After Central, I went to Earlham College, a Quaker school in Richmond, Indiana just west of the Ohio border on U.S. route 40. I majored in history and was a singer in Earlham’s two choirs all four years, graduating in June, 1966. Before the 1966 summer was over I had a pre-induction physical and was classified 1-A by my draft board. That status ended when I started Boston University Law School in September, 1966.
My first year in law school was an anxious time for me and I dreaded receiving my grades for that year. I was presently surprised to be in the top 10% of my class, which put me on Law Review. The last two years in law school were somewhat less stressful. I did not take an offer from the Boston Redevelopment Authority and instead joined the VISTA Lawyer Program, which gave me a choice of Cleveland or Detroit for service.
I chose Cleveland because I had an uncle who lived in a Cleveland suburb. I lived in three places from September, 1969 to October, 1970, all in Cleveland, and then in Lakewood, Ohio for close to two more years with VISTA. I met my wife Susan at a party for the Cleveland VISTA’s, all male at that time. We married in July, 1973.
My wife’s presence in Northeast Ohio led me to remain there and take a job in 1972 with the Lorain County Legal Aid Society, for which I worked for 15 months. In 1974 I opened my own law office, which I maintained until the end of 2012. From August,1977, to October, 1978 we lived in Oberlin, Ohio and both joined a choir there, for which I sung, off and on, until 2002.
We moved to Lorain, Ohio in October, 1978 because by then I had a job with the staff of the City of Lorain Law Department opposing Ohio Edison Company and Columbia Gas rate increases at the Public Utilities Commission, hearings in Columbus, Ohio. I was allowed to keep my law office open, but not for any criminal cases or cases with any government as a party. My assistant law director job lasted until April, 1982.
Since then, I have been involved in four public utility cases, negotiating with Columbia Gas, opposing an Ohio Edison rate increase, suing the telephone company for poor service to a client and working on a certificate to allow a moving company to start up.
Our daughter, Jennifer Beth, was born on December 3, 1979. She went to private Montessori schools, and thereafter public schools until graduation in 1998. She then went to Earlham College, also, and graduated in 2002. She got an information technology degree at the U. of Michigan, dated her college boy friend, married him in 2006, and has had two daughters, Cordelia (now 5) and Persephone (now 11/2). Her husband works for a law firm in Indianapolis and we go there often for visits. In a summer evening in 2011, Cordelia was about to let her cat out, I told her not to, she said “cats are nocturnal” and let the cat out.
My wife was more than four years ahead of me in retiring, having worked about 44 years as an occupational therapist. My legal specialities became consumer bankruptcies and Social Security disability cases, and I have two bankruptcies and two estates to finish before I’m done. I still belong to the Lorain Kiwanis club, read a lot and help take care of Susan, who is mostly in a wheel chair and is generally weak. My back hurts from trying to prevent Susan from falling and picking her up. So retirement in not yet as rosy as I hoped, going to Philadelphia seemed impossible now, and I only hope we can go to Cape Cod for the annual family reunion/vacation.
218th Central High School 