Recently, I had the displeasure of attending an old friend’s funeral in Beaufort

It’s all I do

The only upside of that experience was the distinct pleasure I had of spending three hours in the car with my truly ancient friend Sydney Meeks Fowler

a/k/a Syd, Schneidah, Sweet Meeks, Syd-arth-thra

We have known each other forever

Our fathers were in the Marine Corps together.  Our families have been friends for four generations.  We went to school together in Beaufort, Chapel Hill, Columbia

Our eldest was the flower girl at her wedding

I’ve written about Syd and her family in the past

Some of our oldest and dearest

We’ve been through a lot together

I mean

A

LOT

I used to have a picture of me and Syd on the steps of the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, circa 1989. Thirty damn years ago. A great shot of us in front of the Franciscan facade.  Halcyon youth blithely unaware of the journey ahead.  Skinny.  Tan. Probably mildly hungover from cheap Italian wine.

Our traveling together has been literal and figurative for over forty years

Anyway, after the funeral in Beaufort and our ride up Highway 17, Syd came back to our house for a restorative cocktail

As one must

Porch sitting

My favorite competitive sport

The next morning, I awoke and thought of the following:

In the movie Crocodile Dundee, someone is explaining what a shrink does to that fish out of water in the urban jungle of NYC.

The Croc asks, “Well, don’t they have any mates?”

And, that’s just it

Syd is our mate

Always has been

Always will be

Sorry

Stuck with us

Stuck by us

We have been through a lot together

I mean

A

LOT

In three hours in the car with Sydney, there were

gut busting laughs

moments of quiet reflection

therapy sessions

news

critiques

roasts of friends and family

tears of laughter

tears of tears

updates on our families

retellings of shared history

revelations about other friends

knowing approvals

archaic references

acidic tongues wagging

Really, my side hurt, though, after so much laughter

At one point, I had to tell Syd to be quiet as I was going to have a major accident due to mirth induced incontinence

I really almost wet my pants

The only thing missing from the ride up and down Highway 17 through the Lowcountry were a few others who would have totally been in on the jokes, the shared history, the disdain and, most importantly, the unconditional love

Unflippingconditional

You know who you are

We missed you being with us

We ran by my parents house on North Street for a bit and it was like two standup comedians had crossed the threshold

My parents never quit laughing at us and with us

My mother said, “Oh, you two are so irreverent.”

Duh

Arriving at the church for the funeral, one of the greeters, who has known the deceased and us forever realized Syd and I had ridden down together

The greeter looked at us and said facetiously, “Oh, I’m sorry for you two. That ride was probably really boring. No fun. Y’all didn’t talk about anyone.  There was probably no laughter.  Really solemn.”

Then that lovely Lowcountry lady said, “Man, I’d have loved to have been in the car with y’all”

One of the ones who would have been in on the jokes

After the funeral, we ran by Syd’s mother’s house

Again, the traveling comedy troupe caused some laughter over on New Street

As we departed from her mother, Lila Meeks looked at us and said, “I challenge y’all to not talk about anyone on the ride back to Charleston and discuss something lofty”

We failed miserably

Instead, we debriefed and debrided

The radio never played

It wasn’t just constant talk to be talking to fill an awkward void

As the kids say, shit got real

I hope you all have some mates

Especially like Sydney

 

 

 

“Youth is wasted on the young” George Bernard Shaw

 

Eleventh graders around the country read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

They should not

They are too young to know the true meaning of pining for the green light across the water

They have not lived enough to know that we truly do beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Ceaselessly

Ceaselessly

Ceaselessly

Ceaselessly

Hear the sound of the water lapping against the gunwale?

They have not lived enough to know careless people like Daisy and Tom Buchanan who, to quote Fitzgerald, smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.

They have not seen the studied ennui of Jordan Baker crafted as mask and persona

They have not been buffeted by time enough to know the sadness of Owl Eyes crying out to Nick Carraway, “They used to go there by the hundreds”

They don’t hear their own voices that may, like Daisy’s, be full of money

They don’t know the desperation of Myrtle Wilson

They have no point of reference to understand that there are, indeed, men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything after savors of anti-climax

All of this assumes that you, Dear Reader, have read The Great Gatsby

I read the Jazz Age masterpiece in the 11th Grade, like most high school students

I read it while the biggest problem of the day was how to  sneak that bottle of vodka into the dorm to mix with orange Fanta

Or wondering if we would be sober enough to get back to the bus in Boston for the last return to campus

The book should have been seared into my conscience at the time

It wasn’t

Too young

Too youthful

Too inexperienced

 

 

I have memories of the 1974 film of same name, which they made us watch in class one day

The gauzy lenses

Fey beauty

Soft focus

Hazy

Roaring 20’s

I have re-read the book in each decade of life since

In my twenties, it felt a little more familiar

In my thirties, I recognized myself and the broken world watched over by those creepy eyes in the valley of ashes

In my forties, I weep

Every time I read it

Cry like a baby

Racked

Sobbing

Unable to breathe

Like Nick, not everyone has had the advantages I have had.  Really.  They haven’t

But everyone has had the losses

Dreams deferred

Dreams fulfilled

Sickness

Death

Pain

Things not going according to plan

Not being able to see those we love as much as we would like

Only realizing it when standing at a funeral beside other mourners

On the last page, as Nick concludes that we beat on and yet are borne ceaselessly back into the past, my eyes mist over and tears flow freely

Despair for all that has gone and will never be again

Why they teach this tragedy to teenagers is beyond me

It should be required reading

For all of us in our forties

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first job after Law School was serving as a law clerk to the Honorable Jackson V. Gregory, Judge of the Fourteenth Judicial Circuit of South Carolina.  That Circuit encompasses Beaufort, Colleton, Jasper, Hampton, and Allendale Counties.  It’s pure Lowcountry.  Circuit Court judges travel throughout South Carolina hearing civil and criminal matters.  We traveled all over the state.

Judge Gregory offered me a clerkship in July of 1997, a full month before our third year of Law School.  I was that most obnoxious of 3L’s, one with a job waiting prior to graduation.

I clerked with Judge Gregory from August 10, 1998, to August 6, 1999.

In that year, I got married, bought a house, and learned a lot from the Judge.

He died on April 24, 2019, much too soon

Below are the words I read at his memorial service on April 29, 2019

It was a beautiful day by the river in Beaufort

Absolutely beautiful

He’d have loved it

Thank you, Your Honor, for taking a chance on me twenty years ago.

 

For Jack Gregory:

Don’t do crack with Jack

We were in trial in Allendale, South Carolina

A town which had seen its better days

The main industry in Allendale back then was drugs; it still may be.

On trial that week was a defendant charged with Possession with Intent to Distribute a large of amount of cocaine in crack form

Court was held at the old Allendale Municipal Court since someone had burned down the Allendale County Courthouse as retribution for another judge’s heavy sentencing

Judge Gregory, the Court Reporter, Annette Mole, and I decided that we would all go to lunch together at the Village Inn, which was a great old Southern buffet in Allendale

Judge Gregory loved their vegetables

The Clerk of Court, not having access to a safe, asked that we take the main evidence with us, which was a plastic bag, marked State’s Exhibit 1, containing several crack rocks the size of Ritz crackers with us since she, the Clerk, had no way to make sure the crack stayed in the courtroom.  It being Allendale, it probably would not have.  At night, the police would take it back to the safe in the Clerk’s temporary office in a trailer in Allendale.  You can’t make this up.

So, Judge Gregory looked at me and said, “Hamlin, grab that crack and let’s go to lunch.”

Annette Mole, whom we love, said, “Oh, Judge, I don’t think Hamlin can do that…isn’t possession of it a crime?”

Judge Gregory replied, “Well, guess we’ll all go to jail then,” and we laughed and went to lunch.

Judge Gregory, not wanting to be conspicuous, was the only Judge in the state who did not have a vanity tag identifying himself as a Circuit Court Judge.

Well, as luck would have it, he got pulled on the way to lunch after blowing through a stop sign.

The days of Allendale being a speed trap weren’t over yet back in 1998.

So, the cop walks up to the window, and, there, before God and everyone on the dash board is a bag of crack cocaine for all the world to see in the State’s Exhibit 1 bag

“Sir, is that what I think it is?” asked the officer

“State’s Exhibit 1, is what it is,” replied the judge

“Do you work for the Solicitor’s office?” asked the cop

“No, I’m the sitting judge, this is my law clerk, and this is our court reporter, you can call the Clerk’s office to verify.”

“I believe you,” said the cop, “No one but a Judge would be so stupid as to have a bag of crack rock sitting on his dashboard in Allendale”

We then went to lunch with a police escort.  He told us to lock the crack in the glove compartment while we ate and the policeman stood guard.

Whitney was right, “Crack is whack”

 

I’ll Sleep on It

Judge Gregory heard a lot of motions, as do most judges.  As he would always say, “To my mind,” he was really big on “to my mind”,  but “To my mind, I don’t have to be right, I just have to rule.”

During a super long motions hearing where both sides where arguing really fine points of law in a case about insurance coverages related to a multi-car carwreck where some of the folks where uninsured, underinsured, and some in jail, and some in the country illegally, one of the lawyers, who happened to be a female attorney, was totally winning the arguments.  She knew her stuff. She had it down. The lawyers on the other side, all of whom were generally Plaintiffs lawyer types who didn’t do a lot of coverage work, were really blowing it.

Judge Gregory said he needed a break

We went back into the hallway of the Beaufort County Courthouse and he told me that he was going to most likely rule in favor of the lady.  But, he said, he would take it under advisement so as to not embarrass the other lawyers, most of whom had brought their clients along with him

We went back into the Courtroom, and there were a few more minutes of arguments

The lady lawyer was the last to speak

Judge Gregory looked at her and said, “Thank you Miz So and So. I’ll take that under advisement and sleep with you tonight”

At first there was silence in the courtroom

Then, I started laughing

Then, the lady started laughing

Then, Judge Gregory turned beet red and said, “I’ll sleep on it…I’ll sleep on it….”

 

Lewd and Unpronounceable

During my clerkship, Judge Gregory and I were assigned to six months in the Capital City.  Judge Henry McKellar let us his office.

Most of the terms of Court we had in Columbia were criminal terms.

The worst case we had involved criminal sexual violence against a minor.  The defendant was the child’s father.  There was conflicting testimony about who could be believed.  The child’s mother and father had gone through a horrible divorce and conflicting experts took the stand to discuss the minor’s authenticity. One said she was telling the truth.  The other said she wasn’t.  One doctor took the stand to say there had been abuse.  One doctor took the stand to say that there wasn’t.

Beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard

Judge Gregory had me type up all of the jury charges and get them approved by the Solicitor’s office and by the Defendant’s counsel, who was represented by I.S. Leevy Johnson, who was, and is, and old friend of the Judge’s and my father’s.

Part of the charges had the term “lewd and lascivious” in several places.

Every time the judge read that term, he would botch the pronunciation “lewd and lash a viscious” or “loud and laskenvious” or “lute and luscious”

It was horrible

I think he had a mental block as the case was just that bad

After his last “Lou and lashless”, one of the Juror’s stood up in the jury box and said, “It’s lewd and lascivious, Your Honor”

Judge Gregory, turning red, said, “Why yes it is, Ma’am, yes it is, but that’s for you to determine, not me, because I can’t even pronounce it”

 

During my clerkship, I was engaged, there was a wedding coming up, there was a house to buy

Judge Gregory would give me extra time off and allow me to take off some afternoons when we weren’t busy.

I’ll always be grateful

I’m a fairly collegial lawyer, because, as the Judge would say, “You don’t want other lawyers to hate you. You’re going to have to work with them a long time.”

At our wedding reception, the judge came up to me and said that he’d never seen a cooler groom, a more collected groom

In my 20 years of practice, I’ve never seen a cooler judge

I’ve never seen a more collected judge

I only saw him get mad once, at a pro se plaintiff who threatened bodily harm to opposing counsel and his opponent

I would see him in the grocery store in Beaufort, at parties from time to time, and it was like NO time had passed.

We would discuss my family, his girls and their families, his undying love of the Democrat party, with generally no comment from me

We always left hoping that we would see each other soon

So, see you soon Your Honor

And, as you said at the end of each term, Court is adjourned, sine die.

 

 

P.S.  Erin Dean, a damned fine trial lawyer herself, and one of Judge Gregory’s former clerks also spoke in remembrance of the Judge.  Here is what she shared. Good advice all around.

[On April 29, 2019],  I had the privilege of speaking at Judge Jackson V. Gregory’s memorial service. I was Judge Gregory’s second law clerk (‘92-‘94) and he taught me more than just the law. As requested, here are the”Top Ten Things I Learned from Judge Gregory”. Good advice for lawyers and humans!

1. Be humble
2. Be respectful of others, no matter their tone
3. Never pass up an opportunity for a Meat & 3
4. You learn more by listening than you ever do by talking
5. The Clerk’s office staff and Courtroom Bailiffs are your best friends
6. It’s ok to change your mind
7. It’s also ok to admit you’re wrong (still working on that one)
8. Lawyers are public servants, no matter who you work for or where you work, your job is to serve the public
9. Be kind, always…and if you can’t be kind, be quiet
10. The best words uttered in a Courtroom are sine die, signifying the Court term is over and you can head to play golf or go to the beach!