. Tennessee was represented by William Jennings Bryan, who ran for president as a Bible-thumping, populist Democrat.



Atticus Finch is the very symbol of what is good, or what can be good, about the practice of law: honor, integrity, courage. Finch's daughter, and the boys, exhibit those same qualities in the movie, and Scout stands up for her daddy, who is trying to guard his client at the jail to keep him from being lynched. It's not the trial scene, but the appeal to individuals to do what is right is not a bad analogy for what jurors are supposed to do in trials. Scout succeeded where Atticus could not.


I think I know what I'm going to do on this one, but would still love some feedback.

Trials, three

Got some choices I'm mulling here, too. First, from A Miracle on 34th Street. The conclusion of this trial isn't bad either- lots of letters on the judges desk.

Noone should be surprised that the next one is on the list. My Cousin Vinny is one of my favorite movies.

The last second inspiration does happen in court, and the strangest things can "turn on the light" for a bit of strategy that swings the case. In My Cousin Vinny, Vinny finally understands the importance of a picture his girlfriend has taken, and he calls her to the stand to testify that the Defendants' car could not possibly have made the tire tracks found at the scene. In A Miracle on 34th Street, inspiration comes from a letter that Kris Kringle is reading and the NYC branch of the U.S. Postal Service's sending all of its Santa Claus mail to Kris at the courthouse (you can watch the conclusion as part 11/12, I think, on youTube). Anyway, both these movies are wonderful, and one of 'em'll make the cut.

A Few Good Movie Trials (two)

There really are a lot of great movie trials over the years. It's not easy to get it narrowed down to four or five for a smack-down, so I'm going to fudge a little. Today I'm posting two. I could use your help to see which makes it to the poll.

Got a couple military tribunals, with a couple of heavy-hitters as witnesses. First, Tom versus Jack (the soundtrack here seems a little off, but this is the right length):


Now go back a little farther in time to Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. You can tell when he starts "losing his marbles".


That's a lot of testosterone for one post. So waddya tink, Humphrey or Jack?

Favorite Trials

It's General Sessions, or criminal court, in the Boro this week. To celebrate, I'm thinking about having another smack-down. This time, favorite trials.

First one is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Trials have progressed a bit since the middle ages, though witch hunts, sadly, still abound.

My Three Sons

My oldest son, Davis, stopped by the Manor last night, in route from college to a tour of Charleston and to the Beaufort home of his momma. It's always a treat to have my three sons together, if only briefly.


The woman in the picture is Davis' girlfriend, Elizabeth "G-Bear" Gibert. She reminds me of someone. Hmmm. Just took this random photo of G-Bear reading the Parade section of the Charleston Post and Courier.

It'll come to me.

Pilates of the Carribean

I had this great idea. I was going to get a picture of a lady doing a Pilates work-out (you know, the big ball and all) and paste Captain Jack Sparrow's head on her body. Presto! Pilates of the Carribean. I got the two pictures. Cut and pasted Johnny Depp's head on the exercisergirl, but, it was...little.

Oh, well, maybe next time.

Projects, Potatoes, and Pictures.

The Lads have a science project due tomorrow. They did an experiment on potatoes a month ago. The fascinating subject was osmosis and permeability of potatoes left to soak in salt water. Hello? Anybody still awake? Anyway, it turns out that instead of the potato absorbing the water, the salt water actually pulls nutrients out of the potato. I tell you this because, well, I brought it up, and there is the off chance that someone might want to know how the story ended.



While the Lads printed, cut and pasted their report onto a story-board, I decided to finally put up those pictures that have been sitting in the hall since I moved into my home in the Boro in July of last year (See, here is a difference between the creature known as "divorced man" from the poor enslaved version known as "married man": Had Tina been in the Mix, it is a certainty that those pictures would have been up in some form or fashion within two days of closing on the home).

Anyway, I've never been much of a picture hanger. Don't like it. Don't have the patience for it. Always just did whatever wife said do. Arranging them in some order where they all fit in the limited space I have in the Manor was... daunting. I saw the Lads arranging text and pictures on their board, and noticed a stack of old papers, and had a revelation:

I put the paper "pictures" on the wall until I could get the nails in all the right places. Boo-yah! Here's how it looked:


Okay, I missed one. The one piece of newspaper still on the wall, is supposed to be this picture of my maternal grandmother as a baby in Great Grandmother Gertrude (who names their daughter Gertrude? I mean, that's just cruel) Southgate. Here, take a look. Now, I'm going to bed.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful...

Strom Thurman, Hootie and the Blowfish, James Brown, and Vanna Frickin' White are all from the Palmetto State. The Renaissance Weekend where intelligent mucky-mucks gather to discuss important world issues was an annual event on Hilton Head for years. The Spoleto Festival in Charleston is an annual international expo of art and music. So, we've managed to overcome the "slow-witted Southerner" stereo-type that has so unfairly affected South Carolina, right? Oh, Geez, who let this girl out in public?

Stupid Signs (six)

These aren't really stupid signs, just poorly maintained ones. How many people in the Boro does it take to change a light bulb? Apparently no one knows.


What's a "Dairy L"? Hope it's not like a "derriere".


I tried to help them with this one. I went in the store and said, "There's no "F" in KFC. They kicked me out. You believe that?


Who took Piggly Wiggly's pig? There's a Chinese restaurant in the same shopping center, I'll check there.


At least I thought there was a Chinese restaurant here. This place apparently just sells plates.


N.Y.C. B? Wasn't Leona Helmsley one of those?


...and whenever I'm hungry, I just stop in at the Taco.


Is the boy strange? Yes, he's an effing Odlad.

Food Flight!

After the race on Saturday, Cathy and I journeyed the 35 miles from Ridgeland to Hilton Head Island to eat lunch, and get books from Barnes and Nobles. It was maybe 10 a.m., so not quite lunch. We went to Atlanta Bread Company, which is sorta like a Denny's for upper-middle class white people. Instead of a ham and cheese omelette, you get a prosciutto and baby swiss omelette. There were just as many morbidly obese people there as in the land of the pea-cakes, but they dress a little more like they just got off the links. And let me tell you, Hilton Head has some of the whitest white people you'll ever find. Go into any of the public shopping places around the Island, and it sounds like a flock of geese. I don't mean that in a bad way. Shoot, I'm so white I'm practically clear. I can't lie down on the beach because young children think I'm a dune.

Still, there was a time when HHI was a bastion for Gullah culture. You can still find some native Islanders on the North end of the Island. My exe's mom was a native Islander, and talked of a time when race relations were pretty good on the Island. There weren't that many people on the Island at that time, and there wasn't a bridge to connect it to the mainland, so people had to get along to thrive. She said they used to ride horses on the beach, and had to take a ferry to school either to Beaufort or Savannah. Her dad owned several oyster plants on the Island (a restaurant called "The Old Oyster Factory" used to be located on one of his old plant sites. Maybe it still is. I haven't been over there in years). One Islander that I met fifteen years or so ago is local artist Jonathan Green. I saw a book of his artwork in B&N.


Hilton Head is actually a decent place... It just isn't special in the way it once was.

Second Place!

My running partner, Cathy, and I ran a 5K today in the big city of Ridgeland, SC. She won her age group, and I came in second in mine. This would probably be more impressive if there had been more than two people in our age groups. Still, we ran an under 10 minute mile pace, and have only started back running a couple of weeks ago.


Action photo!




The race coordinator looked oddly familiar.



I'm not saying they're related, but Chuck might oughta ask his momma if she caught any Crosby, Stills, and Nash concerts back in the day.