Friday, March 2, 2012
Lucky
I have been thinking about something you said years ago--maybe even in a note--after Steve's first medical set back. It was something about him being a better, more attentive listener and friend after his "disability". For all the years since then, I was so aware that he was really present--not reading the backs of matchbooks, mayonnaise jars or whatever else his voracious mind could absorb. And, he became so thoughtful--like when he downloaded all his favorite audiobooks for me to listen to while on long plane trips.
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Steven befriended me on my first day as a summer associate at Mofo back in June, 1975. He was a second year associate or some such and was "cool" enough to make me think a hippie single parent like me might make it through a couple of years before moving on to a more suitable public interest job. Like so many have said of him from every period of his life, he was my best friend. Using the phrase from his memorial service, I hope I was one of his "twelve best friends" from Mofo days.
ReplyDeleteThe role Steven played during my associate and young partnerhood at Mofo was to remind me over and over again not to take it all so seriously. On one occasion we were both working late--on different projects for different supervisors. We left together and he talked me into signing out of Mofo's highrise office as "Minnie Mouse" underneath his signature he as "Donald Duck".
Needless to say, the security guard reported me (the memorable red headed female) to my supervisor, then firm Chairman Bob Raven. Bob, in turn, asked the head of the litigation department, Mel Goldman, who delegated to Bill Alsup (my direct supervisor) the task of talking with me about to take up with me the matter of my transgression. I want to say that I didn't give "Donald" up--but my explanation about why I and my unidentified male companion thought it was funny to sign out with comic book aliases was not well received. Bob's and Mel's and Bill's ultimate response was an institutional expression of concern about how maybe I was was in need of some "time off" (which, in my paranoid state, I assumed would be permanent).
Steven's advice? "Deny it was you even if they have pictures..." And, once I admitted that I had confessed--"Why didn't you blame it on me--I can take the heat?"
Amazingly enough, I don't think Steven and I ever actually worked on a case or matter together and we rarely "talked shop". Peter Pfister's stories do some justice to those years--but I want to say very directly that Steven made the Mofo years fun for me and many, many others.
My 35 year friendship with Steven helped keep me at least sort of sane and relatively safe from the dark angry/sad places lawyers can inhabit if they don't find a friend like him. So, thank you Jackie, Alicia, Nick and Lizzie for sharing him.