In my view, an enemy is not worth accumulating hatred in my heart. The enemy should be forgiven, not as any kind of offering of rekindling of the former pre-ememy station, but for my own mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. The buddhists call this triune consideration "the three treasures." Quite recently I fell out with a Judge whom I have practiced for over 30 years. Prior to that he was an Assistant District Attorney General. We fought in those years. But that's over. He said something designed to humiliate me in front of my clients, their families and other gallery members that ended all that. He shouted, "turn around!" The verbal instruction was borne from anger and, most likely, a dormant hatred for me that was generated long ago based on my political stances and his indoctrination into rightwing Republicanism by his father. I could not sit still, so in lieu of admonishing him in open court, which, based on my prior histrionics and anger would have landed me seated before a hearing panel of the Board of Professional Responsibility, so I waited. I told the truth to his power in an email. It provided, inter alia, that "your hostility toward me did not go unnoticed by my client, his family, the mother of another client who was in the courtroom, a couple of former clients present, the girl (TH) who lives up [my] street with her grandmother, and least importantly, me." I then described how I was treated by his father when I first arrived in Morristown with 850.00, some used office furniture and a 286 computer and printer. I wrote, "vivid in my recollection was the aversion I experienced when I first arrived. In particular, your father, whom I did not know, [he was a hateful old lawyer who was with the richest firm in town], call me one day and asked me to meet him at his Georgian Court office [very bourgeois], and to bring with me my original diplomas from U.T. Chattanooga, the NSL Law School, and my law license." All these were framed on hung on my new, very spartain office walls, so I had to take them down. I continued, "I entered his office with these framed objects of his request, and suffered his very caustic questioning." I recall him questiong my intentions here in Morristown. I don't know if his son, Judge Dugger knew about this. I likewise reminded the Judge how he "lavished upon" another lawyer prior to my case getting called up "complimentary observations despite the fact that [this lawyer] had a distant history of driving drunk, crashing into tow women, iilling one and forever crippling the other and then driving off without checking on either of them." I then reminded that the Judge's . . . "father represented him." Telling the truth gets me in in alot of shit with powerful people. He effectively barred me from practicing in his Court, transfering all of my pending cases to Criminal Court, Part II. ADVERSITY is the story of my personal and professional lives. I think that it has made me extraordinarily resilient. To have let this go would have diminished my self-worth, which still climbs steadily but slowly from the hole of self-loathing. I cann't afford to do that, regardless of what it costs me. I never thought I'd live this long. I suppose that I've been allowed a lot of time to correct my many flaws and learn from every god damned one of them, especially those ostensible flaws that others wear untreated.
