From
another album, “Time and Tide,” that I bought back in the day after viewing the
MTV video.
Reminds me
of the summer of 1982 when I was preparing for my entry into Southern Illinois
University Law School in August.
When I went
to Blackburn in 1975, my plan was to go to law school and become a Nader’s
Raider, but when I went to see my advisor my second day on campus, John Van
Gelder Forbes, eminence grise (though, in fact about my age now) chairman of
the History department, in his cramped, overflowing office up the back stairs
behind the chapel, he told me I had little chance of getting in.
He said I
needed a 3.8 GPA to get in. If I hadn’t been sitting, I would have fallen over;
I got light headed as I saw my whole future disappearing into a pipe dream. I
was transferring from ECC with a B average (3.0) and there was no way to get to
3.8, even if I went 4.0 for two years, the average would be 3.5 for the four
years.
I was
crushed. I went back to my dorm and used the pay phone (the only phone in the
dorm with an outside line, there were two other phones in the dorm for intra-college
calls) to call home to tell them I was quitting.
Luckily, my
folks talked me off the ledge and told me to try another advisor. The next day
I talked with Dr. Richard Piper, of the Political Science (Randy Newman shout
out!) department, and he got me back to solid ground by telling me that there
were law schools that would take 3.5, or less, so I changed my major to Poli Sci.
A few weeks later I saw that I was closer to a Social Sciences degree so I
changed to that, and about a month after that I came full circle, back to
History, mainly due to Dr. Michael G.R. Kelley, a great, charismatic teacher
who would be my major influence at Blackburn.
My last
semester at BU, having been on the Dean’s List all three semesters, I took the
LSAT and only got a 610. That, plus my GPA, kept me out of the schools I
applied to. So when Dr. Kelley told me he would recommend me for the assistantship
at Western Illinois, I jumped at it.
As I’ve
written earlier (6 & 9 – Disarm, 1979, 23-Year of the Cat, 24-Mr. Blue Sky)
Western was an interesting time. When I completed my MA in 1979 I was already
back at Accutronics, where I stayed for several years until I got the bug again
to go to law school. I re-took the LSAT, and with no new prep, improved my
score by 100 points. That, plus my 3.90 GPA at WIU, got me in at Southern
Illinois law school in 1982.
SIU Law School
was almost brand new in 1982, the building was on their fraternity row and the
dorms were directly across the street. As a reader, I looked forward to
throwing myself into law school. Little did I know that I’d be reading from the
time I got up, around 7 AM, to midnight, most days. I was reading case law,
text books, and law journals, spending most of my waking hours in the Law
library. I was swamped.
And the
classes for the first year student were all mandatory, Contracts, Torts,
Property, Legal History, and Legal Writing. Torts was taught by a professor who
had seen the “The Paper Chase” too many times, I think. He would look down at
his seating chart, call out a name, then when he was through with the first
person, he would continue down that row. When called upon, you would stand up
and he would begin to throw hypotheticals at you, until you were so addled he’d
finally feel pity and pull the hook out of your mouth and move on to the next
person. (I’m sure not every student felt that dread, as he came down your row,
but I sure did)
I had
previously had only one experience like that in college. At BU, as a History
major, I was required to take American Constitutional Law with John Van Gelder
Forbes. Dr. Forbes, and his wife Lydia, the head librarian at Lumpkin Library,
were institutions at BU. During WWII, Dr. Forbes was a conscientious objector,
he was a Quaker, which must have been a hard row to hoe.
My senior
year, BU brought a comedian on campus for a show, John Roarke, a gifted mimic,
who did a great Groucho. I don’t know if he was told that Dr. Forbes’ wife was
named Lydia, but he sang Groucho’s signature song, “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady”
Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia the tattooed lady
She has eyes that men adore so
And a torso even more so
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia
Lydia, the queen of tattoo
On her back is the Battle of Waterloo
Beside it the Wreck of the Hesperus, too
And proudly above waves the red, white and blue
You can learn a lot from Lydia
When her robe is unfurled, she will show you the world
If you step up and tell her where
For a dime you can see Kankakee or Paree
Or Washington crossing the Delaware
Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia?
Lydia the tattooed lady
When her muscles start relaxin'
Up the hill comes Andrew Jackson
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia
Lydia, the queen of tattoo
For two bits she will do a mazurka in jazz
With a view of Niagara that nobody has
And on a clear day, you can see Alcatraz
You can learn a lot from Lydia
Come along and see Buffalo Bill with his lasso
Just a little classic by Mendel Picasso
Here's Captain Spaulding exploring the Amazon
Here's Godiva but with her pajamas on
Lydia, oh Lydia, that encyclopedia
Lydia, the queen of them all
She once swept an admiral clean off his feet
The ships on her hips made his heart skip a beat
And now the old boy's in command of the fleet
For he went and married Lydia
(words and music by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg)
Quite the
scandal, I recall.
Con Law was
an 8AM course on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. (At BU, Tuesday and Thursday
AM classes also met on Saturday. Because everything on campus was student run,
through the work program, Saturday AM classes kept you on campus until noon, at
least. Afternoon classes on Tuesday and Thursday were longer, since they didn’t
meet on Saturdays).
For our
Final exam the first semester (it was a two semester class) we would have an
oral test. Each student would be asked to stand to answer two questions. A
large part of your grade depended on your answers. Dr. Forbes also had another
requirement for this class; you had to memorize the first ten amendments of the
Constitution and go to his office and write them down with no mistakes.
For the
final exam, he asked the men to wear a shirt and tie and the ladies dresses. I
got a bug up my butt for some reason and refused to wear a tie (I hadn’t
brought one to school with me and I wasn’t about to go out and buy one for one
day) so I wore a sweater. He never mentioned it and the exam went OK. I think
he gave an A to everyone that semester.
The good
thing about the Torts class at SIU was he followed his seating chart
religiously, and you could work out whether he was going to get to you on a
particular day. One day, however, he called on me once and I sat down thinking
I was through for the day when, several minutes later, he called on me a second
time. Crap! I stood up again and he peppered me with hypotheticals until he let
me loose.
I had never
examined my reason for studying law, beyond working for Ralph Nader, but this
experience let me know that my future was not likely to be in a courtroom.
Lacking the ability to think quickly on my feet, I probably would not be the
reincarnation of Clarence Darrow or “Judd for the Defense” or even Lionel Hutz.
After the
class, several people came up to me and asked, “What did you do?” to get called
on a second time. I never knew. No one else had ever been called on twice in
the same class period. I had not had any contact with him outside the class and
had never been anything but terrified in his class.
I wish I
could remember what the hypotheticals were about, but luckily my mind is pretty
blank about much of my time in law school. All I remember about Torts is that
you can’t use life threatening force to protect property, i.e., a guy set up a
shotgun aimed at the front door of an empty property so that someone breaking
in would be shot as he came through the door. A thief did, was shot, and
successfully sued the guy whose house he was breaking into,
I remember
nothing from Property, Contracts, or legal History.
I do
remember going out to the movies in Carbondale. I vividly recall “The Road
Warrior”, “Pink Floyd’s The Wall”, and, especially, Stephen King’s “Creepshow”.
A group of people behind me went nuts during the section with E.G Marshall and
his battle with cockroaches, yelling directions to the screen, “No, don’t go
there, don’t open that door!”
At SIU that
year I also had my first exposure to William Windom doing James Thurber. I had
been an avid reader and collector of Thurber’s books, along with those of
Robert Benchley and S.J. Perlman, and had been a big fan of Windom in “My World
and Welcome To It” a TV show where he played a character based on the writings
of Thurber, as a put upon married man who fantasized, much like that great
Thurber character, Walter Mitty.
I saw him
do a different one man show of Thurber, in Aurora’s Paramount Theater, several
years later.
The main
thing I didn’t like about law school was you had no idea where you stood
throughout the semester, there were no tests or quizzes, your whole grade was
determined by the final exam.
Also, I
never “got” legal writing. I had written a Master’s Thesis and had it accepted,
but legal writing is different, and I had a hard time with it. There was a
format that had to be followed and I was unable to make my writing fit it, for
some reason, certainly not for lack of trying.
When I took
the finals I was burned out. I looked forward to getting back into the real
world where I could read junk that had nothing to do with the law and watch
crap on TV. I did not have a good
feeling about the tests. In the law, there is no right or wrong answer. You
have to be able to argue both sides of any issue, ‘cause you have to be able to
argue the position of whoever’s paying your fees.
When I came
back to school after Christmas/New Year’s break, I checked my results and they
were dismal. You couldn’t flunk out after one semester, but I was near the
bottom of every list. I went to my room, got my stuff, loaded up my 1979
Mustang, sold my books back to the book store, withdrew from school, and drove
home, tail between my legs.
I didn’t go
back to Accu right away (see 3- No More Lonely Nights), but my dreams of being
a Nader’s Raider were over.
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