40 years of work

It's the Labor Day holiday, celebrating the working men and women who made America great. Until I retired in 2016, I've always worked. From 1972-1976, following dropping out of college to work full time on the McGovern campaign after my sophomore year, I worked in the restaurant industry in New York City for a year then spent winters in Aspen and summers on Nantucket, enjoying skiing or beach time during the days and working at night.

Then after I returned to college to finish up my BA in history, I became a lawman from 1977 to 1987, two years as a deputy in Boulder County and seven years as a Colorado State Trooper. The latter was a job I enjoyed very much, being a first responder in the foothills and mountains in Jefferson County and Boulder County and spending a year on duty in Denver as part of the Executive Security Detail protecting Governor Lamm.

The first of my three children arrived in 1986 and I decided to get a more "regular" job rather than alternating the day shift with the night shift every two weeks with a week of graves thrown in every six weeks. So I went off to law school and worked as a consumer protection attorney for the government from 1990 to 2016 when I retired on principle due to discriminatory ageism by the new, current breed of self-serving mid-level managers that have no regard for institutionalism or their workers.

Since then I have tried to be a good, patriotic citizen working to return America to greatness and its traditions after four years of enervation and existential chaos. From being cemented in place for hours on the Mall by the overwhelming crowd at the Women's March in 2017 to now when I've carefully researched my voting plant, I've tried to continue making a difference after 40 years of actual productive labor broken only by two stints in school. In 2016 I worked in the presidential campaign for a candidate I didn't particularly like but who was obviously vastly superior  to the totally unqualified candidate opposing her.  In 2017, in addition to working in the Virginia gubernatorial campaign, I effected a pro se a settlement with my agency that granted me i) my proper last review of a grade of all Outstanding; ii) a lifetime achievement award; iii) a monetary settlement; iv) a requirement that the division provide training for management specifically relating to the scourge of ageism discrimination; v) including for any former managers who returned within five years (the manager most responsible, with help from the other managers he was in cahoots with, left the agency abruptly two weeks after I retired suddenly); and vi) most importantly to me, it did not contain NDA, because I don't believe in hiding away evidence or suggestions of wrongdoing behind ubiquitous NDAs.  In 2018 I worked all fall to help flip the nearby Tenth Virginia Congressional District from the party that held the seat for forty years.  Last year I registered voters and attended rallies in support of the impeachment of our incompetent, rogue president who is tearing down our country, perhaps irrevocably.  This year I've lined up neighbors to come vote with me at City Hall on the first day early voting opens, Friday, September 18th in Virginia.  I'm proud of my more than 40 years of lifetime work, and all the volunteering and other activism I've done done contributing to the community as well.  

Great Expectations, the final chapter.

Joe & Biddy, Herbert & Clara, Wemmick & Miss Skiffins, they all get conveniently and neatly married at the end of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. All the relationships are tied up in a neat bow. 

Even Jaggers the lawyer has his wild housekeeper, whom he seems to tame and also maintain. Oh, did you know that…(SPOILER ALERT)...she turns out to be Estella's mother? 

Or that…(SPOILER ALERT)…Provis, Pip's benefactor, turns out to be Estella's father? Or that Compeyson, Provis' mortal enemy throughout the book, who is responsible for Provis' capture and sentence of death and who was killed by him, is the…(SPOILER ALERT)…man who jilted Miss Havisham at the altar decades earlier and turned her into a vengeful recluse? 

Even the leg iron that Provis the convict sawed off his ankle years earlier during his first escape attempt, using the file that Pip the child brought to him from Joe's blacksmith forge, was used by Orlick the mean apprentice to kill Mrs. Joe, Pip's older sister, in a dastardly murder. That's a lot of interweaving and wrapping up of all the moving parts. In the revised ending, Pip gets the girl in the end.

Estella, the breaking moonlight touching the tears dropping from her eyes, says to Pip at their chance encounter, "'I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better shape. Be as considerate and as good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.'

"'We are friends,' said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench. 'And will continue friends apart,' said Estella. 

"I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

I came down to help...

In December 2011 I brought my expertise to a regional office. They lost the case. Why is this man smiling?

I've joined

I was dragged into the new century today because I had to add word moderation (requiring a word recognition pause) to the comment section of my blog. Sorry!

Anonymous was getting out of hand about his investment opps, "school" projects, Vegas fun, adult sites, conspiracy theories and more. I was deleting two or three of his "comments" a day.

I dislike censorship in any form, and I am chary of leaving my own comments on moderated comment sections (where the owner has to approve them first) and I find word recognition pauses to be time consuming and frustrating because I can't make out some of those bizarre, run together letter combinations. Oh well.

It's the world we live in, where nothing is free or innocent or fair or easy and system momentum seems to operate against purely "having fun." Live forever in hell with all the divorce lawyers, Anonymous.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

James Wilson Lamberton, lawyer; b. Winona, MN, [mid-1920s]; Henry M. & Gretchen (Leicht) L.; m. Barbara Ann [maiden name]; children: [six]. A.B. magna cum laude, Carleton Coll. 1949; J.D. Yale U. 1952. Bar: D.C. 1952, N.Y. 1960, U.S. Supreme Ct. 1963. Assoc. firm Clearly [sic], Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, N.Y.C. 1953-62; ptnr. Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, N.Y.C. 1963-1982, ret. ptnr., 1982--; dir. Western Union Corp., Western Union Telegraph Co. Bd. dirs. S.I. Mental Health Soc., 1965-1973, Community Action for Legal Services, N.Y.C. 1968-74, Carleton Coll. Alumni Bd., 1981--; chmn. devel. com. Carleton Coll. Alumni Bd., 1982--. Mem. ABA, N.Y. County Lawyers Assn. (dir. 1973-82, pres. 1981-82). Clubs: Yale (N.Y.C.); Nantucket Yacht. Home: POB Santa Fe NM 87504-8366

Source: Who's Who in America, 43rd edition 1984-85 (Published by Maquis Who's Who).

Happy birthday, Dad. There's a lot that didn't make it into the book, like your wartime service with the First Marine Division, and those two month-long summer "vacations" you spent in 1963 (Jackson, MS) & 1964 (Gainesville, FL) volunteering your services in the civil rights movement. I'm glad that you were able to hold at least one of my three sons (the one named after you, even though he has since changed his name) in your strong hands before you passed on at too early an age when you were 61 years young.

Got debt?

I received a strange phone call yesterday. I'm home this week on annual leave.

Ms. Chisum called, and using my first name, asked how I was doing. Since I don't know any Ms. Chisum, I was immediately suspicious.

She wanted to know if had a neighbor by the name of, let's say, Juan Gonzalez. I asked why.

Instead of answering my question, she drew out the conversation. She correctly said that I lived on [street name and number], and continued, "And Mr. Gonzalez lives at, I want to say... I want to say... [street name and number], right?" That is the correct address for the house next door.

I said, "You must be a bill collector."

She said,"No." I'm pretty sure she was lying at this point, but perhaps she was denying that she "must" be a bill collector.

I said I didn't know the name of who lived next door. She asked if I would go post a note on their door.

At that house, there has been a succession of yearly tenants, usually several unrelated adults with children sometimes present. There have been a few police visits to the house over the years, with at least one being in response to an alleged shooting there.

Last year I had my garage spray painted with a gang sign, the numeric designation of an urban semi-automatic gun. I have my suspicions who did it since there was a large party going on next door on that weekend day when I drove away at noon, and the party was over and the obscene symbol was on my garage wall a few hours later when I returned.

I asked Ms. Chisum what the note would say. You like to be helpful. Perhaps the occupant's wife was in labor in Bolivia or something and he needed to call home.

Ms. Chisum said, "It would just contain my name and number, with a note asking Mr. Gonzalez to call."

I asked her if she was a bill collector. There was a long silence and then Ms. Chisum said, "I already said no to your earlier question."

I declined to undertake the requested action and the call terminated.

In my profession, I deal with the Fair Debt Collections Practice Act ("FDCPA"), a statute written by Congress which prohibits debt collectors from engaging in a laundry list of abusive practices like smearing an individual's name by calling up his or her neighbors (or employers--sometimes repeatedly) and alerting them to the supposed presence of a deadbeat in their midst. I referred to the wording of the statute and found that Ms. Chisum either did, or did not, violate the statute if she was a debt collector, which I'm pretty sure she was.

She was entitled to call me up if she was genuinely trying to locate the actual address of the deadbeat. She cannot state to an unrelated party that the purpose of the call involves an attempt to collect a debt. She has to give her name. So far Ms. Chisum complied.

If directly asked, she has to disclose the name of her employer. I asked how she was employed, not who her employer was. It would do me little good if she said to me, "I work for the ABC Company."

I consulted with a fellow lawyer who said that theoretically my question whether she was a debt collector triggered Ms. Chisum's duty under that part of the statute to truthfully respond, putting her in violation of the FDCPA. I'm not sure I agree with that, but this attorney agreed with me that neither of us would go to court to try to cite this set of facts as being clearly violative of the FDCPA.

This attorney also said that Ms. Chisum was very professional and acted correctly by not disclosing to me that Mr. Gonzalez was a deadbeat. Which would have been apparent if she had confirmed that she was a debt collector.

See how vague this statute, like many statutes, is? Ms. Chisum was lying to me, but fulfilling the spirit of the law. Where does that leave me, the innocent recipient of this legally allowable call?

I know this much. If I was naive and eager to help without first ascertaining all the facts (the "wife giving birth in Bolivia" scenario), I could go post the requested note next door and step right into the middle of an acrimonious financial dispute. This would be a great thing to unleash in a neighborhood.

Imagine this scenario. I post the supposedly innocuous note on my neighbor's door. Mr. Gonzalez comes home at midnight, having put in a hard day's work followed by a full evening of relaxation at a tavern. He's handed a note which he sees as a demand by a debt collection company to call them, which has been taped onto his door by his next-door neighbor.

I'd sure like to hear pounding on my door at midnight, forcing me to arise from bed so I could go discuss on my porch the note I'd posted hours earlier on my enraged neighbor's door in an attempt to be helpful.

Did I already say it's a vague (in parts) statute?

The current State of the Law

I was in Denver last week on business. Here is the view of Denver's downtown 16th Street Pedestrian Mall from my hotel window. That's the D & F Tower in the center of the photograph.

I was there to appear for the government in an agency case brought in federal court. It is very contentious litigation.

Since I'm new to my division and have had a lot of litigation experience, I was put on this case, which is filled with nasty motions practice (sanctions motions, threats of rule 11 motions, discussions of sanctions, phony meet-and-confer phone calls about overblown issues that potentially could lead to sanctions, casually worded assurances of applying for and winning personal sanctions at the end of the case (so they can take your house), etc.). It's what American jurisrudence has come to. After some of the calls in this case, one of my wonderful and capable co-counsels, L, soothes my outrage with the admonition, "Zen, Peter, zen."

I liken lawyers talking to kids playing in a sandbox. When the sand starts flying, I always try to be the adult. Someone has to be.

My greeting to the case from opposing counsel, when I first made an appearance by participating in a phone conference, was to be called a "jerk." Really. Then she and I had a silly extended argument over whether she said I was a jerk or said I was acting like a jerk. I insist on the former but frankly, I don't see the difference. Maybe I'm not a good enough lawyer to grasp the nuance here.

After all, opposing counsel is always telling me that I don't know the law. And she professes to like me. She always starts off with, Now Peter, you know I like you. Then she adds something like, But when this case is over, I'm going to have to file a rule 11 against you personally.

This is gibberish (you can't file for personal Rule 11 sanctions on a case, only on a motion or a pleading) but I guess that's her way of making nice. Here's to you too.

But being in Denver allowed me to see my oldest sister, who lives there, and her two children. Here they are. A just finished a year-long trip around the world. Here's a link to his travel blog relating his journey. He is hoping to move to Canada where his fiancee lives. I think his planned move has much to do with his youthful and righteous disgust at the special-interests driven, stupid and bankrupt American health-care system. We talked a lot about our travesty of a "system," and the kinder and gentler Canadian system which provides world class health care for all, during my visit. P is an architectural student finishing her last year at the University of Oregon.

The nighttime encounter

The policeman peered through the windshield of his marked unit at the man in the parking lot who was undressing in public in the dark. It was 8 pm, the cop was just coming on duty, and he had barely climbed into his squad car, parked in the town hall lot, when a man had emerged from a pickup truck parked directly across the travel lane from him, twenty feet away.

The man threw down the tailgate of the truck and sat on it. He pulled off his shoes and peeled off his socks. A few people from an exercise class at the nearby community center milled about in the parking lot.

Standing on the pavement in his bare feet, the man unbuttoned his dress shirt and shrugged it off. Was he wearing anything underneath? It was hard to tell in the gloom but it seemed he was wearing a cream colored t-shirt with writing on it.

The man unbuckled his belt and undid his trouser button. Unzipping his fly, he opened his pants. The policeman's hand tightened on the car door as he stared hard through the night.

The man dropped his trousers and stepped out of them. The policeman started to open his car door. Did the man have on anything covering his lower extremities? Was that a shadow or something form-fitting and dark?

The cop’s hand came back off the door handle. The man was wearing black Lycra shorts underneath high-cut black running shorts. The man went to the cab of his truck, threw his discarded clothing inside and reached for something. He emerged with a yoga mat, wheeled about on his bare feet and strode away towards the community center.

The cop ran the plate to see where this male yoga practitioner lived, then fired up his cruiser and swung out into the street for the start of his shift. Yep, the guy lived in town all right. The cop made a mental note to drive by the address later and check out this guy’s house.

[My brother believes I dislike authority. I don’t know about that, but I do firmly believe in questioning authority. When I saw the cop watching me last night as I sat in my parked car preparing to go to yoga class, I just had to get out of my vehicle and get ready in front of him. Sort of a statement. I wasn't doing anything wrong. Funny thing is, I used to be a cop. Now I’m a lawyer. Sigh. If you’re ever in danger and need help fast, go find a cop because a cop will act swiftly to resolve the situation. On the other hand, a lawyer will be worse than useless.

Last night was only my second yoga class in the last six months. It felt so good to be back at it!]