What has been your favorite reading through the years?

There have been three periods in which my reading has focused on different areas. From nine to seventeen my reading outside schoolwork focused on theology, history, and trial lawyers. Following college and law school, my focus was on documents and case law arising from my work and popular mystery and spy novels. Since retirement, my focus has been on politics and changes in social behavior – or at least trying to understand what happened to a country I thought I knew to the one that has evolved while I was focused on work and family.

          From the time I was midway through my eighth year until sometime around fifteen, I read the Bible every morning. Our church provided a list of daily Bible readings. After making my bed and getting dressed for school, I spent around 15 minutes reading the daily passage and my form of praying. I say “my form” because it differed from what my church appeared to call “praying.”

             The church prayers seemed to beseech God to do things -- bless this, bless that. I do not recall asking God for anything other than during the night my paternal grandfather’s life appeared to be on the line. That night, I promised God anything and everything if He would simply save my grandfather. Otherwise, my “prayers” felt more like conversations. I would ask questions about things that had tickled my curiosity, or injustices as I came to see them. I did not ask Him to explain but rather if it be his will, to direct me toward understanding. When asked to give grace at a meal during this period, my prayer was, “Dear God. Thy will be done. Amen.” Needless to say, I was not asked to give the blessing before meals after the first couple of times.

           While the daily Bible reading continued, I discovered “segregation” at age nine. Dad took the phone from me and told Ronald Hayden’s parents that I would call back. He then explained to me that Ronald and my other black friends had not shown up to try out for the newly formed Little League because they were not invited. He confirmed my belief that 90% of the town was Christian and went to church on Sundays. He could not satisfactorily explain why a Christian would believe a black child should not have the same opportunity as a white child, or where Jesus had said that black people were different in the eyes of God than white people.

           That led me to spend the next five years reading about (1) how the Bible was put together and when various books were written, (2) all the religions in the world that ultimately led me to Lao Tzu (who had lived 500 years before Jesus), and (3) Will and Ariel Durant’ s Histories of Civilizations.

              The Dao (or the Way) Lao Tzu had taught was quite similar to what I had come to believe were Jesus’ teachings (which appeared in only two chapters of Mathew and Luke – as I have explained in Dear Children, which was made available to each grandchild after they reached 21). This reading led me to believe that Jesus had provided the best lessons for life but had done so perhaps inspired by God but not as God’s son. I have tried to follow his guidance throughout my life while not believing he rose from the dead to sit at the right-hand of God. By sixteen, I had promised my father, a deacon in the Baptist Church and a Sunday School teacher to keep my beliefs to myself in the interest of his law practice and my mother’s peace of mind.

              For pleasure during high school, I read about great trial lawyers. I loved to read the cross-examinations of witnesses. At one point, I could recite almost the entire cross-examination by Clarence Darrow of William Jennings Bryan from the Scopes trial. At the time I thought I was going to be a teacher and a coach, but obviously, in hindsight, this interest was a precursor for the path I would eventually take.

              From the time I went to college until I retired from the practice of law, I had little time for pleasure reading. My cases involved hundreds of thousands of pages of documents to be reviewed and hundreds of pages of legal decisions to be read and understood. While I practiced law, the only casual reading I did were murder mysteries and spy thrillers – books I could get in paperback at the airport and read on the plane. I made it a point not to take out any of my case material on a plane lest someone read even a portion of the material – all of which was privileged or work-product.

           I tried to choose best-sellers because they provided an insight into what might appeal to my potential jury. In that regard, everyone who worked with me was required to watch at least two episodes of the top ten T.V. programs each year. For 44 years, except for family activities, pretty much everything I did, including reading for pleasure, was intended to help me be successful in the courtroom.

          Since I have retired, my reading has been focused on political and financial matters. The Obama, Trump, and Biden presidencies have led this country into a dividedness that is unprecedented in my lifetime. Even the Vietnam War period did not come close to the rancor and lack of tolerance for competing ideas that has arisen in this country.

            My reading tends to be reactive these days. For example, in 2021 I read a diatribe aimed at the racist, fascists, and evil people who supported Trump. I researched the final election count for each state and wrote a piece pointing out that Trump carried forty-five states by over five million votes. Biden’s margin of victory in the popular vote came from the overwhelming victories in California, New York, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey. I posted it on Facebook and it was taken off as misinformation in less than 24 hours. The only source I used was the actual final voting results from each state. Facts have become misinformation.

              I read several news pieces attacking changes in Georgia voting laws presumably aimed at disabling blacks and Hispanics from exercising their right to vote. Using only information available on the Secretaries of States website and census data, I wrote a piece detailing the lack of underlying evidence for the conclusions being drawn in that regard. Again, it was taken off Facebook as misinformation (all the facts were from official government documents) within 24 hours and I was suspended from Facebook.

             I have reached a point where I try not to read political articles. I have developed a disdain for journalists because I have been able, over and over, to eviscerate with facts their misleading and sensational headlines and the summary of assumptions that underly their stories.  I spend most of my time reviewing financial information related to investing. I have lost the desire to read novels. I have written fiction each day to keep your grandmother’s mind stimulated. However, given the issues affecting our society, it seems too frivolous to allow one’s fancy to wander too deeply into the joy of fiction. I hope I am wrong, but we seem to have lost sight of a common purpose in this country. We certainly do not seem to be a people receptive to Kennedy’s entreaty – “Ask not what your country can do for you; rather ask what you can do for your country.”

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