Teeing Off

JP has been bitten by the golf bug this summer.  He comes by it naturally, I think, given that Jude's dad, Jim, played golf in college at Loyola in New Orleans and, later, at Holston Hills Country Club in Knoxville.  At one point in time, Jim was a scratch golfer (or close to it), which is a rare accomplishment for a recreational player. 

JP inherited a lot of Jim's personality, I think, which is a good thing.  Quiet, steady, calm, confident, always in control of his emotions.  All of these character traits are helpful on the golf course, it seems to me.  My guess is that golf is a sport that JP is going to take up seriously in the future and probably play all of his life, long after high school and college.  Golf is just a good match for JP.

Earlier in the summer, JP started playing at McCabe Golf Course with Wynn, a friend from MBA.  When Wynn left for camp, JP kept playing a couple of times a week.  Jude or I dropped him off in the morning and he walked nine holes, practiced chipping, then Jude picked him up.  The life of a 14 year old in the summer, right?  Not bad.

Recently, JP and Wynn played in a disc golf tournament at MBA to raise money for the Cumberland River Compact.  Somehow, they managed to win a raffle in which the prize was paid entry for four player in a golf tournament at the Hermitage (also a fundraiser for Cumberland River Compact).  

JP didn't really understand how the golf tournament worked or what he had won but Jude and I decided to let him try to figure it out.  He e-mailed the tournament director to tell her he had won the raffle.  In the e-mail, he quite earnestly told her he was 14 years old and couldn't afford the $1,000 entry fee.  She replied, of course, that by winning the raffle at the disc golf tournament, he WON the entry fee.  In other words, he could put together a team of four players and play in the tournament for free.  

It's been funny hearing about him reaching out to his buddies to find a foursome.  After a multitude of text messages and telephone calls, Jack, Benjy, and Wynn agreed to play.  Team MBA.

The boys' parents dropped them off at our house, this morning, at 6:45 a.m.  The boys loaded four sets of golf clubs into my SUV and I drove them to the Hermitage Golf Course, where they were set to play the links course (The President's Reserve).  We called my partner, Mark Puryear, on the way there so he could give them some tips for playing in a scramble format for the tournament.  

We arrived early and as the boys checked in, I discovered they were minor celebrities among the staff at the Cumberland River Compact.  They were very excited to meet the 14-year old boys set to play in the golf tournament with a bunch of well heeled, middle aged lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.  The boys were wide eyed, for sure, as they signed in, bought mulligan packages, and surveyed the scene through their relatively innocent eyes.  

I walked them outside and helped them search for the golf carts with their names on them.  I saw four sets of eyes widen, as the boys realized they would be allowed to drive their own golf carts, unsupervised.  This was a development they hadn't foreseen, as McCabe Golf Course - and all others, I suppose - requires golfers to be 16 to drive a golf cart.  

The takeaway for the boys, I think, is that they had arrived.  Grownups, at last.  Playing with other men in a golf tournament, driving their own golf carts, having breakfast for free, coolers in the back of their golf carts (for bottled water, not beer), etc.  In other words, the whole shebang.

I couldn't help but feel, as I drove away, that this morning marked a passage in time, for JP, and for his friends.  Playing in a golf tournament, by themselves, and just figuring it out as they go along.  That's what it's all about. 

I'm a little jealous, to be honest.  I have played golf.  But for the summer after law school while I studies for the bar exam, I've never played golf with any regularity and I don't play any more.  To be on the course, with three of your friends, playing golf on a summer morning, at age 14, no less.  It doesn't get much better than that.

As I shut it down and head to work, I just got a text from JP.  The boys got a par on the first hole (#2).  

What a day.

Saying Goodbye to the Beckman's

Last night, we attended a going away party for the Beckman's, who are moving to Dallas, TX, in a week or so.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the move because I only learned about it in an e-mail from Josh a few weeks ago.  The decision to move happened reasonably quickly.

The party was great - hosted by Giles and Josephine Ward - and there were quite a few USN families in attendance.  Nice people, one and all.

Shortly after we arrived at the party, Jude and I were talking to Lauren and reminiscing about their move to Nashville seven years ago and how we came to know one other.  To my surprise, Lauren told us I was one of the first people they met in town and, of course, it was because of baseball and our Dodgers' team.  

On a whim, Josh signed Benjy up for WNSL baseball as a seven year old and as luck would have it, he was assigned to my pre-formed Dodger team as a free agent.  It was a fortuitous development, for sure, because I probably had a full roster or close to it.  Perhaps the league saw that Benjy would be attending USN and assigned him to the Dodgers because JP attended USN.  Or, perhaps it was dumb luck or maybe it was fate. 

When I met Josh and Lauren that fall, I instantly liked them.  Josh was a cardiologist and they had moved to Nashville from Boston for him to take a job at Vanderbilt.  Big, gregarious, kind, always smiling, great sense of humor, and a big sports fan.  My kind of guy.  Lauren reminded me a lot of Jude.  Great mother, accomplished profession, who managed to find that sweet spot of work/life balance.  

It was good for Benjy, and Josh and Lauren, too, to meet other children and families, since they were new to town and Benjy was starting at a new school.  It's always good to be part of a group, especially one as unique and close knit as our Dodgers family. 

Initially, Benjy was a little behind most of the other boys on the Dodgers from a baseball standpoint but I immediately saw that he had a strong desire to improve and a love of playing the game, even at seven years of age.  

I don't remember much about that fall season other than it was the boys' first season in machine pitch baseball and many of them struggled mightily, at least at first.  I also remember the second half of the fall season was better than the first, as the boys adjusted to hitting baseballs from the machine.  

That spring, Josh decided to play Benjy in a baseball league at McCabe's Park, a decision he quickly regretted (as he later told me).  Bad coach, bad experience all the way around.  The following spring, Josh reached out to me, somewhat sheepishly, and asked if I had a spot for Benjy on the Dodgers.  Of course I did and Benjy played for me for the next several seasons, fall and spring. 

Benjy improved markedly over the years.  In fact, as I've said before  - Benjy improved more than any boy I've ever coached.  He was one of my two or three hardest working boys.  Benjy isn't blessed with the most athletic ability but he's smart, great attitude, very coachable, and always works hard.  All of that can take you a long way in baseball, and in life.  

That's the lesson - or one of the lessons, anyway - I wanted the boys to learn from playing baseball with the Dodgers.  Hard work pays off.

Over the years, Benjy (along with Cooper Allen) became my best bunter.  Good hand-eye coordination.  Benjy had the ability to lay a bunt down the first or third baseline to move runners over or, at times, to hustle down the first baseline for an infield hit.  He took pride in being able to bunt - or so it seemed to me - and that made me very happy.  

Benjy also became a reasonably versatile player and a good second baseman.  I remember on more than one occasion leaving the field after an inning in the field to high five Josh in the stands after Benjy made a  good play at second base on a grounder or a pop fly.    

At some point during the beginning of the pandemic - at age 12, I think - Benjy drifted away for a time and didn't play baseball on the Dodgers.  He is a year ahead of JP and played on the middle school baseball team at USN.  Like Indian summer, though, he rejoined us for the last days of the Dodgers when the boys were 13.  It so was good to have him back with our group, where he belonged, and to see Josh and Lauren with the other families as the boys played out the string together.

One of my fondest memories is watching Benjy close out a game on the mound, pitching, in a double header at Pitts Park, an old school baseball field that's always been one of my favorites.  We had a lead and at his request, I brought Benjy in to pitch.  Normally, he doesn't throw particularly hard but he was slinging it that day and throwing strikes.  It was impressive.  

In my memory, he struck out a couple of boys and ended the game for us.  His teammates were excited for him and as Benjy walked off the field, they slapped him on the back.  Benjy grinned from ear to ear.  Josh was beaming, as I recall, and we made eye contact and shared a moment and probably a fist bump.  

I'll always remember that day, mostly because of the look on Benjy's face at the end of the game.  In a way, that moment encapsulated who the Dodgers were as a team.   

I was blessed and honored to attend Benjy's bar mitzvah last year.  My admiration for Benjy and, really, for the entire Beckman family, only grew as I sat with other, listened, and watched the ceremony.  It was a special day.  Knowing my father would have had a bar mitzvah of his own many, many years ago made the entire day more meaningful to me.   

If you're lucky - and Lord knows I have been lucky - you meet people and make friends through your children's activities.  Friends that last.  The Beckman's are friends that will last.  I'm sure of it. 

Goodbye, Benjy, and goodbye to the Beckman's.  Good luck in Dallas and Godspeed.

Left to right, JP, Benjy, and Cecil at last night's party.

   

Comic Books and Memories

When I was cleaning out my mom's house a couple of years ago, one of things I rescued was a milk crate full of comic books.  Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, and Moon Knight to name a few.  All Marvel Comics because when I was ten years old - Joe's age - I was a Marvel Comics guy.  No DC Comics and no Batman or Superman because they weren't cool enough.  

I put the milk crate in our basement where is sat until a few months ago when, after watching the original Spiderman movie w/Toby Maguire, I decided it was time to show them to Joe.  When I brought the milk crate of comic books upstairs, his eyes lit up and he grinned at me.  I told him how much I had loved Marvel Comics when I was about his age and how my favorites were Spiderman and The Fantastic Four.  He listened intently, nodded, and I left the milk crate in the playroom for him.  

Over the next couple of weeks, I noticed him reading the comics on weekends during "40 for 40" (the boys do 40 minutes of reading then get 40 minutes of iPad or Xbox time).  When we went on vacation to Bradenton, FL, Joe brought five or six comic books with him and read them in the afternoons.  I could tell he was hooked, just as I had been at age 10.  

Yesterday, I picked up JP from cross country practice at MBA and got home a little early for a Friday.  I was finishing up a little work in the office when Joe walked in and wanted to show me something.  

"This is may favorite comic book, Dad," he said.  I took a closer look at it.  From 1977 with a 60 cent cover price, it was a year end double issue.  Spiderman and the Thing, teaming up to fight some villain.  

As I held the 45 year old comic book in my hand, then opened the cover and began to look through it, I stepped backwards in time, suddenly, to 1977, when I was 11 years old.  Spiderman and the Thing, my two favorite comic book characters.  Together, in one issue.  I probably got that comic book at Kwik Sak market on Moores Lane with my mom, who would have been 37 years old when she bought it for me. 

"You know what, bud?  I think it was one of my favorites, too." I said, shaking my head.  Wow.  We laughed about the price tag, too.  60 cents.

It makes be so happy - happy beyond belief, really - to see Joe reading my old comic books, the ones that my mother bought me when I was 10 or 11 years old.  I am so very glad I saved them all of these years hoping, I know, that someday I would have a son who wanted to read them.  A son who would love them as much as I did.  And with Joe, I do.  

Though he is his mother's son for sure, Joe is like me in so many ways, more so even than JP.  He is confident and outgoing, a natural leader.  Vocal when he's playing sports.  Stubborn, at time.  Competitive.  Emotional.  Absent minded.  He's a dreamer with a vivid imagination.  Those are all qualities we share.

My comic book phase didn't last terribly long.  I never became a serious collector.  There was a probably a two or three year window before I got into baseball cards which, of course, I did collect for several years.  

I doubt Joe's comic book phase will last too long either.  Still, it's cool to see him so enthralled with them for a while and to see some of me, at that age, in him.  

I would give anything to be able to talk with my mom about Joe's similarities to me at age 10.  She would see it, too, I know, and probably laugh at the irony of Joe being like me in so many ways.  Sometimes, watching Joe being Joe reminds me of how much I miss her.  

Recently, in something I was reading, someone said that the burden of carrying the grief of someone lost doesn't get any lighter over time.  You just get stronger and develop the ability to carry it with you with less effort.  I think there's some truth in that sentiment.  

I love where Joe is right now.  10 and 11 years old is such a great age.  Joe still has the innocence and naïveté of a child because he still is a child, at least for a couple more years.  I want to savor these next couple of years with him, to make them last.  

I hope they're as memorable to him, someday, as they are to me, right now.  I also hope, someday, he reads the entries in this blog and understands how much I loved him, today, on August 6, 2022.  I hope he understands how almost every day, I wonder what I did for God to bless me with the him, and with JP, as my sons.  

  

The World of Travel Baseball

I spent a good part of the weekend driving JP to various travel baseball tryouts.  The goal is to find a team for him to play for next spring and summer, so I can spend every weekend driving him to baseball tournaments all over middle Tennessee and beyond.  And so it goes.

Thus far in his life, JP has, for the most part, enjoyed a modest amount of success in whatever he has chosen to do athletically in team sports.  He's not the best soccer player, basketball player, or baseball player but he starts on his middle school teams, competes, and contributes.  He made all of the teams, at school, that he tried out for last year and I suspect it will be more of the same this year, in eighth grade.

Perhaps I will be surprised but he is not going to make all of the travel baseball teams he tries out for over this crazy two week period of  baseball tryouts.  I'm hoping he gets an invitation to play for one or two teams but there are not guarantees.  As a father and, honestly, an admirer, it will be interesting to see how JP handles failure because he simply hasn't experienced much of it to date.  Knowing him like I do, mu guess is that failure will inspire him to work harder to get better.  

As I watched the 14 year old boys walk onto the baseball field at Centennial High School and, later, Christ Presbyterian Academy, I was struck by the sameness of the expressions on most of their faces.  I saw nervousness and uncertainty hidden beneath a mask of stoicism.  I was struck by what I didn't see, too.  Smiling.  Laughing.  The joy 14 year old boys should feel when they're playing baseball.  Those things were completely missing and to be honest, it made me more than a little sad.

All of these boys, of all skill levels, trying out to make baseball team at a cost of, roughly, $1,500 - $2,000 per player.  Trying out now, at the end of summer, for a team that won't play any games until late next spring, after the middle school and high school teams have finished their seasons.  

While I am not a fan of travel baseball, it's a bit like musical chairs.  If I don't find a team for JP now - even though he won't start playing with them until late next spring - he won't have meaningful baseball to play next summer.  If he wants to keep playing baseball, competitively and in high school, he has to play in the summer.  And that means finding a team for him now, because all of the teams will be set by the time next baseball season rolls around.

Truthfully, it makes me miss the halcyon days of the Dodgers all the more.  My one mistake, I guess, is that I didn't take the Dodgers to a few tournaments on weekends to see how we stacked up.  I don't regret that - not really - because we had such a good time playing baseball in the WNSL.  We always were competitive and, in fact, won most of our games as the boys got older.  We did it the right way, too, with coaches who cared about our boys and made sure to provide them with a positive experience.  

The proof is in the pudding, as they say.  The core Dodgers are all still playing baseball on middle school teams or, next year, as freshman on high school teams.  Benton, Wes, JP, JK, and Porter.  And, I guess, that's what matters.  

Still, as I watched a bit of the boys' tryout on Saturday, I found myself wondering what we - all of the parents, mostly dads - were doing.  Travel baseball.  To what end?  That was the real question, to me - To what end?

Are all of these boys going to play college baseball, even at the small college or mid-major level?  Are many of them?  Of course not.  Will they even want to keep playing baseball past high school?  Probably not.  

As Benton's dad, Will, said in a text last night, these are strange times for the boys from a baseball standpoint.  I agree.  

POSTSCRIPT:  At least as of now, JP is going to play for HBC, a relatively new organization started by a a young man who went to MBA and, later, played baseball at Tulane and walked on at Vanderbilt.  I haven't heard back from Midland (Showcase) or Nashville Select and, although they have makeup tryout dates this weekend, my assumption is that JP wasn't on their initial list.  

I am trying - because of course I am - to get Benton, Will, and JK a tryout with HBC.  It would be fantastic if the boys could play together, again, next summer.  I hope it works out that way.

And so it goes.  

JP's middle school cross country team started practice this week.  He'll take some baseball lessons, keep working on basketball with Coach Amos, and we'll let the baseball take care of itself.

Losing Steam

As I've mentioned before, it's been a spotty running year for me.  I had lofty goals for 2022 - 1,000 miles and running long weekly for the first time in years - but those fell by the wayside pretty quickly after I got Covid-19 in mid-January, followed by a lingering sinus infection, right knee problems, and low back pain.  Just one of those years, I guess.

All has not been lost, though, as I've had some good runs - especially with JP - and I've run fairly regularly, just not as often or as long as I had hoped for in 2022.  I think my disappointment at quickly falling short of my running goals for the year caused my motivation to wane, at times.  I know there have been nights when I finished a long day of work and relaxed with a bourbon rather than finding a way to run late in the neighborhood, after dinner or when the boys went to bed.  

The danger to me, it seems, is that running - and running well - feeds my soul.  It's what keeps my inner flame burning brightly.  Yes, it feeds my ego to an extent, but it really keeps me going from day-to-day in a busy, at times stressful life.  It's also how I release energy, so I can slow my mind and body down and, well, just be . . . be more present and in the moment, I guess, and worry less, personally and professionally.

My overriding concern as it relates to running, though, has been what I perceive to be a lack of stamina the last month or two.  For the first time since I can remember, I'm having trouble constantly finishing runs.  Normally, I may cut a run short two or three times a year, at most.  If I go out the door with a plan to run five miles, I run five miles, almost without fail.  

Lately, though, I've found myself stopping at three or three and a half miles when I've planned to run four miles, or stopping at four miles when I planned to run five miles.  Then, I walk the rest of the way home.  For me, it's the walk of shame.  Failure.  I feel like a quitter and that's something I rarely experience in my running life. 

I've been concerned enough that I reached out to my friend, Josh Beckman, a cardiologist.  He ordered a stress test at Vanderbilt, which I completed early Monday morning.  True to form, I knocked off at 16:30 when my goal was to get to 18:00.  I was pissed although in fairness to myself, the technician told me the average time before stopping was 9:00.  Still, I didn't hit my target.

The good news is that as Josh predicted, my stress test was normal and there were no signs of ischemia.  The results also showed a high capacity for exercise for my age and sex.  After reading the results, Josh added it was "the best exercise performance he had seen in years."  I'm pretty sure he was blowing smoke up my skirt, as my mom used to say.

Still, I ran last night, before Jude got home from a trip to Washington, D.C.  My plan was four miles and I ran out of gas, again, and stopped at three miles.  Shit.

Maybe it's he oppressive, unbearable heat this summer, in which the dog days of August arrived in early July.  I've tried running on the treadmill at they YMCA and have hit my target distance, running faster than normal, without too much difficulty.  That's what I'm hoping it is, anyway.

What I'm hoping it's not, of course, is age.  Maybe I need to reevaluate my goals as I get older.  Although I've got to slow down sometime, it would surprise me if my capacity to run long and fast diminished so suddenly, rather than over time.  

Recently, on my birthday, I changed my diet again, returning more militantly to the Spartan intake of food and drink I originally adopted almost four years ago.  No breads.  No sweets.  No soft drinks.  No potatoes and, certainly, no chips.  No fried food.  No alcohol.  Thus far, it hasn't made a difference in my stamina, at least not that I can see.  

I'll keep grinding.  Or, as I say in adopted motto - Keep going.  That's what I'll do.

Keep.  Going.

R.I.P. Mark Howard

Mark Howard, a distinctive and singular voice in middle Tennessee sport media for more than three decades, died yesterday at his home in Bellevue. 

When I was growing up as an avid sports fan and even when I returned home after college - before the internet,  before Sirius, before podcasts, before blogs, before talk radio, and before cable TV and ESPN - the only way to get local sports news was from the five minutes or so of sports on the nightly, local news broadcast.  Beginning in 1984, Mark Howard was the weekend sports anchor on Channel 5.  

The local news sports anchors were larger than life in those days with big personalities to match their outsized importance in the middle Tennessee sports landscape.  Rudy Kalis.  Hope Hines.  And, yes, Mark Howard.  Mark was different from the other sports anchors, though, or so it seemed to me at the time.  He was from the Northeast - an unabashed Yankees fan - and his style was less genteel and more abrasive than what we had seen on the local new broadcasts in the past.  Mark wasn't Charlie McAlexander or Paul Eells, that's for sure.

In 2004, Mark transitioned to sports talk radio just as it was hitting it's stride in middle Tennessee, when he joined Kevin Ingram and retired Titans' tight end, Frank Wychek to host the Wake Up Zone on local radio station 104.5.  The morning drive time sports talk show gave Mark a forum to showcase his sports knowledge, which was considerable.  It also gave him an opportunity to opine on all things sports on a daily basis.  One thing the listeners quickly learned about Mark Howard was that he had a lot of opinions.

The chemistry between Mark, Frank, and Kevin was rare and unique.  Simply put, 104.5 caught lightning in a bottle and the show dominated the local radio airwaves for a decade plus.  When former Titan, Blaine Bishop, replaced Frank Wychek, the show lost some of its luster - at least to me - but it remained a ratings hit for 104.5.  In 2020,  the station unceremoniously sacked Mark Howard and Kevin Ingram, in a move that is as puzzling today as it was two years ago.  

Mark continued to work in local sports media, hosting a call in show before and after Titans' games.  He also hosted a post-game show after Predators' television broadcasts with Terry Crisp, before he was replaced a couple of years ago.

I corresponded occasionally with Mark on Twitter.  Looking back, yesterday, I saw that our last exchange on Twitter was on August 11, 2020, after his departure from the Wake Up Zone on 104.5.  I mentioned how much my mom had loved to listen to Mark, Frank, and Kevin in the mornings, on her way home from work.  He appreciated that, I think, and reminded to "be safe."  

As I think about it this morning, drinking coffee after having a stress test at Vanderbilt, I'm struck, again, by the concept of the passage of time.  A recurring theme for me, lately, for sure. 

Mark's career in sports media straddle two eras.  The provincial, local news sports anchor as icon era.  That was a more innocent and less critical time for sports fans, like me, I think.  

Later, when sports talk radio took off - and in Nashville, the Titans and the Predators arrived - fans became more opinionated or, maybe, sports talk radio provided a forum for them to voice their opinions.  The good sports talk radio hosts - like Mark - were knowledgable and unafraid to challenge the listeners and engage in discussions, sometimes heatedly, with them on a variety of sports topics.

Mark Howard was intelligent, informed, irascible, curmudgeonly, kind hearted, argumentative, funny, confident, and above all, human.  All of those things and more.  Gone way too soon.

Prayers up for his family, particularly his wife, Debra, and his son, Jack, of whom he spoke often on the radio. 

https://www.nashvillepost.com/sports/sports-media-personality-mark-howard-dies-at-65/article_a2d6e7e2-0bc6-11ed-8dec-0745f8593a12.html

Three Decades of Law

It was a tough, draining week at work because of one case in particular.  After working as a lawyer for almost thirty years, I have a pretty good perspective on what I do for a living and the fact that client's lives aren't intertwined with mine.  

The hard part - for me, anyway - in practicing family law is that I care deeply about my clients and their families.  I want my clients to be healthy, to be successful and, above all else, to heal.  Still, I can't change the facts of a case and, sometimes, I have clients who won't or can't listen to the advice I give them.  As hard as I try to help them, they can't get out of their own way.  Those are the really challenging cases.

Mark and I will have had our firm in downtown Franklin, Tennessee, for 25 years this fall.  That, in and of itself, is hard to believe.  A quarter of a century working together, first as Puryear & Newman, later as Puryear, Newman & Morton after Chas joined us three years into our run.  That's a long time to do the same kind of work, at the same place, with the same partners.  As someone who doesn't like change, however, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that I've been doing the same thing with the same people for, well, forever.  There's also no end in sight, at least not for me.

I've been thinking a lot about our Bar in Franklin and Williamson County.  By bar, I mean all of the attorneys, past and present.  It's grown over the past 25 years, for sure, but it's still a collegial bar, by and large, with a small town feel to it.  The Davidson County Bar is different.  Not worse.  Different.  Less collegial, for sure, and a lot bigger. 

I've had so many cases with so many of our lawyers in Williamson County.  I've got colleagues and friends throughout the Bar and, to be fair, a few non-friends (though, thankfully, not many of those).  What we do - what I do - is by its very nature adversarial and, at times, confrontational.  It's competitive, too.  Perhaps why I like it and why I'm good at it is because none of those things scare me.  I'm okay being adversarial, confrontational, and competitive.  What keeps me sane, though, is that it's rarely personal as it relates to opposing attorneys.  As long as it's between the lines and there is no sneakiness or unethical behavior,  I'm good.  

I've also been thinking a lot about lawyers we've lost in Franklin.  Mark Hartzog.  Carter Conway.  Don Young.  Nick Shelton.  Ernie Williams.  Diane Livingston.  I had cases with every one of them and tried cases with some of them.  

Mark Hartzog - always full of wisdom and a true gentleman - once gave me advice I treasure to this day.  He told me I could live in Nashville, send my boys to private school, and work in Franklin, just like he did.  And that's what I've done. 

I had a divorce trial, years ago, with Carter Conway, who spoke with a deep, gravelly southern voice.  When I cross-examined his client, the husband, about Victoria's Secret purchases he had made on a credit card, he lamely stammered that he had made purchases for his wife - my client - on the off change they might get back together.  Judge Davies looked at him skeptically and said, "Mr. McClure, that's a little thin."  And it was.

Don Young was legendarily quick witted and always ready with a joke.  My old boss, Don Smith, told me that in college, at Vanderbilt, Don Young's nickname was "Weasel."  When I first started practicing law and I didn't know Don Young, he got me out of scrape and didn't charge me a thing, probably as a favor to my original mentor, Steve Cox.  Don also told me the smartest thing he ever did was only paying rent one. year of legal career.  Mark, Chas, and I took that advice when we bought our building.

I miss Nick Shelton terribly.  I rarely play golf but Nick is, by far, the best golfer with whom I ever played a round of golf.  He was in my foursome,  years ago, in the (now defunct) Williamson County Bar Association Golf Tournament.  He played gold in college and could absolutely smoke a golf ball.  In cases, Nick was a like a bull in a china shop, but he had a good heart.  He also was emotionally damaged and he took his own life, which makes me sad to this day.  

Ernie Williams was the U.S. Attorney for a brief period of time before he began practicing law in Franklin.  I remember talking with him when his son was accepted into the Naval Academy at Annapolis and played football for the Midshipmen.  Ernie was so proud of his son, just as I am of my boys today.

Diane Livingston was always, always laughing.  In the earliest years of our practice, she asked me to be co-counsel on a few workers' compensation, plaintiff's cases.  She was bilingual and often originated business from immigrants, documented and undocumented.  One time - in the late '90's when we in our first office on Church Street - Diane fell when she was crossing the street to drop something off for me.  She was tall and always wore a skirt or dress and heels.  She walked in to our office, laughing, and told Lisa Johnson about her fall and that it was a good thing Mark and I didn't see her, because she didn't have on underwear.  The perfect Diane Livingston story.

So many lawyers over almost 30 years of practicing law.  So many memories.