Your life has three topics. Believe me. I am going to convince you of that. When I am done, you will see yourself differently.
I want you to recognize that as you live each day, your rhythms, your decisions, the flow of your day, all oscillate among three great topics, three great forces--even when you do not know it.
Even if you have not thought about it until now, you will come to agree that politics, faith, and love are the three forces of your life.
It is going to be a fast ride. Enjoy!
Politics, Faith, Love
A Judge's Notes on Things That Matter
By Judge Bill SwannBalboa Press
Copyright © 2017 Judge Bill Swann
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-8249-6Contents
Dedication, ix,
Introduction, xi,
More Introduction, xiii,
MUSINGS,
Chapter 1 So, How Do You Like Being Retired?, 1,
Chapter 2 Who Are The Best People? Lawyers Are The Best People, 4,
Chapter 3 Richard, Age 19, 8,
Chapter 4 Dreams, 10,
Chapter 5 Raccoons, Okra, And Squash, 12,
Chapter 6 Playing The Lute, 14,
Chapter 7 Dreams Again, 17,
Chapter 8 Dreams Yet Again, 19,
Chapter 9 Moving To Tennessee, 24,
Chapter 10 Christmas When You Were Seven, 27,
Chapter 11 Acrophobia, 31,
Chapter 12 Mount Leconte, The Berlin Wall, And Three Weeks Of Pre-Med, 33,
Chapter 13 "It Is What It Is.", 36,
Chapter 14 Ray Lamontagne And Dolly Parton, 42,
Chapter 15 Boy Scouts And Football, 46,
Chapter 16 If The German Blue Tick Picker Had Made It To Westminster, 49,
POLITICS,
Chapter 17 Politicians, Friends, And Lawyers, 53,
Chapter 18 The 1982 Judicial Campaign, 58,
Chapter 19 The 1990 Judicial Campaign, 62,
Chapter 20 The 1998 Judicial Campaign, 69,
Chapter 21 2001 Was Not A Good Year, 74,
Chapter 22 The 2006 Judicial Campaign, 77,
Chapter 23 So You Think Politics Is About Civil Discourse?, 90,
Chapter 24 Rose v. Swann, 93,
Chapter 25 Buchenwald, 97,
Chapter 26 Mediation And Litigation, 100,
Chapter 27 Crony Capitalism And Special Interests: A Primer In Grievance, 102,
Chapter 28 Taxation Is Theft, 108,
Chapter 29 The Aggrieved And The Others, 113,
FAITH,
Chapter 30 The Temple Of The Lord, 121,
Chapter 31 John Updike: Seven Stanzas At Easter, 131,
Chapter 32 Your Grandmother, 135,
Chapter 33 A New Christmas Carol, 140,
Chapter 34 An Old Christmas Carol, 142,
Chapter 35 Beulah Land, 146,
LOVE,
Chapter 36 Epiphany, 155,
Chapter 37 Narrative Technique, Pooh, And E.T.A. Hoffmann, 158,
Chapter 38 Gospel Music Part One, 167,
Chapter 39 Gospel Music Part Two, 176,
Chapter 40 Strunk And White Meet The Mailbox, 178,
Chapter 41 Teach Your Children English, 180,
Chapter 42 Fifteen Years Married, 183,
Chapter 43 An Unbroken Line Of Great Teachers, 184,
Chapter 44 Some Parting Thoughts On Language, 187,
Afterword, 199,
Acknowledgements, 201,
Endnotes, 203,
CHAPTER 1
SO, HOW DO YOU LIKE BEING RETIRED?
That's a question everybody asks a newly "retired" person. I get it a lot. I ask it myself when I meet someone who has just left his usual job description and not taken up something else yet. The answers are always interesting because every person is different.
No one has yet told me, "Oh, you know, I hate being retired. I don't know what to do with myself." But those people must exist. They must be around, because I do meet a lot of people who are "thinking of" retiring.
But those persons thinking of retiring tell me, "I don't think I will do it. I don't know what I would do with myself." Some of them surely must retire and then be unhappy. There must be a lot of former judges with post-retirement malaise, because the Tennessee Judicial Conference has periodic programs on postpartum depression.
When I get the question posed to me, I want to redefine it. I want the question to be, "How do you like not doing what you did for thirty-two years?" That's easy to answer: I love not doing what I did for thirty-two years. But in no sense do I consider myself "retired." I am just working in new areas. One of them is writing.
There are things I miss and don't miss about the judgeship of thirty-two years:
• I do not miss handling the busiest trial court of record in Tennessee. In the twelve months of 2013, my last full calendar year, I concluded 4,843 cases. (A "court of record" is one in which there is a record of the proceedings. In courts "not of record," oral proceedings are not recorded, and the judge makes his or her decision based on notes and memory. Circuit judge Rosenbalm's decision which you can read at the end of this book in ENDNOTE 2, was taken by a court reporter, and "put of record" — entered upon the minutes of the court — by the court clerk.)
• I do not miss talking to the jail at midnight to set bond and to schedule arraignments.
• I do not miss the lame excuses litigants give for man's inhumanity to man.
• I do not miss the sixty to seventy-hour work weeks — at court, in chambers, and at home — those hours absolutely necessary to handle incoming work. And I am sure my wonderful wife Diana does not miss those work weeks.
• I miss my great law clerks, who were then third-year law students from UT College of Law and Lincoln Memorial Law School — Elisabeth Bellinger, Jimmy Carter, Sharon Eun, John Higgins, Ryann Musick Jeffers, Holly Martin, Tina Osborn, Patrick Rose, Luke Shipley, Stephanie Epperson Stuart, Megan Swain.
• I miss the annual trial dockets Fourth Circuit held on the road at those two law schools, year after year, giving the entire student body — 1Ls, 2Ls, and 3Ls — real courtrooms, three of them, all day long. Complete with prisoners and weeping litigants.
• I miss my wonderful court clerks, the Knox County employees who worked so hard to help domestic violence victims.
• I miss the best secretary in the world, Rachel. (An aside here: When I ever-so-slowly eased out her excellent predecessor, who had become with time not so excellent, Rachel's predecessor told me I would "rue the day" if I should replace her. I did not.)
• I miss seeing my attorney friends five days a week.
• I miss my many Special Masters, who served without pay every Thursday on domestic violence day, so that with three courts we could handle the docket load.
• I miss the domestic violence docket itself — that is, I miss the good work that the Special Masters, that Pat Bright, a gifted professional, and I did week after week. We complemented and amplified the excellent work of Legal Aid of East Tennessee, of the University of Tennessee nursing program, and of a host of fifty other professionals who saw a problem and rose to meet it.
• I miss being in a judgeship which has the power to help people (1) directly, (2) on schedule, (3) when they ask for it. Of course, even now I can and do help people through pro bono work and otherwise.
• And happily I anticipate opening a mediation practice in family law soon, where again I will be able to help people (1) directly, (2) on schedule, (3) when they ask for it.
CHAPTER 2
WHO ARE THE BEST PEOPLE? LAWYERS ARE THE BEST PEOPLE
Mary Kathleen Cunningham and I married in 1966. In 1972 Mary and I left Providence, Rhode Island, to enter law school in my home town, at the University of Tennessee George C. Taylor College of Law. We had a two-year-old boy in arms.
Mary worked very hard and made law review. I worked very hard and made pater cum laude. Mary eventually died of MS; my second marriage (but for two fine children and some great in-laws) was a mistake; and my third marriage has been twenty years of bliss and counting.
There is perhaps a fourth marriage, or maybe even more, which I will explain in a moment.
It was immediately clear to me the first day of law school that my...
