A Triangle of Travel, February 2002

My place of long employ, the State Bar of California, which was usually very restrictive about most of us attorneys attending the National Organization of Bar Counsel, would, when in the black financially, become beneficent and allow a number of us to attend. The National Organization of Bar Counsel was a voluntary group of attorneys in other states who practiced as we did, as I did, the investigation and where warranted, the prosecution of errant lawyers. Not errant in the sense of pure mistake, for we all do that, but in so far as they would take cases and not work them, "borrow" client money (stealing, but the euphemism was often part of the rationalization), or outright lying to their clients were among the offenses which would affect their licenses potentially. As you can imagine, we who did that work were not popular among either attorneys nor the client complainants. The former considered us rats. The latter considered us the foxes guarding the henhouse. Neither was true, at least for those in the trenches, and so it was nice to be able to gather with others of like vocation in other climes of the United States. In 2002, a rather large group of us were allowed to attend the convention in Philadelphia. My usual approach when I went back east after I moved to California was to wrap in at least two locales, and touch base with family and friends in New York. This particular year was just after 9/11, September 11, 2001, when terrorists murdered over 3,000 innocent people by flying airplanes into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center. A colleague of mine knew several officers who had and were working at the area which had only recently been cleared of the rubble of destruction, and it had become something of a makeshift shrine where people gathered, still in many cases, hoping that people definitely dead somehow were still alive, and where the rest of us wanted to pay our respects. And she had a separate hankering to revisit New York, where on her one prior visit, she had not had the best of times. And I planned on taking a train to New York, then renting a car, spending time with various folks and then driving to other friends in Scituate, Massachusetts. A triangle of a trip. 

Thus were there quite a lot of photos, of which I present a partial bundle here and remember moments 21 years past.  The first set is, well, as you can tell from the Liberty Bell, which is housed in its own little enclosure, from Philadelphia. 

One of the things I have no doubt said before about my 25 years at the State Bar is that I worked with many good people, and became friends with a number of them. Some remain friends today.  At this time, Mike Nisperos was our Chief Trial Counsel. Just below Mike, the back of Rick Platel, Cecilia alas I have forgotten the name of the lady on the left, whom I seem to remember accompanied one of the other attendees. 

I had forgotten also the restaurant we went to, but luckily I had written the name in the album. Ralph's Italian Dining. But I do remember that the locale and the food were extraordinary, and the enjoyment among our group was palpable. Below, Mike leaning against a tree and having a smoke. I have always liked this picture.

Rick, and Leslie (whom he married, but not sure if they were married then), Elena, Janet (my traveling companion later to New York), and me.

Below more shots of all of us. Why is Rick kissing me on the head? I don't know. And then the group.

Well, it turns out I did write the name of the lovely lady with Don Steedman, another colleague. Vicki.

Above a memorial to a man who died in the late 1700s. The sentiment was what made me take the shot in Christ Church, on the grounds of which Benjamin Franklin is buried (I took a picture, but it did not come out well). Such different times from ours alas, when people had a sense of duty, and transcendence and respect for life and goodness. Even then, in 2002, particularly after 9/11, there was a sense of the value of the nation, which, in my view, in the last mere twenty years, has been lost, no, deconstructed by people who have neither your nor mine well being in mind. That's just my point of view, since Truth is only allowed to be the sole possession of each of us, at will. (Makes for utter confusion and chaos, but then that is what we have now and we are told, implicitly or explicitly, that we will like it.) I admit that this entry comes on a day in which I am in a less than optimistic view. Of late that happens more often. Below, Betsy Ross' home; and below that, Independence Hall and the interior of Christ Church.

Upon the end of the NOBC, Janet and I took a train to Manhattan. At the time, hostelries and other places were starving for visitors. I am actually amazed that I flew so soon after 9/11, in that I hate to fly under the most ordinary of circumstances, as oft I will say. That I flew when there was still talk of terrorism in the sky rather amazes me looking back. I think I convinced myself that the bad guys wouldn't do it again so soon, and I was likely safer than otherwise I might have been just around that time. 

 Janet and I at 30th Street Station in Philly.

Times Square in 2002.

So, where did we stay? At a place I had longed to do: The Algonquin Hotel, built in 1902, the famous site of the literary Round Table that had included Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Robert Sherwood, Franklin Pierce Adams, Heywood Hale Broun. . . .humorists, and columnists and characters of the early 20th century. At that point I had read a number of articles and books about Dorothy Parker, who was a quipster of renown (e.g. "What fresh hell is this?" or speaking of the acting skills of Katherine Hepburn, unfairly I think, "She runs the gamut of emotion from A to B"). We shared a small room Janet and I in this historic place we could not probably otherwise have afforded and I drank cosmos in the lobby and especially enjoyed the gatekeeper Matilda the Cat. There had been a cat at the Algonquin since the 1920s, and there remains one today.  But when I was there Matilda II was holding sway. There have been three Matildas. I have an entire children's book about her that I still display with joy. I think for me the desire to stay there was less about Dorothy Parker than about the company of a House Cat. 

Matilda II with the doorman. It was a cold February as you can see. 

Matilda inspected everything, the desk, the incoming luggage. I admit a place with a cat always makes me feel safe. Immediately below, my cousin Carol and my last living aunt on my mother's side (still with us at 96), Teri.

Above, me and my Aunt. I look like I have been in a wind tunnel, or maybe one too many cosmos?

Above, the South Street Seaport. When I worked in that area circa 1974, the area was a dingy one. By the time I came back, it was a bustling tourist attraction.

Below some memorials at the site of the World Trade Center, then literally a hole in the ground after the removal of the pieces of building and people. Even then we were hearing about the poison in the air that might be a danger to the people who did the digging at the site. One of my favorite songs about those folks was by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It still brings tears to my eyes for the sense of humanity and love and caring of those who did that work, many at their own physical expense. There definitely was something in the air. Janet noticed it more than I but even I noticed a feeling of particles in my throat, ever so small, but definite in a small marking of the catastrophe of human making. 

Hector has been gone lo 20 years, but then there remained a glimmer of impossible hope.

The makeshift memorials. I signed the one below somewhere. Janet inspects them. 

I wonder. Do we even recognize evil today? Or have our hearts been so terribly hardened?

The visit to Ground Zero was powerful, and is powerful again as I remember it and worry about a generation that either thinks nothing of it or disputes the evil done that day as evil. I went back again in 2017 and I think I took pictures which will perhaps show up on this blog. The single tower was up, and the more professional memorial with the names of the dead was also there, but there was still work being done on the surrounding area. 

And then another move, this time by car I rented, to Massachusetts, and a lovely stay at the home of friends. Scituate is old, just about as old as Plymouth, and still at this time was pretty rural (to this Bronx girls city mind). Bucolic. It actually snowed while I was there. The little boy in these pictures is now 30 years old and has his own son. And of course, they always had cats or dogs. 

Sometimes I forget how blessed my life has been. These photos help me remember.