LIFE

I wrote this three years ago and think it is good enough to offer up to you.

Life is really a gold prospecting trip. Each day we set forth on a journey looking for gold. And most days if we are lucky we find some in loving relationships, honest creative work, families, prayer, the hopeful messages from God that come our way each day if we are awake, and in miracles (per the theologian, Jack Shea: "events and people that occur in our life that allow love to be expressed"). All these things are gold nuggets. We collect them, hold them tight; and they bring us spiritual wealth, serenity and happiness.

Today, the gold I gathered started with a delicious night's sleep, a fine prayer, feeling my body run through an eight miler with ease while treading on a new path of snow just deep enough to give me firm footing. All my god-given protective clothing kept me warm and cozy on a five degree below zero Chicago morning.

Then, after clean-up and the donning of the crisp garb of a trial lawyer, I found a favorite seat on the Blue Line to stretch out on. I jumped into a conversation with Ray Bradbury, who in "The Zen of Writing" told me to sit down and make a list. He suggested a list of nouns and ideas from story, childhood and life that I wanted to write about. His list in his tender years gave way to nouns and then to prose essays. A page or two into Bradbury's essays, a new character popped into his life. He then let that character come alive and run freely, following that character into a story. The list that Bradbury started making as a youth propelled that fine soul into stories and books and plays and poems over a rewarding forty years as a writer.

I have found many gold veins in my life and hope you do too.

Voltaire

THE JURY IS OUT

My reading this week has been typically wide-ranging and inspiring. I have been absorbed in Melvin Urofsky's well-researched biography of Louis Brandeis (an inspiring lawyer, humanitarian and U.S. Supreme Court Judge), Kevin Theis' book on his acting debut in south Florida, dips into a biography of Edward Bennett Williams (one of America's finest trial lawyers), the beginning of another blockbuster David Mamet play, "Romance," news from The New York Times and an occasional New Yorker piece.

This morning I read some Greek mythology about why Odysseus and his crew got into trouble with the gods after the sacking of Troy. I cover a lot of ground in a week.

As Saturday dawned and time for writing came upon me, the topic that most enraged me was the retrial of Illinois' former Governor, Rod Blagojevich, his antics outside the courtroom, and the ridiculous early trial commentary of Chicago journalist Elizabeth Brackett.

Two years before Blago got indicted, it was widely known on the street in both Democratic and Republican circles in Chicago, that the Blago administration was a "pay to play" regime.

Last year Blago and his theatrical defense lawyers managed to fool ONE juror of 12 on twenty counts of his federal indictment, making this year's retrial necessary.

In the course of last year's trial plenty of evidence emerged that Blago was a thoroughly corrupt con artist and thief. He stole six years of his Governor's salary from the Illinois citizenry, doing almost no work during his six years as Illinois' Governor. The properly authorized tapes the FBI made of Blago phone conversations with his staff showed him to be a foul-mouthed con artist through and through. When the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama's election to the Presidency opened up, Blago looked on his ability to fill that vacancy purely as an opportunity to enrich himself by trading the appointment of the seat for his economic advantage. One tape quotes Blago telling his chief of staff to make it appear that Blago was acting in the public interest during the negotiations to find him a high-paying job in exchange for the Senate appointment.

He never earned his salary as the Governor and plunged deeply into a narcisstic and grandiose lifestyle that his modest salary could not support. Spending $400,000 over a six year period on clothes for Blago and his wife, while earning a modest salary as Illinois Governor, Blago was in financial trouble when the Senate appointment hit his desk.

Despite this damning evidence that has emerged in a courtroom, Blago is still a free man, who loves to press the flesh before and after his courtroom days giving autographs and words of nonsensical hope to the foolish Chicagoans outside the federal courthouse on Dearborn. My God, Ben Franklin, I fear for the future of the American republic with voters like these going to the polls.

Don't get me wrong, Blago is entitled to a fair retrial and he will get one before Judge Zagel and a second jury.

We are now into the seventh day of jury deliberations. A verdict next week will probably be a win for the prosecutors and justice. Deliberations that run into a third week might signal an acquittal on many counts and a frightening acceptance of public corruption in our fair state.

Voltaire

MANTRAS

Perhaps it is the Easter season that has brought me to such a spiritual place. It does not matter what brought me to the writing table peering into the eternal, just that I am here and delighting once again in writing.

Almost every day I start the day with some reading, usually a biography. But this week I also spent some morning reading time with my mantras. These are now four dozen yellow index cards that I have been keeping for the past five years with writings and quotes that inspire me, keep hope alive and ward off despair. Here are some of them and their authors.

"Miracles are events and people that occur in your life that allow love to be expressed."
(Jack Shea in his 1992 book, "Starlight.") My life has been full of miracles.

"God can best be understood in the love parents show for their children." (excerpt from a homily on Holy Thursday by Fr. John Cusick) I am the oldest son of two of the most loving parents that walked this earth.

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11-12)

"The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness." (from an essay by Michel deMontaigne)


Happy Easter


Voltaire

A Letter to My Children on Churchill

Why study Winston Spencer Churchill's life ? There are many good reasons. Consider these.

This man's perseverance is the perfect antidote to any despair or discouragement that may cross your path. He had a roller coaster of a political career but was able to leap over gigantic hurdles to get him to the political stage as a world leader in 1940. Hundreds of millions of people on both sides of the Atlantic are better off for that leadership.

Winston was a champion of liberty and democracy. He gave people all over the world hope, inspired them and kept them free of paralyzing fear. He probably did that better than most theologians. Study his wartime speeches (in my library thankfully) for inspiring calls to action.

Winston had a love affair with the English language, political debate and the British Empire. All but the empire are thriving for his efforts.

In his youth Winston had little love and support from his father and mother. He was a poor student before he got to Sandhurst, the British military academy. He usually finished in the bottom of his class before entering Sandhurst. While he could not master the Greek and Roman classics and Latin, he was a good writer. He made his fortune as a writer of histories, biographies and reports of his military adventures.

His father, a prominent British politican who almost became Prime Minister, cruelly ridiculed him as a failure. His parents spent very little time with him before he entered Sandhurst. His primary emotional support in his early years was his nanny, "Woom." His Mother (a beautiful American socialite) became a big booster of his in his early 20's, helping him launch his military career and his career in journalism.

Churchill was a prolific writer who made his living from his own outstanding political skills, wits, courage and inspiring words. Though his father had been a prominent politician before an illness and early death at forty-seven and though Churchill was a descendant of the Duke of Marlborough, there was no family wealth for Churchill to inherit. He was entirely a self-made man.

Churchill always showed great courage as a warrior and political statesman. He stood for things and would not compromise on the principles of freedom, democracy and strength of the British Empire. He stuck his neck out on political positions, sometimes advancing his career in meteorically upward fashion and sometimes crashing to earth and near destruction. That happened several times in his life. He always came back from enormous political and financial setbacks. Those comebacks ranged from two to ten years. He "never gave in," just as he cautioned others never to do.

Churchill never gave up on his beliefs or himself or his country, regardless of how big his personal losses or rejections were or how wrong-headed the leaders of his country were. In 1929, for example, he lost most of the fortune he had accumulated in some bad investments, got ousted from the leadership of his Party's Cabinet and was severely injured in an auto accident in New York City. He came back from all three losses. It took time but he came back to wealth, health and finally at the age of 65 the leadership of Great Britain in its darkest days in May 1940, the first year of World War II.

For a ten year period, 1930-1940, he was the lone voice in the British Parliament arguing for a rearmament of Britain and fierce opposition to Hitler's rise to power in Germany. He could not get the British or American national leaders to listen to him or stop the Nazi threat. World War II could have been avoided and tens of millions of lives saved, if his wise vision had been shared before the outbreak of war in September 1939.

Greatness is the only way to describe this man. Keep him in mind as a mentor.

Voltaire

Robert Crais' The Watchman: A Book Review

Robert Crais and I met through his early novels in November of 2009. I was trying a five week case before two of the worst judges in the Circuit Court of Cook County (names withheld until they get indicted). I had about twenty minutes each morning over my cup of coffee to do some reading. Two Crais novels were my morning diet of crime fiction. The high quality of Crais' writing and his exotic imagination was a huge contrast with the mediocrity of justice that my clients and my trial partners were suffering through.

Instantly, I became a big fan of Crais and have now read five of his novels, the most recent being, The Watchman. After hitting four home runs with the first four, Crais' Watchman was a barely a double.

I was used to being led through a fine crime tale by Elvis Cole, a funny, yoga practicing, gourmet cooking sleuth. Cole heads a two person L.A. detective firm bearing his name. He has such a great sense of humor---even during some perilous times----that it is perhaps too fanciful to believe. I have chosen to believe it anyway, because I always pick hilarity over grief. Always have and always will.

Cole does some other endearing things. He falls in love, not often, but when the right woman shows up; enjoys mornings, is loyal to his friends, is very very tough and shoots well.

Elvis' partner in the firm is Joe Pike. Crais tells us early in this novel that a pike is a "long-bodied, predatory fish known for its speed and agression." (It also happens to be the nickname for my national fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, but there is no reason to go there).

Joe Pike is a taciturn ex-Marine known for his warning: "I am coming in." That usually means that Pike is leaving the management of his two gun stores to come to Cole's aid. And that one or more criminals are about to be gunned down with amazing precision.

So, I sat down with The Watchman expecting to be entertained by Elvin Cole and got Joe Pike instead. Crais gave plenty of warning. The cover of the novel describes it as "a Joe Pike novel." I chose to ignore the warning because Cole was such a charming character.

The plot of the story centers around a Paris Hilton type, Larkin Barkley, who happens to be on the hit list of some mobsters from Colombia, Ecquador and perhaps the Middle East. In the course of guarding Larkin from a sixth assassination attempt, Crais tells us why Pike is a man of few words and no longer a L.A. cop. Grim stories both.

The novel picks up some speed and importantly humor in the middle, when---you guessed it---Elvis Cole comes on to help his buddy Pike. More drama, another lying lawyer giving the profession a bad name, plenty of gunshots. Anymore, I cannot say without ruining the fine ending.

Four out of five novels by Crais have been so well done. That is an 800 batting average. That winning percentage can only be maintained if Cole leads the way.

Voltaire

Ending and Starting the Years With Loren Estleman

I like to end the year in style and start the next one with a statement about distance running and hope and ambition.

Starting the serene day after Christmas, when I am content knowing that I have loved my family well, I make every effort to have a hell of a lot of fun. I start by getting up as early as I can----usually in the four to four-thirty morning hour and heading downstairs to get lost in the world of crime fiction.

Jump starting my heart before my morning run with a cup of hot coffee, I nest in the stuffed chair next to the Christmas tree. Sitting next to this brightly lit ornamental history of the family, I greet a Loren Estleman novel to enter the world of crime.

Loren Estleman has taken me into a trance like few other writers have. In a few pages I find myself in Detroit two generations ago-- as mobsters are making their fortunes running rum and other spirits across frozen Lake Superior from Canada. What fun. What a different world from the strait-laced, buttoned down world of law that I live in year after year.

Estleman, writes with an affection for Detroit from its zenith to its decline and despair. He is also an expert at guns. His descriptions reveal one who has studied them through and through and used them for recreation(I hope).

I admire Estelman's writing for its humor and its subtle moral lessons. An important quality in Estleman's writing is his skill in telling an absorbing story in about two hundred seventy-five pages. Time and time again over the ten or more Estleman novels I have enjoyed, Loren can finish a fine tale in under three hundred pages. Good for him and the rest of us with limited time for novels.

For me Christmas has always been about a pool of brand new books to swim in. My Godfather, Burt Mitchell, a high school history teacher, used to bring me two or three new history books each Christmas---no doubt launching me further into the humanities. My own family had started me down this fascinating road years before. I am deeply grateful to my Greek parents for that.

My end of the year is a chance to stretch out, find stillness and serenity, say thanks and rest the body from the marathons I run weekly. Christmas vacation is about the "Pause" that Jack Shea has spoken about in his Advent reflections at Old St. Patrick's Church. It is a chance to reflect on my very happy life.

After six or seven mornings of this wonderful regimen, we come to New Year's eve. For years the most important part of the turning of the year is the New Year's day long morning run. One such run---perhaps 2007---took place right into a Norman Rockwell type showfall of six or seven inches. I start these New Year's Day runs about seven in the morning. Chicago belongs to me and me alone. My footprints are the first in the snow. The beauty of a fresh snowfall in the wooded Irving Park neighborhood is breathtaking. And the run is usually blessed with some brilliant sunshine-----plenty of hope for the year ahead.

One run went almost seventeen miles---probably in 1999, when I trained for two marathons. It started in a light snowfall and ended almost three hours later in four inches of snow.

Life is grand. Aways has been and always will be.

Voltaire

BASKET CASE by Carl Hiassen: A BOOK REVIEW

This is a funny pot-boiler that I recommend. Though it is not as good as some of this fine novelist's other books, you may enjoy it. I got the book as a gift and enjoyed it while I ran some morning miles.

Hiaasen's hero, Jack Tagger, is a charming investigative journalist with too big a mouth. I can relate to him. I was born with the same defect. Tagger was knocked off his hard-won perch as a newpaper's chief investigative reporter after his public denunciation of his boss, Race Maggot III, the Rupert Murdoch type owner of a Florida daily paper.

Tagger has been exiled to the obit column for the past two years. Most recently he has been bothered by his young editor, Emma, an attractive, smart woman twenty years his junior. This Generation Xer and Tagger have been fighting.

When Tagger's research into the untimely death of a famous singer leads him right into the middle of a murder investigation involving the dead singer's wife and many semi-illiterates poulating the rock music production world (some would say the underworld), Tagger and Emma find their relationship changing.

Blind ambition and greed ruined Macbeth, Nixon, untold others and surely inspired Hiassen's murderer in this tale.

Voltaire