Lawyeringforlawyers
This can be deemed an advertisement in some jurisdictions.
  • Home
  • About Steve
  • Law Firm Blog
  • Humor Blog
  • Contact

HONEST OFFICER

7/7/2014

 



 

 

     . . . . I just had two beers.  This is the most common legal defense attempted in the court system of West Virginia.  Every magistrate or judge does the Judge Judy eye roll on this.  The most common testimony in my home court is:  “Well, we stopped at the Git and Go and bought some beer, and then we . . . . . .  [insert crime here].  One of my friends calls these “Stop and Rob” stores and he is largely right.  The other common story line in these stores starts with, “Watch this” and then . . . . . . .  A recent AP story reports a Tennessee man mistakenly took a swig of gasoline from a jar on a table inside a friend’s home.  Thereafter, he stepped outside to light up a cig and then ——, you guessed it. Darwin proves his theory again.

     When an officer pulled us over in our much younger days, we were just cleaning out the carburetor on the family car because our parents drove so slow.  It was sort of a public service defense we offered.  Now, I do a hair flip and state boldly:  “Officer, I am trying to get to a gas station before the prices go up.”

     As a frequent complainer about the poor quality of air service, I extended my driving range to deal with that poor quality.  Now as I most literally watch the gasoline prices jump overnight, it is a problem.  It was a little hard to drive to Phoenix from the home city, but in my mind it was a close call for a Board Meeting.  The cattle freight airline had a wheels-up plan for 5:18 a.m., but that did not happen.   Five hours later we took off to Stop One and then after thirteen hours in transit, we made it to the Arizona desert.  Good times.

     The moaning and groaning stopped however when we arrived in Phoenix at the Arizona Biltmore, now a Waldorf Astoria property but originally a Frank Lloyd Wright influenced design.  It opened February 23, 1929, some seven months before the Great Depression.  I note that many large scale properties opened during the 1920’s (the Broadmoor in Colorado; La Quinta in Palm Desert; The Cloisters at Sea Island; and the Biltmore).  Described as “The Jewel of the Desert” when it opened, the Arizona Biltmore was owned by William Wrigley, Jr. and his family for 44 years.  Every President except Herbert Hoover has stayed there and Hoover must have held some grudge against the gum people.  Movie stars honeymooned here and Irving Berlin penned White Christmas while sitting under palm trees at the huge pool in the sun.  Opposites seem to attract, so the desert heat at the pool must have inspired him to think of white snow on Christmas.

     Frank Lloyd Wright had a unique design style and you see that through the architect protégé who did the Biltmore design.  Wright built Taliesin West near here in January 1940 and its weirdness overwhelms his Pennsylvania Falling Rock home.  Nevertheless, his designs remain as iconic style items.

     The Arizona Biltmore remains a premiere location to announce political campaigns and host events.  But what do NASCAR and a rodeo have in common at a March event — think beautiful young “nieces” with their older “uncles” — truly a family place.  The big boys of stock car racing were in town, as is the 59th Scottsdale Parada Del Sol Rodeo.  So, we go see the rodeo for an evening and have big fun.  Our big touring bus goes up on two wheels in a very close car encounter on the way back, so maybe stock car racing and rodeo do have something in common.  The rodeo clown asks if anyone is from Alabama.  In response to positive claps, he says:  “Call home immediately, the trailer park is on fire, and the Capital burned.”  My friend from Mobile said he was going down to kick his ass, but he better call Montgomery, Alabama first to see if it was true.

     I left the desert Board Meeting with the understanding that my lawyer group is making progress and now has 25% female lawyers.  I still say women just do not think the same as men — e.g., a man walks down the street with a bald head and a big beer belly, and still thinks he is sexy.

 

DEJA AND A NEW OUTLOOK

10/7/2013

 


     Last year I went back onto the National Board of Directors of the Defense Research Institute (“DRI” or “The Voice of the Defense Bar” and not to be confused with “Dr. I”, or the “StayDRI” basement foundation water prevention company). My friends in the 23,000-member organization universally reacted with some version of “OMG, he is back.”  Of course, many are now much more cautious in their behavior since I wrote about some of them in the earlier version of my book,  “Down to the Hard Road”.

     I now have a different outlook on this second tour of duty, primarily due to my near death experiences running stock cars about a year ago at the famous old NASCAR track at Rockingham, North Carolina (a/k/a “The Rock”).  The day of Racin’ and Rubbin’ was a gift from my family, all of whom went to different states that day to establish their legal alibis.  Oddly enough, the family life insurance representative’s contact sheet was missing on this date from my files.

     After equipment training, a safety lecture, and a walk around the track to learn the apex points, throttle easing marks, and proper return to pit procedures, they suited us up in Nomax fire retardant suits.  I had hoped for the “Nomax” effect where dorky professional race car drivers have beautiful wives and others on their arms, whenever they don the magic Nomax suits.  That did not happen, but a tall attractive Charlotte news reporter did interview the students:  (two lawyers, one Pharm.D., and a NASCAR announcer).  As I went out to see the car, I thanked all the people who got my 2XXL stock car ready to race and plugged my favorite donut places. 

     Now here is the life-threatening part.  I was allowed to drive my own car 10 laps to get the feel for the marks; all big fun, even on the 25° banked big scary curves with the crash marks all over them.  But next they pulled my stock car up and told me to get in.  Think 16 pounds of marshmallows to go into a 5 pound sack.  They had bragged that Shaq had driven their cars, but somehow neglected to tell us they cut the top off one and let him step in that way.  Try being “big boned” and crawling into your car window and then down into a little butt racing seat.  My personal pit crew of Mike and Chris pushed and bent me in and then handed me a steering wheel.  After attaching that very necessary part, the 2XXL car took off with a scary roar and the driver screaming like a junior high girl at the county fair rides.  Universally, I have been asked, “How fast did you go?” and I always say it was hard to tell with just a tachometer, a water gauge, the oil pressure gauge, and all that screaming.  After two different runs in two different cars and a change of under drawers, I limped to my personal car and headed home.  I drafted a Prius for 70 miles and got all up under his rear bumper.  It was tough finding a good drafting partner on those North Carolina back roads.  However, that stock car jaunt helped my outlook once the screaming stopped.

    Author

    Having written and published an allegedly humorous book while travelling to lawyers' meetings, Steve was counseled by his friends to keep his day job. This site allows him to do both.

    Archives

    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    August 2012

    Categories

    All
    Alleged Humor
    Alleged Humor
    Business Terms
    Humor
    Irony
    Lawyer Defense Organizations
    Lawyer Defense Organizations
    Social Media
    Whiskey

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.