Goodbye Norm.

09/12/19

Goodbye Norm.

Spent the first part of my evening at a visitation for an old comrade from the legal trenches.  Norm was someone with whom I had battled with in private practice. Later, he was someone I had practice before me when I began hearing cases.  In recent years he had lost his wife and his house.  He was scarred from sorrow and also from fire. But still he kept on doing what he had always done, he took the fee and made the appearance.  Norm always made a noise like an attorney. When you don’t have the facts, argue the law.  When you don’t have the law argue the equities.  When you have neither just make a noise like a lawyer; earn your paycheck. Norm did just that.

Norm wasn’t from one of the big firms, but he was a fighter.  He had played hockey in his younger years.  He took what he learned there and applied it to life. He knew what banging against the boards meant, it meant you never stopped fighting because the puck might pop free and suddenly it is a whole different game.  He knew what the phrase, ‘ to hit ‘em where they don’t have pads’, meant.  If he sensed a hearing in front of me wasn’t going well, he upped the verbal amperage.  First, he would try a brute force strategy by threatening to take me up on appeal.  However, he would just as easily shift into the, “He’s old, he’s not been in trouble for 10 years.  Where is the risk,” argument. Salt or sugar, he would apply either or both if he thought it would get him the W.

Twelve years ago when I first had a bout with cancer he kept in touch all during my recovery.  He would call.  He would send me these big plain yellow office envelopes filled with some of the raunchiest mimeograph humor ever collected.  These jokes by today’s standard would probably get you disbarred if you read them out loud to an audience of even one person.  Still, the mere fact that he would do this to try and cheer me up seemed to convey a bit of care and concern that really raised my spirits.  Maybe, he was playing me for advantage going forward, but it was appreciated.

Norm was either 70 or 71.  For me that is seven, maybe eight years away.  Too young to go.  Too sad a farewell. No matter what anybody else saw from or in you, this was my little window into your life.  Goodbye Norm.