Life Experience

Plays Well With Others

In the music world, organists are low-on-the-totem-pole. I first discovered this in Conservatory and found it an interesting reversal of organists’ roles in the period between roughly 1600 – 1900. During that time, virtually all composers were organists (completely the reverse of today), organists had the most sure employment possibility of all musicians (the Church), … Read more

Fifty Years on the Bench: The Divine Right of Employers (Part 6)

In 1884, the Tennessee Supreme Court articulated an employment at will doctrine that would eventually be adapted throughout the entire United States (with the sole exception of Montana). With this doctrine, which soon was written into each states’ laws, an employer could dismiss an employee at any time, for any reason, or for no reason. … Read more

Fifty Years on the Bench – Secrets (part 5)

One of my favorite opening lines of  literature is from Dante’s Divine Comedy – “Midway along the journey of our life, I woke to find myself in a dark wood for I had wandered off from the straight path. … But if I would show the good that came of it, I must talk about … Read more

Fifty Years on the Bench: California Bookends (part 4)

Picture New York in January. Even for New Yorkers, like me, it’s the time of year when everyone is anxious to get away and distance themselves from the bitter cold, wind, messy snow, grey, and general dreariness of the heart of winter. In January 1987, I escaped to San Francisco for a holiday with two … Read more

Fifty Years on the Bench (Part 2)

A few hours after posting my last blog, I was fired. It wasn’t the first time I’d been fired from a church job; it was actually the fifth! So the psychological pattern that would follow was well-known: shock from being broadsided, anger and desire for vengeance, long aftermath of depression and self-doubt. But this one … Read more