Just when you think you have seen it all, I get caught in a Derecho. With winds at 88 mph, it would have been an F-1 tornado if swirling in one spot. Instead, it was a “long-lived straight line wind storm,” a Derecho. By long line, it covered parts of Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia. Seventy percent of West Virginia was out of power, some for over one week. While my coastal friends are used to it, it caused a symphony of chain saws akin to Aaron Copland’s classical piece: “Appalachian Spring.”
On the eve of West Virginia’s PGA Greenbrier Classic, it was deemed to be a bit of a problem to broadcast without power. Every dump truck in the county was called out with hundreds of volunteers to remove the 70-plus old trees down on the golf course. The then current PGA event in Washington played, but without spectators or volunteers on the course, for the first time in PGA history due to damage there, some 200 miles away. Of course, you can add record heat, no ice, and all electronic everything to complicate matters.
All this fits. I did not know there was an official crazy season, but it seems we are there. Not that an election year is not crazy enough, but President Obama’s team just offered a registry for weddings or any special event or milestone. Instead of a blender from Macy’s, the campaign says: “Instead of another gift card you’ll forget to use, ask your friends and family for something that will go a little further: A donation to Obama for America . . . it’s a great way to show your support for a cause that’s important to you on your big day.”
Honest, there is a site for that. It’s your big day and you are President of the Young Republicans and your elderly Auntie does this for you instead of a tie.
Well, if that gift does not do it for you, I have been offered an important new opportunity to deliver client services according to the recent invite to me. The world’s largest funeral home directory says it is in need of attorney listings for wrongful death, serious bodily injury (so how are they in touch with the funeral home), medical malpractice, as well as estate planners, wills and probate professionals (little too late on some of that). They say they have been online since 2005 and more families visit their website to plan a funeral than all other directory websites combined. But wait, there is more. The inventor of the mail order Ginsu knife has just died. Perhaps I can be listed on this funeral site as one of the tackiest lawyers in history ––– and also get a set of knives. Where is the dignity of the law when you need it?
The next advert, as they call them in Britain, offers me a book for lawyers that helps me with “globalization, scale-building, and segmentation.” I am just sure my law firm will be needing some of that. Being located in the State Capitol “big city,” I learned long ago that you needed to pay a local lawyer to sit with you to pick a jury in adjacent rural counties to counter the city slicker image. One local lawyer only 20 miles from us kept his mother’s long closed restaurant sign outside his law office. It said: “Anderson’s Home Cooking” and if you did not hire him as your local guy, it sure did mean that. To me that was “The Strategy-Led Law Firm: Business Models that Work” instead of the offered book priced at $305.00.
I am going back out on the golf course to clean up from the Derecho. There is more sanity in doing volunteer manual labor it seems. Do not donate anything to the registry in my name please. I am getting electronic rants from both sides already.
On the eve of West Virginia’s PGA Greenbrier Classic, it was deemed to be a bit of a problem to broadcast without power. Every dump truck in the county was called out with hundreds of volunteers to remove the 70-plus old trees down on the golf course. The then current PGA event in Washington played, but without spectators or volunteers on the course, for the first time in PGA history due to damage there, some 200 miles away. Of course, you can add record heat, no ice, and all electronic everything to complicate matters.
All this fits. I did not know there was an official crazy season, but it seems we are there. Not that an election year is not crazy enough, but President Obama’s team just offered a registry for weddings or any special event or milestone. Instead of a blender from Macy’s, the campaign says: “Instead of another gift card you’ll forget to use, ask your friends and family for something that will go a little further: A donation to Obama for America . . . it’s a great way to show your support for a cause that’s important to you on your big day.”
Honest, there is a site for that. It’s your big day and you are President of the Young Republicans and your elderly Auntie does this for you instead of a tie.
Well, if that gift does not do it for you, I have been offered an important new opportunity to deliver client services according to the recent invite to me. The world’s largest funeral home directory says it is in need of attorney listings for wrongful death, serious bodily injury (so how are they in touch with the funeral home), medical malpractice, as well as estate planners, wills and probate professionals (little too late on some of that). They say they have been online since 2005 and more families visit their website to plan a funeral than all other directory websites combined. But wait, there is more. The inventor of the mail order Ginsu knife has just died. Perhaps I can be listed on this funeral site as one of the tackiest lawyers in history ––– and also get a set of knives. Where is the dignity of the law when you need it?
The next advert, as they call them in Britain, offers me a book for lawyers that helps me with “globalization, scale-building, and segmentation.” I am just sure my law firm will be needing some of that. Being located in the State Capitol “big city,” I learned long ago that you needed to pay a local lawyer to sit with you to pick a jury in adjacent rural counties to counter the city slicker image. One local lawyer only 20 miles from us kept his mother’s long closed restaurant sign outside his law office. It said: “Anderson’s Home Cooking” and if you did not hire him as your local guy, it sure did mean that. To me that was “The Strategy-Led Law Firm: Business Models that Work” instead of the offered book priced at $305.00.
I am going back out on the golf course to clean up from the Derecho. There is more sanity in doing volunteer manual labor it seems. Do not donate anything to the registry in my name please. I am getting electronic rants from both sides already.
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