"Oh, Shut Up!"
Reports filtering back from a pre-reunion lunch of law school classmates in Chicago have reminded me what a cut-up I used to be. (Used to be?) Sitting in the back of the lecture rooms, I doodled endlessly and improvised limericks, which for a unique moment in my life poured forth. (Even if I'd saved them, you'd have had to be there, as they were all woven of references to nicknames and fresh anecdotes.) But one of my unscholarly activities enlisted the students sitting nearby as an audience. There happened to be a somewhat strange man who sat toward the front of the hall and who specialized in asking, with comic regularity, penetrating questions concerning topics that had been thoroughly disposed of in the preceding class. Professors politely let him ramble; in the back, we were losing it. One day, I drew a picture on the inside cardboard backing of my legal pad. I would refine it on further legal pads throughout the year. It looked like this:
Although there was only one head, and, beneath it, the legend read "Oh, shut up!" That was in 1977. You can imagine my astonishment when I came across this 1984 Ken Brown postcard.
Comments
How I wish I had taken up sitting in the back of the room earlier in my law school career--I completely missed out on this antic of yours. Too bad you no longer have the limericks--you could do an interpretive reading at the reunion. Actually, one of my favorite recollections of your unscholarly activities in law school was the day you brought needlepoint to Torts class which, if memory serves, was more than a little disconcerting to the professor...
Posted by: jkm | February 26, 2005 06:49 PM
Oh yes, that... Faking out Charlie Rice was a number-one ambition. The man was utterly unflappable. I took a needlepoint kit to class, sat on the aisle about two-thirds of the way back, and stitched away, using full lengths of yarn - my hand would all but reach to the ceiling. This went on for over an hour. I figured that he'd seen me and was doing the unflappable thing - I was impressed. I was just about to give it up when Charlie stopped dead and flushed candy-apple red, his mouth agape.
Tuition: Thousands.
Charlie Rice: Speechless.
Satisfaction: Priceless.
Posted by: R J Keefe | February 26, 2005 06:57 PM
So True!!
Posted by: Morales of Montclair | February 26, 2005 07:02 PM
You had to be there!
Posted by: Charlotte of Denmark | February 26, 2005 07:03 PM
Well, it was in honor of me, anyway!!
Posted by: Brian Daley | February 26, 2005 07:05 PM
There were other pranks, and pranksters...how about the Valentine's Day stunt for Charlie's torts class first year...
Posted by: Anonymous | February 26, 2005 07:09 PM
Don't you "Anonymous" me, young lady! That was Jenny Durkin - what was she dressed up as? She wasn't even in law school yet - and it was the same Con Law class, second year.
Posted by: R J Keefe | February 26, 2005 07:15 PM
'Morales of Montclair'--now there's a name that I hadn't heard in years (at least not until Friday's lunch).
Posted by: jkm | February 26, 2005 07:59 PM
Oh--I just remembered another one of RJ's cut-ups: location--the law school lounge; a TGIF party with music; and RJ leading a conga-line to Donna Summer's 'Bad Girls', waving a dollar bill with a trail of women following on.
Posted by: jkm | February 26, 2005 08:06 PM
RJ-You are too funny and yes, remember all of those moments. You and your antics were the topic of conversation at the lunch on Friday (and you should have been there.....we had a great time). Needless to say, there was much laughter at our table....love to Morales.
Posted by: Sheila O'Brien | February 26, 2005 10:44 PM
Ah, but did you ever strip down to your underwear, deadpan, in the middle of an undergraduate library during exam time? And then read poetry with your friends, also stripped down to their underwear, while standing on the library tables? There are photographs. One of the many, many reasons I will never run for political office. (On the other hand, I have never pimped myself over the internet, and that doesn't seem to have stopped some people from going on to occupations just as respectable as politics, such as journalism.)
Posted by: Biscuit | February 27, 2005 09:00 AM
I obviously entered the wrong profession.
Posted by: patricia | February 27, 2005 08:19 PM
Ken Brown is an old friend of Karen's from the Boston days with a legendary eye, and the world's best postcard collection.
Posted by: ken roberts | February 28, 2005 12:42 PM