William Paul Youngclaus III -- Yale '61

How to Read This Blog

(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel

I have gotten, I think, only two comments of any substance, in my three-plus years of blogging. One was on my blog on David Muth's funeral. Type in "muth" and read it.

Where We Live Our Lives

Don't believe in coincidences?

In researching my eulogy presentation (see prior blog) on James J. Ryan, my former law partner, I called up a number of things. Somehow I called up (on Google) the whole University of Cincinnati campus newspaper from October 17, 1967 which had a feature on Merlene Shaine,
http://digitalprojects.libraries.uc.edu/newsrecord/1967/1967_10_13.pdf

then a student there in art. Well, Merlene eventually married David Muth. It just so happens that I did a blog piece on David Muth, who lived and worked two blocks away from my house, after going to his "home-work funeral" two years ago.

Type in "Muth" within this blog and you will find it. I got a nice comment from a stranger in South America on the Muth blog.

What We Learn When Special People Die

Foggy Bottoms, Shaggy Dogs
My Memories of James J. Ryan, My Partner

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel


My name is Bruce Abel, a law partner of Jim.[1]

If a warren of unruly rabbits or a flock of birds has one, Jim was the shepherding soul of the bevy of ten lawyers known as Steer, Strauss, White & Tobias, strong personalities all. He was the conciliator within the firm and never denigrated another. Lawyers must be actors of course. For the difficult telephone call with a corporate client, Jim had a wonderful, sonorous voice - The Authoritative Telephone Voice - to get us out of the jam.

We in the firm of feverishly-motivated, self-absorbed movers, all loved our work in the field of public utility law and the day-to-day general practice, but Jim also represented the bus company, SORTA, involving public issues, multiple meetings, labor arbitrations, much drafting of minutes, much advising and day-to-day contact with the managers.

Litigating massive taconite electric rate cases and natural gas curtailment hearings, along with lobbying for them, were his specialties, necessitated many weeklong trips to far-off hearings and courts in places such as Hibbing and St. Paul, Minnesota, a profitable yet hardscrabble livelihood.

Washington D.C. and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was also on his “beat,” for which he had the gravitas, sophistication and appearance of a state department diplomat, as well as mind and abilities to carry it off. And Jim would enjoy the Washington restaurants.

He would return with offbeat tales about Hibbing or Washington and was known to say with his unparalleled deadpan face: [chin up, at attention]

“My favorite job in life would be announcing the stops on the Washington Metro: “Coming up…Faragut North;” “step quickly please.” “Coming up…Foggy Bottom-GWU;” step quickly please.”

Quite often the firm lunched en masse, enjoying the “off-duty” time together and the random camaraderie of a busy partnership of travelers. Jim, after devouring all the gherkin pickles at the table at McAlpins 4th Floor Dining Room, would launch into one of his shaggy dog tales. While I pushed around my Club Salad, I would begin to wonder where the tale was heading. But then he would come out with a hilarious punch line.

He taught Jack Benny the timing of the deadpan look and the wait for the punch line. He was a captivating storyteller.

My favorite was about the New Yorker who illegally cloned himself for tense meetings because he could not control his own foul mouth and temper. One day at such a meeting the clone, swearing a blue streak, initiated a fistfight and fell out the window of a high-rise on 42nd Street, while trying to land a roundhouse punch at his business adversary. The shocked target of the punch rushed down to the street expecting to see a dead man - but the clone got up, said the fracas was all his fault, and brushed himself off. Nevertheless the police arrested the innocent man.
“And what was the other man prosecuted for?” Jim would say,
looking around at all of us “dumb clucks.” [pause]

“Making an obscene clone fall.”

Because I would often launch into a discussion of an ongoing non-utility case long after my partners knew it was a loser, Jim one day at lunch casually announced that he was banning me from ever mentioning it by name, instructing me to call it only “the ‘Uh Uh’ case.” I was allowed to say “May I talk now about the ‘Uh Uh’ case?” or better yet “I promise never again to mention the ‘Uh Uh’ case.”

We each worked on our own public utility cases. When we collaborated, however, we saw each other’s written work. He was of course very articulate and organized in his thoughts. But I was surprised by his effective insertion of quotes from a key case. Some quotes would be full page, single-spaced.

Introducing a long quote is very dangerous to the average writer. Not for Jim because his writing was crème brulee – a custardy, creamy celebration in the morass of typical legal documents; he could write for the taste of the angels and of the hearing examiners and judges. He took a lot of time to write and his research was thorough. The reader was disappointed to reach the end of the brief.

In the late 80’s the firm began to disassemble. And although many of the partners, including me, moved on to join another law firm, he did say to me. “You know, Bruce, we had a slightly higher culture at Steer Strauss.”

I was proud to be a partner with him.
[1] Greying indicates I did not say these words in order to cut down to the target number of minutes, or just forgot.

Chicago -- That Wonderful Town; Larry -- That Wonderful Man

I had an epiphany yesterday, and right in a Catholic church, too.

It wasn't the beautiful sunlight that struck me as I left St. Gabe's of Glendale, Ohio, after the service;

It wasn't the suprise of brushing against Greg Gumbel, there in person for his friend Larry Skowronek, and then of course giving a flawless remembrance: hilarious, focused, perfect timing, on Larry and his antics on the running track above the gymnasium of Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, and Larry's first comment to Greg on the football field after the Sophomores had clobbered the Freshmen: "You're the only damn player worth a xxx on your team!"

It wasn't seeing my beloved friends from all around Cincinnati, Hyde Park, and Hamilton;

It wasn't "Amazing Grace," #342, or "Make Me a Channel of Your Peace," #392, or "Shall We Gather at the River, #410, (Larry was big in crew organizations) or even the Recessional, "On Eagle's Wings, #336;

It wasn't the direct, lengthy service: simple beautiful selections and communion, so uplifting, pointing out Larry's now direct seat at the right hand of the Right Hand Up There, as well as his remaining presence here too;

It wasn't the clear Homily by Father David Fay, who really did not know the family but spoke directly to Jody with clarity and meaning;

It wasn't the beautiful writing of the First Reading, Responsorial, Second Reading;

It wasn't the reception at the Glendale Lyceum, so glorious on the sun porch, with all the usual suspects (i.e. the people Larry loved and many of the people I love);

It was the realization, through the baseball references at the funeral, that although I like to think I came to work in Cincinnati after Harvard Law School because of the Reds and their big-city glamour, in my heart I must have been a White Sox fan!

A White Sox fan? Whaa?

Mom's stories of life in Chicago upon arriving from England; the Lakefront. The train from Dayton, Ohio to Camp Miniwanca (at Muskeegon, Michigan) going right by the South Side and Commisky Park and my anticipation of the bulletin board at Camp with the Chicago Tribune sports page showing what the Sox had done, on crisp newspaper with the beautiful logo, facing the mid-day sun, wind scuttling off Stoney Lake.

Larry and Jody are "Iowa" and "Chicago" to me. What do I mean? Let me cornball my way through it, at least a start.

First, Iowa, and Dubuque, is a part of "Chicagoland." Chicago to me is liberation and toleration, hope and the future ("Larry never uttered a judgmental thought against another person in my memory," Larry-John, I think, said in his eulogy).

Nicholas Dawidoff -- And "Shura"

(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel

Read on. This is not boring, really. Really. (Or maybe it is.)

Nicholas Dawidoff, the author of the lead article on a great scientific thinker, Freeman Dyson, in Sunday's New York Times Magazine, is someone who himself struck us (Glendale Literary Club) as quite remarkable.

Remember this name: Nicholas Dawidoff.

I will later write that in finding this article today, confirms my belief that everything in the world relates to everything else. Personally, and to each of us. In our case (Glendale Literary Clubbers) two of the personalities, Dawidoff and John McPhee (in last week's New Yorker) are "relatives" of people in the Glendale Literary Club, Ted Carman, Sr. and Mary Stewart, respectively. Or it was Ted Carman Sr.'s funeral that brought "Nicky" to Glendale and into our consciousness.

Glendale Ohio, for heaven's sake, here in the middle of the eastern middle-west, not Cambridge, Massachusetts!

First, before going on (and on) talk amongst yourselves or join with me while I finish reading the subject article in yesterday's New York Times Magazine:


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?hpw

Next, here are my minutes of the February, 2004 Glendale Literary Club meeting where Snowden Armstrong gave his paper on Dawidoff and the books that he has written, including one on "Shura" of Harvard:

Snowden’s tale began at Ted Carman Sr.’s funeral in 2001.

By the way, I remember that day. I foolishly looked out at the Presbyterian Church standing in my kitchen at 885 Greenville, realizing too late that I had been too lazy to go to that funeral (50 yards away) because of some other “pressing” matter, or the effort it would take to shower and otherwise clean up. Never again. Oh to have had Snowden’s rich encounter with Dawidoff! As well as paying tribute to a great man himself, Ted Carman Sr.

Back to Snowden: at the reception at the Glendale Presbyterian Church he was standing next to a man a generation younger than he, named "Nicky." Nicky stood at the Presbyterian Church reception as a New “Yawker;” and was a teller of goofy jokes.

Snowden began to realize Nicky was smart, not a smart-alec. He turned out to be one of the most accomplished persons Snowden had ever met.

Let us peel back this particular artichoke of the man and author "Nicky" the way Snowden so beautifully does in his paper:

Nicky was married to Ted Carman Sr.’s daughter Rebecca, Nicky and Rebecca having met at Harvard.

Nicky was an author of the book "In the Country of Country," a book about country musicians from the perspective of their home places and friends.

Snowden wrote

"I thought: how could one so ethnically removed and urban know anything about 'country.' I asked him how he had gained an interest in country music. He replied simply that an uncle had liked country music."
Nicky had also written a book ("The Catcher Was a Spy") about Moe Berg, a Princeton grad, and professional baseball player who had been a spy during World War II; and another about Nicky's grandfather, a distinguished professor at Harvard University: "Shura."

At dinner with Ted Carman, Jr., a day after the funeral, Ted told Snowden that Nicky had spent more than two years trekking the Appalachians and flats of Arkansas visiting with the country musician performers and their relatives.

But his most recent book was about his grandfather, Alexander Gerschenkron, (easy for you to spell!) known affectionately as "Shura," at Harvard, (Snowden gave me a copy of this book, since I went to Harvard Law School, and I have ½ finished it and it is absorbing.)

(FBA ed. note: My best friends at Harvard when I was at the law school in 1961-64) were graduate students in the economics department: Philip and Elmer Schaefer, "whiz kids" from Chicago, and Henry Nejako. The name Gerschenkron I am sure, was bandied about by them, although I couldn’t swear to it today.)

Alexander Gerschenkron had escaped from Russia in 1918; lived in Vienna and thrived there as a professor; had escaped the Germans in 1939 to go to England.

This from Harvard Magazine:

"Being a professor at Harvard enabled Shura to become fully himself, allowed him to decide who he wanted to be and to fashion himself into that man. As a member of that community, Shura found himself in the greatest country in the world, 'the finest thing' in which was Harvard, the best part of which, in turn, was the economics department. Here was both 'a realization of personality and reconstruction.'”

One of the book’s major points is that Russians are show-offs. They may appear to do elaborate things for long-range effects but it is always to get attention at the moment. Shura was interested in anything and would delve into it exhaustively. As Snowden points out he never wrote one great work, but plenty of short great works. He created the economic concept of “Backwardness” as being an advantage to Russia and other countries trying to emulate England’s industrial revolution. While working for the secret service on a project he merely stared at the Soviet Union’s five-year plan numbers and, after months of staring, figured out they were fudging the numbers, and exactly what it was that drove the fudging.

Shura wrote, after spending some semesters in California:

“don’t ever live in California; it’s too beautiful. You’ll spend your afternoons playing chess and gazing out into the Pacific.”

Shura, a Russian, was a show-off but he was so accomplished that Harvard knew he was the king, and all loved him openly.

Nicky, the grandson of "Shura,"standing at the Presbyterian Church -- while less than 50 yards away I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 885 Greenville Avenue and missing the experience -- is a Guggenheim Fellow and a Berlin Prize Fellow.



Respectfully submitted


F Bruce Abel

David Muth

I live and work two blocks away from a "young," 61-year-old, lovely man who died January 20, 2008, in Glendale Ohio, after a fight with testicular cancer. My only regret is that I didn't spend more time with him, as our connections were one-timish and business-related. I went to his wake today and met his younger brother Michael, 51, and other family, in from all over the country.

Of course we never know the true nature of such wonderful people unless they are family. There should be a sign posted in front of the homes and businesses of such special men and women who perforce do not promote themselves to the public aggressively: "stop -- you must stop! -- if you have time to meet one of the very best persons on this planet. He will take his busy time to listen and you will be a better person yourself."

The wake was at his business, and that of his wife -- two separate but compatible businesses. The eye-examination room was converted into an impromptu theater which showed on a 21" large Apple screen, a few friends and family-members presenting their thoughts this week. One was an old-time friend who had shared a house when the two were bachelors and before each got married. Well done, well done.

The back room had wonderful food of much variety and Cokes.

Snapshots and paintings by his young, talented wife Merlene were present everywhere, testifying to the lovely man at play with his devoted dogs, on boats on the Ohio River, and otherwise. His professional accomplishments were in the form of helping the handicapped among awards from his peer group.

This wake was so much more meaningful and personal than a church service could have been, as it was in the midst of the place where David and Merlene lived their lives.