Sunday, October 24, 1924. A glimpse of Natrona County.

Put up for reasons that matter to me. 

Last edition:

Saturday, October 25, 1924. Contrasts.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Art, Girl Scouts, J. C. Leyendecker

Blog Mirror: My breakfast at Denny’s in Minot

 My breakfast at Denny’s in Minot

Some introspective blogs in the mirror.

What I Want For You

The Virtues of Dead Time

Wisdom From The Agrarians

Blog Mirror: Checking In with Myself

 

Checking In with Myself

Blog Mirror: A trip back home to get my bearings

A trip back home to get my bearings

Hindsight is 20/20. . .

Packer from the U.S. Forest Service Northern Region 

but at some point, that doesn't really do you much good.

And for that matter, it isn't really 20/20.

Human beings prognostic abilities are notorious poor, in spite of what we like to think.  We're really good at recognizing patterns, but it's been established that we see patterns in things that aren't actually there.

Added to that, while hindsight may be 20/20, immediate hindsight and distant hindsight aren't the same thing.  It's one thing to look at a recent mistake and conclude, well that was a mistake, or to look at something that was a success and realize that.  But mistakes in particular often don't really set in as to their full magnitude, if at all, for a long time.  By the time that hindsight snaps into focus, it may truly be difficult, or indeed too late, to do anything about them.

Which gives us that old adage about not looking back, which gives us such quotes as this from Churchill

What is done, is done. Learn from it and always look forward. Every day is a new opportunity to grow, to learn and be better than we were yesterday.

That's probably the best view, but it's not always the easiest one to take. 

A conversation with an old friend. The Good Death, and the Good Life and Existential Occupations.

A really old friend of mine and I were talking about it just last week.

I had to catch up with him as he was working on something for me.  It was Friday, but I was fairly formally dressed and he noted it. The reason was that I had just come from my uncle's funeral earlier that day.  He extended his sympathies, but I noted that my uncle had lived a long and good life.  Not a life free of troubles, as no such thing existed, but a long life, that was well lived, and he'd remained sharp right up until the end.  His health had declined in recent years, but only in very recent ones.  It was the last few months that were rough.

My friend and I, who first knew each other as National Guardsmen back in the 80s, are co-religious.  Neither of us was married when we first met, but both of us have, and have seen our kids grow up since then.  And of course, we've seen our parents pass away, his before mine.  He has siblings, which I do not, and one of his brothers died, only in his 50s.  I noted that in the Middle Ages, people often prayed for good deaths, and he noted that a prayer group that he's in now does that every week.

Prayer for a Happy Death

O God, great and omnipotent judge of the living and the dead, we are to appear before you after this short life to render an account of our works. Give us the grace to prepare for our last hour by a devout and holy life, and protect us against a sudden and unprovided death. Let us remember our frailty and mortality, that we may always live in the ways of your commandments. Teach us to "watch and pray" (Lk 21:36), that when your summons comes for our departure from this world, we may go forth to meet you, experience a merciful judgment, and rejoice in everlasting happiness. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

I'm constantly amazed by people who work into old age, as I'd judge it, and keeping working.  A dear friend of mine, now in his 70s, noted that just the other day.  He doesn't have to, he just is.  Likewise, I know a collection of lawyers who fit that description.  The law is a hard job, surrounded by hard facts, hard people, and difficult scenarios

I think they just know nothing else, their real personalities, perhaps, burnt to the core eons ago.

In contrast, I'm also constantly amazed by those who have extensive plans for their retirements well before they can retire.  Another friend of mine fits this category, but when I look at him, I can tell his physical condition is so poor it'd be amazing if he lives long enough to retire.  It's one of those things where you don't know what to say.  If you were to be blunt, you'd say that the dreams of early retirement are probably forlorn, but that his dreams of retiring at all may be foreclosed by a bad early death, if some correction isn't made soon, and those corrections are harder to make once you are past your 30s.

The call came to my wife on Saturday.  I could tell from the tone what the topic was, without even being told.  A relative of hers was on his way to the hospital by helicopter.  Even though he was being sent in, in that fashion, I knew, but did not say it, that he'd not make it.  I'm not even sure if he wanted to.

And so another death.

In this case, unlike my uncle, he was much younger.  My age, in fact.  I hadn't seen him for many years, and before his troubles really set in.  He hadn't been able to adjust to them well.  The most common comment from people, none of whom were surprised, was that his torment was over.

I don't have any big plans, like one of my friends, for retirement.  I hope to be healthy, and just become more of an agrarian-killetarian than I presently am.  Funny thing is that recently I've been running into people who claim "you're looking really good". Somebody asked me the other day, indeed at the funeral gathering, "you're working out", the question in the form of a statement.  Not really.

Indeed, I've gained some weight I seemingly just can't lose, which I think is the byproduct of my thyroid medicine, which has made me hungry, and I know that I'm not in the physical condition I was before my recent health troubles commenced.  People close to me just won't accept that, which brings me to the other side of the retirement coin noted above.  Some lawyers I know are already planning for me to work into my 70s, as that's the thing to do, apparently. Long-suffering spouse, for her part, won't say something like that, but from an ag family, she doesn't really accept the concept of retirement anyhow.  Having said that, I wouldn't plan on my retiring from the ag operation either.

It finally occured to me, however, what's different about agricultural jobs as opposed to others, at least if you are an owner of the enterprise or part of it.  The occupation itself is existentially human.  It is, if you will, an Existential Occupation, or at least it is right now. The mindless gerbil like advance of "progress" may ruin that and reduce it to just another occupation.

Existential Occupations are ones that run with our DNA as a species.  Being a farmer/herdsman is almost as deep in us as being a hunter or fisherman, and it stems from the same root in our being.  It's that reason, really, that people who no longer have to go to the field and stream for protein, still do, and it's the reason that people who can buy frozen Brussels sprouts at Riddleys' still grown them on their lots.  And its the reason that people who have never been around livestock will feel, after they get a small lot, that they need a cow, a goat, or chickens.  It's in us.  That's why people don't retire from real agriculture.

It's not the only occupation of that type, we might note.  Clerics are in that category.  Storytellers and Historians are as well.  We've worshiped the Devine since our onset as a species, and we've told stories and kept our history as story the entire time.  They're all existential in nature.  Those who build certain things probably fit into that category as well, as we've always done that.  The fact that people tinker with machinery as a hobby would suggest that it's like that as well.

Indeed, if it's an occupation. . . and also a hobby, that's a good clue that its an Existential Occupation.

If I were to retire from my career, which I can't right now, I wouldn't be one of those people who spend their time traveling to Rome or Paris or wherever.  I have very low interest in doing that.  I'd spend my time writing, fishing, hunting, gardening (and livestock tending).  That probably sounds pretty dull to most people.  I could imagine myself checking our Iceland or Ireland, or fjords in Norway, but I likely never will.

What I can't imagine myself doing is imagining that age and decline don't occur, and that I should be in court in my 70s.  I don't think that the lawyers who do that realize that younger lawyers don't admire that, and most of the lawyers I'm running into in court are younger than me now.  

And indeed, frankly, it isn't admirable.  People who work a hard non-existential job and keep at it into their advanced old age, or at least past their 7th decade, have just lost something they were when they were young, and much of that is themselves.  They've lost who they were.

AN ACT OF FAITH IN ANTICIPATION OF THE HOUR OF DEATH

From the works of St. Pompilio M. Pirrotti

On my journey toward eternity, dear Lord,

 

I am surrounded  by powerful enemies of my soul.

I live in fear and trembling,

especially at the thought of the hour of death,

on which my eternity will depend,

and of the fearful struggle that the devil will then have to wage against me,

knowing that little time is left for him to accomplish my eternal ruin.

I desire, therefore, O Lord,

to prepare myself for it from this hour,

by offering you now, in view of my last hour,

my profession of faith and love for you,

which is so effectual in repressing and rendering useless

all the crafty and wicked schemes of the enemy

and which I resolve to oppose to him at that moment of such grave consequence,

even though he should dare alone to attack with his deceits

the peace and tranquility of my spirit.

I N.N.,

in the presence of the Most Holy Trinity,

the blessed Virgin Mary,

my holy Guardian Angel

and the entire heavenly host,

affirm that I wish to live and die under the standard of the Holy Cross.

I firmly believe all that our Holy Mother,

the holy, catholic and apostolic Church,

believes and teaches.

It is my steadfast intention to die in this holy faith,

in which all the holy martyrs, confessors and virgins of Christ have died,

as well as all those who have saved their souls.

If the devil should tempt me to despair

because of the multitude and grievousness of my sins,

I affirm that from this day forth

I firmly hope in the infinite mercy of God,

which will not let itself be overcome by my sins,

and in the Precious Blood of Jesus

which has washed all my sins away.

If the devil should assail me with temptations to presumption

by reason of the small amount of good

which by the help of God

I may have been able to accomplish,

I confess from this day forth

that I deserve eternal separation from God

a thousand times by my sins

and I entrust myself entirely

to the infinite goodness of God,

through whose grace alone I am what I am.

Finally, if the evil spirit should suggest to me

that the pains inflicted upon me by our Lord

in that last hour of my life

are too heavy to bear,

I affirm now that all will be as nothing

in comparison with the punishments I have deserved throughout life.

In the bitterness of my soul

I call to remembrance all my years;

I see my iniquities, I confess them and detest them.

Ashamed and sorrowful I turn to you,

my God, my Creator and my Redeemer.

Forgive me, O Lord, by the multitude of your mercies;

forgive your servant whom you have redeemed by your Precious Blood.

My God, I turn to you, I call upon you, I trust in you;

 to your infinite goodness

I commit the entire reckoning of my life.

I have sinned greatly, O Lord:

 enter not into judgment with your servant,

who surrenders to you

and confesses his guilt.

Of myself I cannot make satisfaction to you for my countless sins:

I do not have the means to pay you for my infinite debt.

But your Son has shed his Blood for me,

and greater than all mine sins is your mercy.

O Jesus, be my Saviour!

At the hour of my fearful crossing to eternity

put to flight the enemy of my soul;

grant me grace to overcome every difficulty,

for you alone do mighty wonders.

Lord,

according to the multitude of your tender mercies

I shall enter into your dwelling place.

Trusting in your pity,

I commend my spirit into your hands!

May the Blessed Virgin Mary

and my Guardian Angel

accompany my soul into the heavenly country. Amen.

We should all hope and indeed pray for a happy death.  And perhaps we should pray for a happy life, which is one worthwhile.  That doesn't, quite frankly, include the "I'm going to work here at my desk until I die".  That's surrendering to fear or meaningless, in most cases.

Again, there are exceptions.  People with Existential Occupations, people who own their own special business, and the like.  The list can't really be set out in full.

That doesn't include pouring through the latest edition of the IRS code for deductions, or reading the Restatement (Second) of Torts, or engineering an oilfield implement. 

Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day

Lex Anteinternet: St. Patrick's Day: A Celtic cross in a local cemetery, marking the grave of a very Irish, and Irish Catholic, figure. Recently I ran this item:  Lex Anteintern...

So, after the crabby entry, what did I do for St. Patrick's Day?

Well, my St. Patrick's Day really started on the prior day, March 16, as my daughter was in town.  We always have corned beef and I hadn't secured one, so after work (lawyers, you should be aware, often work six days a week. . . at least I do) I went to get one.

Usually, this isn't a problem, but it was on Saturday and I ended up getting one at a specialty butcher shop after going to three of them, which is a nice thing to think of in a way.  Distributism saved the holiday.

I now also have a corned pork butt, or corned pork roast, I'll have to look at the label, from the second one I visited, that visit being due to the recommendation of the first. They were really friendly at all of them, and at that one they insisted I try the corned pork, which they had just cooked one of for themselves.

It was quite good, much like pastrami.

Long-suffering spouse informed me that while she doesn't like corned beef (her DNA, I'd note, is almost as Irish as mine, but not quite) she hates pastrami.

Anyhow, I also went to the liquor store to buy stout and Irish whiskey.  I got the last six-pack of Guinness and some Irish ale I'd never heard of.

Which made me wonder what on earth was going on.  To see the shelves cleared that way was downright weird. And all the parking lots all over town were full.

I chose the liquor store as it was near one of the churches in town, and it gave me the opportunity to go to confession.  They informed me in the store, which was new, that the parking lot was full as their bar had just opened, and it was packed. That surprised me as it was about 1:00 p.m. which strikes me as really early to hit the bars.

I went to confession, as noted, and was right behind my next store neighbors.  I avail myself of the sacrament frequently, so I was comfortable speaking to my neighbor while in line.  I know what my sins and many failings are.  The very traditionally dressed women behind me in line, however, was clearly not happy with us chatting. Anyhow, it's odd as we live right next store, but we don't actually chat all that much.

Long suffering spouse is a better chatter than I am.

I went home and I fixed the St. Patrick's Day meal, which is my chore.  It was good, but the corned beef was uniquely not very fatty.  Long suffering spouse and daughter liked it better than the usual, grocery store bought, one.  I like the fatty one better.

We'll see what opinions are on the pork.

On St. Patrick of Ireland's day itself, the first thing I did was go to Mass.  The Gospel reading was as follows:

Gospel

Jn 12:20-33

Some Greeks who had come to worship at the Passover Feast came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee,  and asked him, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew;  then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them,  “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you,  unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,  it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me,  and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

“I am troubled now.  Yet what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But it was for this purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven,  “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” The crowd there heard it and said it was thunder;  but others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered and said,  “This voice did not come for my sake but for yours. Now is the time of judgment on this world;  now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth,  I will draw everyone to myself.” 

He said this indicating the kind of death he would die.

It struck me because of this section:

Amen, amen, I say to you,  unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies,  it remains just a grain of wheat;  but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me,  and where I am, there also will my servant be. The Father will honor whoever serves me.

The reason is that I've been going through a lot that's been forced up on me recently, together with others upon whom it's been forced, but I'm finding myself unique making decisions for everyone, and not for what I want to do, but for others. The stress of it has been gigantic and when I stop to think about it, it's depressing.

I went home and made a breakfast out of a bagel and left over corned beef.

In the afternoon, I went out fishing and took the dog.  On the way, I was listening to a podcast, like I'll tend to do.  It was a Catholic Answers Focus interview of Carrie Gress and it was profound.  I'll post on that elsewhere.  

We didn't catch any fish.  Nothing was biting, so we came home.

By that time, I'd finished the short Gress podcast and listened to This Week.  I've later listed to Meet The Press.  Both featured Republicans try to tell people that when Donald Trump promised a bloodbath if he isn't elected, he didn't really mean that, but was speaking instead about cars coming in from Mexico from Chinese factories. The full text of his speech stated:

We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars if I get elected, now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s gonna be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That will be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars. They’re building massive factories.

It's interesting that Republicans feel compelled to continually tell you that Trump didn't mean what he said. It's also interesting that a person with such a strange pattern of speech is listened to.  He rambles and repeats.

The other thing that the shows all dealt with was Chuck Schumer calling for an Israeli election as he's upset with the current Israeli government.  A lot of people are upset with the current Israeli government, including a lot of Israelis, but an American elected official calling for a new government in another democracy is really beyond the Pale.

St. Patrick's Day's meal was left over corned beef and Brussels Sprouts, and cheese lasagna from the prior Friday.

No big blowout, no "Craic".  Just an observation that probably more closely resembles that of centuries of Irish people, in Ireland and the diaspora.  A small family gathering, a small feast, a little regional alcohol.  Reconciliation and Mass, and knowing that today the grim problems of the last two weeks, on this Monday, return.

St. Patrick's Day

A Celtic cross in a local cemetery, marking the grave of a very Irish, and Irish Catholic, figure.

Recently I ran this item: 

Lex Anteinternet: The Obituary: Mira qué bonita era by Julio Romero de Torres, 1895.  Depiction of a wake in Spain. I didn't have him as a teacher in high school, but I...

One of the things this oituary noted was:

"One more St. Patrick’s day craic for you, Dad."

That's nice, but what does that mean?

From Wikipedia:

Craic (/kræk/ KRAK) or crack is a term for news, gossip, fun, entertainment, and enjoyable conversation, particularly prominent in Ireland.It is often used with the definite article – the craic– as in the expression "What's the craic?" (meaning "How are you?" or "What's happening?"). The word has an unusual history; the Scots and English crack was borrowed into Irish as craic in the mid-20th century and the Irish spelling was then reborrowed into English. Under either spelling, the term has attracted popularity and significance in Ireland.

A relative who kn3w the decedent well told me that in later years he really got into "being Irish" and had big St. Patrick's Day parties.

But is that Irish?

Not really.  That's hosting a party.

Granted, it's hosting a party in honor of the Saint, sort of. Or perhaps in honor of Ireland, sort of.  And there's nothing wrong with that whatsoever.  After all, "holidays" comes from "holy days", which were "feasts".   There are, by my recollection, some feast days even during Lent, and for that matter, it's often noted, but somewhat debated, that Sundays during Lent aren't technically part of it (although this post isn't on that topic, perhaps I'll address that elsewhere.

And St. Philip Neri tells us, moreover,  "Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits."

So, no problem, right?

Well, perhaps, as long as we're not missing the point.

The Irish everywhere honor this day, and some of that involves revelry.  Traditionally it was a day that events like Steeple Chases were conducted, sports being closely associated, actually, with religious holidays on the British Isles.  But the day is also often marked by the devout going to Mass, and as the recent Irish election shows, the Irish are more deeply Catholic than some recent pundits might suggest.

Perhaps it might be best, really, to compare the day to the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in North America, which is widely observed by devout Catholics, and not only in Mexican American communities.

So, I guess, a purely bacchanalian event, which is so common in the US, doesn't really observe the holiday, but something else, and that risks dishonoring the day itself.  Beyond that, it's interesting how some in North America become particularly "Irish" on this day, when in fact the root of the day, and the person it honors, would import a different type of conduct entirely to some extent, if that was not appreciated.  Indeed, with many, St. Patrick would suggest confession and repentance.

Am I being too crabby?  

Probably, but we strive for authenticity in our lives and desire it.  That's so often at war with our own personal desires which often, quite frankly, aren't authentic.  Things aren't easy.

The traffic circle.

 

Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

John, Chapter 21.

The theme of this week, I fear. 

Approximately 30 years ago, I was presented with an opportunity that I desired greatly to take.  It was, however, irresponsible in about every way a serious person would regard something to be irresponsible.  I accepted it, and then back out.

It was a mistake.

History does not really repeat, as they say, but rhymes. 

This week, I'll start dealing right off the bat with a crisis, and it's a multi party crisis.  From crisis, comes opportunity of all sorts, and if not traveling into a fork in the road, I'm definitely traveling into a traffic circle.

I know with certainty which road I want to take, and that it goes where I want to go, and it can be travelled.

I also know that another road is the responsible one, in every conventional fashion.  That will be the one I'm expected to take.  And even now, that's the one I'm going to.

But I don't want to.

And that will be a mistake.

Foothill Agrarian: From OUR to MY

Foothill Agrarian: From OUR to MY: During the Holidays, I jokingly told my coworkers that I couldn’t host a party because a bachelor had moved into my house. At the risk of pe...

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Lawyer February 2014: Standards of Dress.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Lawyer February 2014: Standards of Dress.:  Fairly typical office attire for me, shirt and tie. The  Wyoming Lawyer February 2014 issue just came out, and in it there's an ...

Man alive. . . a decade older, and I look it.  No more brunette mustache, it's gray now. And I'll bet I've added fifteen pounds.

Ah well, in a decade hence, I'll likely be dead. 

Here's hoping those remaining say a prayer for me, and I for those who went before me.

Mid Week At Work: Endings.

I posted this the other day:

Sigh . . .

And depicted with a horse too. . . 

Kroger retires after 35 years of service  CODY - Worland Wildlife Biologist Bart Kroger retired last month, bringing his 35-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to a close.  “Bart has been referred to as the ‘core of the agency’, meaning through his dedication and continuous hard work, he has significantly and meaningfully impacted wildlife management within his district and throughout the state,” said Corey Class, Cody region wildlife management coordinator. “Throughout his career, he has been a solid, steady and dependable wildlife biologist, providing a foundation for wildlife conservation and management in the Bighorn Basin.” Through his quiet and thoughtful approach, Bart has gained the respect of both his peers and the public. Bart is best known for his commitment to spending time in the field gaining first-hand knowledge of the wildlife and the habitat that supports them, as well as the people he serves in his district.

 Found this old draft the other day

RETIREMENT ELIGIBILITY

Vesting Requirements

After obtaining 72 months of service, you are eligible to elect a monthly benefit at

retirement age. The 72 months of service do not have to be consecutive months.

Retirement Eligibility

You are eligible for retirement when you reach age 50 and are vested. There is no

early retirement under this plan. You must begin drawing your benefit no later than

age 65.

Which means, as a practical matter, if you are to draw retirement as a Wyoming Game Warden, you need to take the job no later than the beginning of your 59th year.

Of course, if you started at age 59, you wouldn't be drawing much, if anything.

That doesn't mean, of course, that you couldn't be hired after age 59.  You'd just draw no retirement.

The actual statute on this matter states the following, as we noted in a prior thread, from 2023, quoted below:

2. Wyoming Game Wardens were once required to retire at age 55, but a lawsuit some decades ago overturned that. It, in turn, was later overruled, but by that time the state had changed the system. Since that time, it's set it again statutorily, with the age now being 65 by law.  There aren't, therefore, any 67-year-old game wardens.

Statutorily, the current law provides:

9-3-607. Age of retirement.

(a) Any employee with six (6) or more years of service to his credit is eligible to receive a retirement allowance under this article when he attains age fifty (50).

(b) Effective July 1, 1998, any employee retiring after July 1, 1998, with twenty-five (25) or more years of service may elect to retire and receive a benefit upon attaining age fifty (50) as described in W.S. 9-3-610.

(c) Repealed by Laws 1993, ch. 120, §§ 1, 2.

(d) Any employee in service who has attained age sixty-five (65), shall be retired not later than the last day of the calendar month in which his 65th birthday occurs. 

Age limitations of this type are tied to physical fitness.  But what about mental fitness?  As mentioned here before, Gen. Marshall forcibly retired most serving U.S. Army generals, or at least sidelined them, who were over 50 years of age during World War Two, and that had to do with their thinking.  We now allow judges to remain on the bench until they are 70.  Would 60 make more sense?  And can the same argument be made for lawyers, who are officers of the court?

This differs, I'd note, significantly from the Federal Government.  The cutoff there is age 37.  That's it.

Have a wildlife management degree?  Spend the last few years in some other state agency?  Win the Congressional Medal of Honor for single handled defeating the Boko Haram?  38 years old now? Well, too bloody bad for you.

Anyhow, I guess this says something about the American concept that age is just a number and the hands of the clock don't really move.

They do.

On a somewhat contrary note, I was in something this week when a 70-year-old man indicated he might retire in order to take a job as a commercial airline pilot.

He's never been employed in that capacity, but he's had the license for 50 years.  It wouldn't be carrying people for United or something, but in some other commercial capacity.  

He's always wanted to do it, and has an offer.

Well, more power to him.

I did a lot of what this lawyer is doing here, when first practicing, in front of barrister cases just like this.  No young lawyer does that now.

I spoke to a lawyer I've known the entire time I've been practicing law, almost. He's four years younger than me, which would make him 56 or so.  He's worked his entire career in general civil, in a small and often distressed town, in a firm founded by his parents.  When I was first practicing, it was pretty vibrant.

Now he's the only one left.

He's retiring this spring.  This was motivated by his single employee's decision to retire.

I was really surprised, in part due to his age.  I'm glad that he can retire, but it was a bit depressing.  We're witnessing, in Wyoming, the death of the small town civil firm.  Everything is gravitating to the larger cities, and frankly in the larger cities, they're in competition with the big cities in Colorado and Utah.  That's insured a bill in the legislature to try to recruit lawyers to rural areas.*

It's not going to work.

The problem has been, for some time, that it's impossible to recruit young lawyers to small rural areas.  The economics don't allow for it.  The economics don't allow for it, in part, as the Wyoming Supreme Court forced the Uniform Bar Exam down on the Board of Law Examiners, and that resulted in opening the doors to Denver and Salt Lake lawyers.  It's been something the small firms have been competing against ever since.

And not only that, but some sort of demographic change has operated to just keep younger lawyers out of smaller places, and frankly to cause them to opt for easier paths than civil law in general.  I know older lawyers that came from the larger cities in the state, and set up small town practices when they were young, as that's where the jobs were and having a job was what they needed to have.  I've even known lawyers who went to UW who moved here from somewhere else who took that path, relocating from big Eastern or Midwestern cities to do so.

No longer.  Younger lawyers don't do that.

Quite a few don't stick with civil practice at all.  They leave for government work, where the work hours are regular, and the paycheck isn't dependent on billable hours.   And recently, though we are not supposed to note it, young women attorneys reflect a new outlook in which a lot of them bail out of practice or greatly reduce their work hours after just a few years in, a desire to have a more regular domestic life being part of that.

I guess people can't be blamed for that, but we can, as a state, be blamed for being shortsighted.  Adopting the UBE was shortsighted.  Sticking with it has been inexcusable.  I'm not the only one who has said so, and frankly not the only one who probably paid a price for doing so.  The reaction to voices crying in the wilderness is often to close the windows so you don't have to hear them.  Rumor had it, which I've never seen verified and have heard expressly denied by a person within the law school administration, that it was done in order to aid the law school, under the theory that it would make UW law degrees transportable, which had pretty much the practical effect on the local law as Commodore Matthew Perry opening up trade with Japan.

Wyoming Board of Law Examiners bringing in the UBE.

The lawyer in this case is worried, as he has no hobbies and doesn't know what he'll do with himself.  I'm surprised how often this concern is expressed.  To only have the law, or any work, is sad.  But a court reporter, about my age, expressed the same concern to me the other day.

Court reporting has really taken a beating in this state, more so than lawyers.  When I was first practicing, every community had court reporters.  Now there are hardly any left at all.  Huge firms are down to just a handful of people, and people just aren't coming into the occupation.  It's a real concern to lawyers.

It's always looked like an interesting job to me, having all the diversity of being a lawyer, with seemingly a lot less stress.  But having never done it, perhaps I'm wildly in error.  We really don't know what other people's jobs are like unless we've done them.

A lawyer I know just died by his own hand.

I met him when he took over for a very long time Wyoming trial attorney upon that attorney's death.

The attorney he took over for had died when he went in his backyard and put a rifle bullet through his brain.  He was a well known attorney, and we could tell something wasn't quite right with him.  Just the day prior, he called me and asked for an extension on something.  I'd already given two.  I paused, and then, against my better judgment, said, "well. . . okay".  

I'd known him too long to say no.

He was clearing his schedule.  If I had said no, I feel, he wouldn't have done it, and he'd be alive today.

The new attorney came in and was sort of like a goofy force of nature.  Hard to describe.  A huge man, probably in his 40s at the time, but very childlike.  He talked and talked. Depositions would be extended due to long meandering conversational interjections, as I learned in that case and then a very serious subsequent one.

He was hugely proud of having been a member of a legendary local plaintiff's firm.  That didn't really matter much to me then, and it still doesn't.  My family has always had an odd reaction to the supposedly honorific.  My father never bothered to collect his National Defense Service Medal for serving during the Korean War, I didn't bother to get my Reserve Overseas Training Ribbon, or my South Korean award for Operation Team Spirit, I don't have my law school diploma's anymore. . . It's not that they aren't honors, it's just, well, oh well.  We tend to value other things, which in some ways sets standards that are highers than others, and very difficult to personally meet.

Anyhow, the guy was very friendly and told me details of his life, not all of which were true.  He was raised by his grandmother, his grandmother had somehow encouraged him to go to law school,  Both true.

He was from Utah and grown up there, but consistently denied being a Mormon.  His wife was Mormon, he said.  He was an Episcopalian.  As I'm very reserved, I'm not really going to talk religion with somebody I only casually and professionally know, as opposed to one of my very extroverted and devout partners who will bring it up at the drop of a hat, and his religious confession didn't particularly matter to me, given the light nature of our relationship.  As it turns out, and as I suspected, that wasn't even remotely true.  He was and always had been a Mormon.  Why did he lie about that?  No idea.

I suppose this is some sort of warning here, maybe.

The first lawyer noted in this part of this entry had suffered something hugely traumatic early in his life and never really got over it. Some people roll with the punches on traumas and some do not.  We hear about combat veterans all the time who live with the horrors they experienced, and which break them down, all the time, but I've known a couple who didn't have that sort of reaction at all, and who could coolly relate their combat experiences.  Others can't get over something that happened to them, ever.

With the second lawyers, there were some oddities, one being that he jumped from firm to firm, and to solo, and back and forth, all the time. That's unusual.  Another was that he seemed to have pinned his whole identify on being a lawyer.  It's one thing, like the retiring fellow above, to have worked it your whole life and have nothing else to do, it's quite another to have that make up everything you are.  He'd drunk deeply of the plaintiff's lawyer propaganda about helping the little guy and all that crap, and didn't really realize that litigators often hurt people as often as they help them, or do both at the same time.  Maybe the veil had come off.  Maybe he should never have been a lawyer in the first place.  Maybe it was organic and had nothing to do with any of this.

Well, the moral of this story, or morals, if there are any, would be this.  You don't have endless time to do anything, 70-year-old commercial airline pilots aside. You probably don't know what it's like to do something unless you've actually done it, but you can investigate it and learn as much as possible.  The UBE, which the Wyoming Supreme Court was complicit in adopting, is killing the small  town civil lawyer and only abrogating it, or its successor, and restoring the prior system can address that.   The entire whaling for justice plaintiff's lawyer ethos is pretty much crap.  And, finally, you had some sort of identify before you took up your occupation.  Unless that identity was what you became, before you became it, don't let the occupation become it.  It may be shallower than you think.

Footnotes:

The bill:

SENATE FILE NO. SF0033

Wyoming rural attorney recruitment program.

Sponsored by: Joint Judiciary Interim Committee

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to attorneys-at-law; establishing the rural attorney recruitment pilot program; specifying eligibility requirements for counties and attorneys to participate in the program; specifying administration, oversight and payment obligations for the program; requiring reports; providing a sunset date for the program; authorizing the adoption of rules, policies and procedures; providing an appropriation; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 33‑5‑201 through 33‑5‑203 are created to read:

ARTICLE 2

RURAL ATTORNEY RECRUITMENT PROGRAM

33‑5‑201.  Rural attorney recruitment program established; findings; program requirements; county qualifications; annual reports.

(a)  In light of the shortage of attorneys practicing law in rural Wyoming counties, the legislature finds that the establishment of a rural attorney recruitment program constitutes a valid public purpose, of primary benefit to the citizens of the state of Wyoming.

(b)  The Wyoming state bar may establish a rural attorney recruitment program to assist rural Wyoming counties in recruiting attorneys to practice law in those counties.

(c)  Each county eligible under this subsection may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program. A county is eligible to participate in the program if the county:

(i)  Has a population of not greater than twenty‑five thousand (25,000);

(ii)  Has an average of not greater than one and one‑half (1.5) qualified attorneys in the county for every one thousand (1,000) residents. As used in this paragraph, "qualified attorney" means an attorney who provides legal services to private citizens on a fee basis for an average of not less than twenty (20) hours per week. "Qualified attorney" shall not include an attorney who is a full‑time judge, prosecutor, public defender, judicial clerk, in‑house counsel, trust officer and any licensed attorney who is in retired status or who is not engaged in the practice of law;

(iii)  Agrees to provide the county share of the incentive payment required under this article;

(iv)  Is determined to be eligible to participate in the program by the Wyoming state bar.

(d)  Before determining a county's eligibility, the Wyoming state bar shall conduct an assessment to evaluate the county's need for an attorney and the county's ability to sustain and support an attorney. The Wyoming state bar shall maintain a list of counties that have been assessed and are eligible to participate in the program under this article. The Wyoming state bar may revise any county assessment or conduct a new assessment as the Wyoming State bar deems necessary to reflect any change in a county's eligibility.

(e)  In selecting eligible counties to participate in the program, the Wyoming state bar shall consider:

(i)  The county's demographics;

(ii)  The number of attorneys in the county and the number of attorneys projected to be practicing in the county over the next five (5) years;

(iii)  Any recommendations from the district judges and circuit judges of the county;

(iv)  The county's economic development programs;

(v)  The county's geographical location relative to other counties participating in the program;

(vi)  An evaluation of any attorney or applicant for admission to the state bar seeking to practice in the county as a program participant, including the attorney's or applicant's previous or existing ties to the county;

(vii)  Any prior participation of the county in the program;

(viii)  Any other factor that the Wyoming state bar deems necessary.

(f)  A participating eligible county may enter into agreements to assist the county in meeting the county's obligations for participating in the program.

(g)  Not later than October 1, 2024 and each October 1 thereafter that the program is in effect, the Wyoming state bar shall submit an annual report to the joint judiciary interim committee on the activities of the program. Each report shall include information on the number of attorneys and counties participating in the program, the amount of incentive payments made to attorneys under the program, the general status of the program and any recommendations for continuing, modifying or ending the program.

33‑5‑202.  Rural attorney recruitment program; attorney requirements; incentive payments; termination of program.

(a)  Except as otherwise provided in this subsection, any attorney licensed to practice law in Wyoming or an applicant for admission to the Wyoming state bar may apply to the Wyoming state bar to participate in the rural attorney recruitment program established under this article. No attorney or applicant shall participate in the program if the attorney or applicant has previously participated in the program or has previously participated in any other state or federal scholarship, loan repayment or tuition reimbursement program that obligated the attorney to provide legal services in an underserved area.

(b)  Not more than five (5) attorneys shall participate in the program established under this article at any one (1) time.

(c)  Subject to available funding and as consideration for providing legal services in an eligible county, each attorney approved by the Wyoming state bar to participate in the program shall be entitled to receive an incentive payment in five (5) equal annual installments. Each annual incentive payment shall be paid on or after July 1 of each year. Each annual incentive payment shall be in an amount equal to ninety percent (90%) of the University of Wyoming college of law resident tuition for thirty (30) credit hours and annual fees as of July 1, 2024.

(d)  Subject to available funding, the supreme court shall make each incentive payment to the participating attorney. The Wyoming state bar and each participating county shall remit its share of the incentive payment to the supreme court in a manner and by a date specified by the supreme court. The Wyoming state bar shall certify to the supreme court that a participating attorney has completed all annual program requirements and that the participating attorney is entitled to the incentive payment for the applicable year. The responsibility for incentive payments under this section shall be as follows:

(i)  Fifty percent (50%) of the incentive payments shall be from funds appropriated to the supreme court;

(ii)  Thirty‑five percent (35%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by each county paying for attorneys participating in the program in the county;

(iii)  Fifteen percent (15%) of the incentive payments shall be provided by the Wyoming state bar from nonstate funds.

(e)  Subject to available funding for the program, each attorney participating in the program shall enter into an agreement with the supreme court, the participating county and the Wyoming state bar that obligates the attorney to practice law full‑time in the participating county for not less than five (5) years. As part of the agreement required under this subsection, each participating attorney shall agree to reside in the participating county for the period in which the attorney practices law in the participating county under the program. No agreement shall be effective until it is filed with and approved by the Wyoming state bar.

(f)  Any attorney who receives an incentive payment under this article and subsequently breaches the agreement entered into under subsection (e) of this section shall repay all funds received under this article pursuant to terms and conditions established by the supreme court. Failure to repay funds as required by this subsection shall subject the attorney to license suspension.

(g)  The Wyoming state bar may promulgate any policies or procedures necessary to implement this article.  The supreme court may promulgate any rules necessary to implement this article.

(h)  The program established under this article shall cease on June 30, 2029, provided that attorneys participating in the program as of June 30, 2029 shall complete their obligation and receive payments as authorized by this article.

33‑5‑203.  Sunset.

(a)  W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 are repealed effective July 1, 2029.

(b)  Notwithstanding subsection (a) of this section, attorneys participating in the rural attorney pilot program authorized in W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 shall complete the requirements of the program and shall be entitled to the authorized payments in accordance with W.S. 33‑5‑201 and 33‑5‑202 as provided on June 30, 2029.

Section 2.  There is appropriated one hundred ninety‑seven thousand three hundred seventy‑five dollars ($197,375.00) from the general fund to the supreme court for the period beginning with the effective date of this act and ending June 30, 2029 to be expended only for purposes of providing incentive payments for the rural attorney recruitment program established under this act. This appropriation shall not be transferred or expended for any other purpose. Notwithstanding W.S. 9‑2‑1008, 9‑2‑1012(e) and 9‑4‑207, this appropriation shall not revert until June 30, 2029.

Section 3.  This act is effective July 1, 2024.

Foothill Agrarian: What I Didn't Know Then...

Foothill Agrarian: What I Didn't Know Then...: In Against the Wind , Bob Seger sings, “I wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then.” I’ve always liked that line - sometimes, gaining ...

Honesty and Authenticity. Resolutions.

Many years I post a resolution thread, particularly with those for other people, that being a type of frankly snarky satire.  I sometimes note some for myself as well.

This year I haven't posted anything.

The grimness of 2023 has a lot to do with that.  On a professional note, and by all externals, I had a fairly good year last year. Economically, it went well, in spite of being knocked out for surgery.   But surgery and health wise it was really tough.  So I haven't been in the mood for that.

I am one of those people who do resolutions, and looking back on them, I'm also one of those people who typically fail at them. That's not a reason to try, however.  And I've had enough in the way of shocks and major setbacks over the year not to look at life in 2023 as sort of ending me to the penalty box.  So here's at it.

Rather than set resolutions, and I know generally what mine would be anyhow, I'm instead going to note a dedication, which is a form of resolution. And that would be Honesty and Authenticity.  I'm tired of the dishonest and unauthentic.

I believe, as part of this overall, that dishonest and unauthentic behavior and actions are responsible for almost all of the problems our society faces right now, and I need to reflect that myself.  Casting a wide net, almost all of our personal problems, and our national, and international ones, are due to dishonesty and inauthenticity.

Not that the honest and authentic win any prizes of any kind with people.  People like to be told lies that they agree with to support their own dishonest beliefs, wants and behaviors. And people like fake too.

But deep down, that doesn't work.

It's not as if I've been living a dishonest and inauthentic life.  But most of us make a lot of mental compromises to get along in daily life this way.  It's really not good for anything.

Related Threads:

2023. Annus horribilis and a Gift.

January 2, the most dreaded work day of the year.

Or so I suppose.

The work tally for the prior year is in, for good or ill.  The heavy lifting of the upcoming year, and there will be some, has not yet begun. The last two weeks of any year are, for most occupations, darned near idle, and so whether days are taken off or not, a sort of holiday atmosphere of ease prevails.

Until January 2 comes around and ends it.

Happy New Year.

2023. Annus horribilis and a Gift.

Jimi Hendrix playing Room Full of Mirrors

At least by some measures, New Years are supposed to be periods of introspection.  If so, the annual arrival of New Year’s this year certainly has been for me.

2023, by which I really mean the period from October 2022 to the present, has been the worst year of my life, and that’s saying something.

Probably only people who know me really well would know that I’ve had, at least by western world standards, a rough life to some degree.  My teenage years and early (20s) adulthood was overshadowed by the physical and accompanying mental decline of my mother, something that still hangs over me like a dark cloud in a lot of ways.  It certainly sprung me from being a child at age 12 to an adult at age 13 virtually overnight, and not in ways that were good really, but in ways you can’t ever get back.  My relationship with my mother really didn’t recover in some ways until she was near death, and it never recovered in some ways.  I’m still working on that, trying to understand that what happened to her wasn’t her fault, or anyone else’s.

Added to that, the death of my father at age 62 was an irreparable loss to me that I’ve also never recovered from and won’t be able to.  As I noted here the other day, being an only child meant that I didn’t have a sibling to help endure this loss with, and when he died the person then closest to me in the world died, leaving me with an obligation to my mother that was a very heavy burden under the circumstances.

In short, things haven’t been always a treat.

But then, are they for anyone?

It may in fact be the case that everyone’s life is rough, to at least varying extents.  Maybe its best if you don’t even recognize that fact.

Anyhow, in October, 2022, as I’ve noted here before, I had colon surgery, following a colonoscopy that revealed a polyp too big to be removed in that process.  I really waited well beyond the age at which you should have your first colonoscopy, which was inexcusable on my part.  Had I gone in earlier (a lesson for everyone who might read this), the surgery would never have been necessary.  Ultimately the polyp proved to be precancerous, and was “as close to cancer as it can be without being cancer”.

I was 59 years old when I went in for that and that’s the very first instance of surgery, other than I suppose oral surgery to have a broken molar and the nearby wisdom tooth, taken out.  What I didn’t really grasp, but should have even due to the oral surgery, is that I wasn’t going to bounce back right away.  I expected to.  I didn’t even really expect to be out of work for more than a couple of days, in spite of everything that everyone told me.

Well, I’ve never fully recovered from the surgery and I’m not going to, that’s clear by now.  I notice it mostly in the mornings.  I just can’t eat.  Things make me sick, no matter what they are, as a rule.  The onset of late in life lactose intolerance has made that even worse.  For decades what I ate for breakfast was cereal with milk.  I can’t really eat that anymore.

So be it, but what really surprised me was the onset of really deep fatigue.  I was simply worn out from the surgery and it lingered for months.  I was tired like I never had been before in my life.

To compound it, when the diagnostic films were done for the colon surgery, a MRI was done all the way up to my neck which revealed I had a sizable polyp on my thyroid. The same surgeon recommended that the thyroid come out and seemed to look at the question as to what to do as almost absurd.  I was so surprised, and so beat up from the first surgery, that I went to my regular doctor for a second opinion.  He referred me to an endocrinologist. That doctor had no qualms at all about what needed to be done.  It needed out, the risk of cancer was so high, I was informed, that it was almost certainly cancer.

Great.

I ended up having a partial thyroidectomy in Denver.  I was extremely hesitant about the whole thing.

Well, the polyp turned out to be benign, which overjoyed the medicos but made me feel like I'd done something I could have avoided. After surgery, I hoped to avoid medication (I've never had daily medications), but wasn't lucky there either.

Since the thyroid surgery, and particularly at first, on a lot of days I've just been in a fog and tired all the time. It’s a difficult thing to describe, as it’s a feeling that’s internal.  I don’t think anyone else noticed it at all, but plowing through my days, and that’s what it felt like, I just didn't feel right.  I complained a lot about it to my wife, but in retrospect now I realize that if you complain a lot about certain topics, it become routine and won’t be paid too much attention to, particularly if there are no external manifestations that are obvious.

There were in fact external manifestations, but they weren’t obvious to anyone but me.  Normally, I look forward to the weekends and feel disappointed if I have to work on Saturdays, which I often must do.  I was so tired and dragged down, however, that I actually started to look forward to having to be in my office on Saturday.  I’d drag myself out, a little, to go fishing and hunting, but my feet felt leaden and I just wasn’t having the fun I normally did, the exception being when my kids were here.

I just went in for a follow-up and upon examination just recently. At that time the doctor asked me how I was doing and I reported what I was feeling and experiencing.  He gave me a physical examination.  I didn’t have bloodwork yet, as doing this on December 26 meant that I didn’t have the chance to get it done.  Based on the physical examination, they determined they needed to up my meds. “Everything will be fine”, I was told.

The bloodwork came back and showed everything to be just what it should be.  They immediately cancelled the doubling of the meds.

Long story short, what’s going on is post-surgery depression, a thing I didn't know even existed.

This is, apparently, particularly associated with thyroid surgeries, although most people don’t experience it. To just sort of note what’s out there, here’s a medical journal report on it:

Thyroid surgery is usually recommended for thyroid cancer and can be to remove one lobe of the thyroid (partial thyroidectomy) or to remove the entire thyroid (total thyroidectomy). Thyroidectomy may also be recommended for certain non-cancerous disorders including hyperthyroidism and large goiters. The results of a total thyroidectomy is hypothyroidism which requires lifelong treatment with a thyroid hormone pill. Several recent reports have highlighted a decrease in the quality of life and an increase in depression in some patients with hypothyroidism due to thyroid surgery. Therefore, the authors have examined if there is an association between thyroid surgery and a new onset of depression.

Great.

Apparently post-surgery depression is a thing with older adults anyhow, and I’m 60.  But to make it even niftier, depression is even more associated with colon surgery.  Another medical journal notes

The prevalence of anxiety, depression and PTSD appears to be high in patients who have undergone colorectal surgery. Younger patients and women are particularly at risk.

I don’t know the cause of all of this, and there could be a bunch of them that occur to me, some of which actually wouldn’t explain it in my case.  But being honest with myself, one of the things has to do with a family history and my early life.

Anxiety of a type is a condition which occurs on my mother’s side of my family.  Not everyone has it by any means, but some do and at least in one case, my maternal grandfather, it was really noticeable.  He was by all accounts an extremely intelligent man, but as a young man he suffered enormously from anxiety which kept him from building a career at an age, in that era in particular, a person normally did, and which in turn kept him from marrying at an age when people normally did.  My grandmother was his fiancé forever, and its actually a bit surprising that she waited for him, but then she had her own background haunting her, that being that she was highly educated and intelligent, but her own mother was not particularly fond of her, and was open about it.

Ultimately my grandfather found a career in real estate in Montreal, and did well until the Great Depression. When the Great Depression hit, and funds trailed off, he turned to drink, something that plagued him for years.  Remarkably, probably in the late 40s or early 50s, a Catholic Priest apparently told him to stop drinking and he did then and there, cold turkey.  Even more remarkably, my Grandmother suffered a miscarriage with what would have been her eighth child and went to a Priest, maybe the same one, and asked if she could stop performing the Marital Debt.  He said she could. That means that my grandfather, for the last ten or more years of his life, didn’t drink anymore, which is where he had taken refuge from stress, and also lived in a sexless marriage, which must have added enormously to his stress.  Amazingly, he seems to have actually pulled his act together, and lived out the balance of his life as a happy guy before dying at age 58.  His siblings, however, never got to where they trusted him and that ended up being taken out, after his death, on his widow and surviving children.

That’s an extreme example, of course, but there are a couple of others.  Something afflicted my mother, but nobody has a clue as to what it was.  She recovered from a condition pronounced to be terminal, and therefore the early diagnosis was either wrong, or her recovery was miraculous (which is what I think it was).  Her recovery, while real, was never complete, however.  As another example, one of my cousins on this side of the family, named after my mother, and one year older than me, was so conscious of anxiety being a factor in her makeup, she purposely chose a scientific lab career in order to avoid it.  In her early 60s, the impacts of this have not hit her, but she’s dying of cancer presently.

I know now that anxiety has impacted me my entire adult live, although largely unacknowledged by me.  I don’t recall it being a factor at all until I was an adult, but the trauma of what I went through as a teen probably didn't help, long term.  The first time I really experienced it was when I worried about going to basic training, but I got over it quickly when I was there.  After that, it became clear to me that I experienced travel anxiety, which is a condition that is something that uniquely occurs in some people.  It’s hard to explain.  Ironically, I've traveled in my adult life a huge amount, and generally like where I'm going, once I'm there.

It’s when I became a litigator that I really became conscious of anxiety, however.

Litigation is an extremely stressful career as it is.  Anxiety runs rampant in the field.  According to the ABA, for lawyers in general, a study revealed:

• 64 percent of lawyers report having anxiety.

• 28 percent lawyers suffered from depression

• 19 percent of lawyers had severe anxiety

• 11.4 percent of lawyers had suicidal thoughts in the previous year

And that’s just regular lawyers.

There have been study after study on this topic, and they all come about the same, with some coming out much worse.  I’ve seen one article that has dissed these findings, but just one.  My guess is that probably double these figures (except for the self reporting anxiety, which would amount to a statistical impossibility) would be the case for litigators.

Indeed, I’ve long noted that most litigators actually won’t try a case.  I have tried a lot of cases, and one of the reasons why is that I’ve always been conscious of the duty not to allow a person’s anxiety to keep them from dutifully fulfilling their duty to their client.  I”ve sometimes worried, in fact, that I might possibly try more cases than others in order to counter the fact that anxiety might be infusing my views, but I don't think that's the case.  Anyhow, anxiety in litigation is so bad, as noted, that a majority of litigators actually won’t try a case.  I've always just been aware that it was there, can impact how you think, and set it aside.

In other contexts, I’ve long seen the impact of anxiety working itself out in destructive ways in the legal field.  I’ve known lawyers who were drug addicts or alcoholics, or who engaged in other destructive life choices.  I’ve known two who quit practicing due to anxiety, one self-declaring that and the other just not being able to overcome an addiction to alcohol otherwise.  One really well respected plaintiff’s lawyer actually disappeared from his household and family for a couple of weeks until he was found in a hotel in another state where he’d gone on a profound days long bender.  Three I’ve been aware of just disappeared, two resurfacing in a seminary and one in the People’s Republic of China.

This all being the case, while I’ve been a successful lawyer, law probably wasn’t a field that I should have gone into.  One lawyer friend of mine from Germany, whom I remarked to on this, dismissed this, saying “you are an intellectual, your choice was to become a lawyer or a priest”, which is an interesting way of looking at it, but had I been smarter, I’d probably have chosen the path of my scientific cousin in order to avoid the stress.

It doesn't matter now.  Like the Hyman Roth character in Godfather II, "This is the business we've chosen".  And by and large, it worked out well.  Being honest with myself, I've been able to do a lot of interesting things, and have constantly learned new fields and topics, all the time.  If you are an autodidatic polymath, it's hard to imagine a field that would actually offer so much as the law.  And if you do like visiting obscure places, at least prior to COVID, it really allowed you to.

In saying all of this, what I’m saying now is that looking back on the past horrible year, I can look back decades and see the points at which the stress rose up and made me act in ways I never would have, although never in a professional sense. Each time, really, was a cry for help, but cries for help don’t really come through that way if they’re not posed that way. And sometimes, there is no existential help, you just need to pick up your pack and carry on.

This past year, however, with the fog of post-surgery depression setting in, I was really unaware of it.

I should have been, as I didn’t mentally feel right.  I did keep mentioning that “I feel slow”, but that means you feel slow.  The real warning was when I absolutely exploded on two partners who have been keeping a long running irritating argument going for years, permanently ending it.  It needed to end, but blowing up on them was the wrong thing to do, and in retrospect I’m amazed that I wasn’t told to take a hike.

In Catholic theology there’s something called “the problem of evil”, which boils down to “why does God allow bad things to happen”. There are various answers to that question, but a universal partial response is that God doesn’t allow something to occur if he cannot bring good out of it.  In our temporary lives that can be awfully hard to accept, but I believe it to be true.  In this instance, I can now in fact see this at work.  In a way, this allows me to go back, but clear minded, to the beginning of my career as I now approach its end, but to be a kinder, more thoughtful person, and a more grateful one.  I do believe that people can and do change if they wish to, and while it’s not as if I’m now going to become an Iron Man competitor, or something, I am in a way following a bit of the same path taken by a friend who was very bitter about his legal career, and openly so, but in the last few years has become very grateful for it.  I have a lot to be thankful for.

I also have the chance now to beat anxiety that was lurking there, rather than to sort of give into PTSD, which is basically what I have had in a way.  That condition, known as combat fatigue originally, or shell shock, has been determined to be much wider than originally thought, and the frequent comparisons of litigation to combat are pretty accurate.  But knowing what’s what is frankly more than half the battle.

Part of that also I think is following a bit of what Alcoholics Anonymous and other addition programs have in their “twelve steps”.  I’m not saying I need to join AA or NA, or something but rather the page AA took from the advice of a Catholic Priest, which is similar to what Jews do on Yom Kippur, is to apologize to people you’ve hurt.  I’ve done that with four people already, which is probably the set I needed to.  But beyond that, part of it is being more tolerant to the people and conditions we routinely encounter, something that is difficult in a judgmental profession like the law.  

So, in the end, I’m grateful to have an outside professional let me know what was going on, and that its connection to surgery, twice will remediate, and indeed already are.  But beyond that, I’m grateful for the door it opened and which I’m walking through to be more aware.

Pax vorbiscum.