In Seattle the motorist is lost in a vast uncaring world and only finds meaning when he reaches the city limits on his way out. Street parking is dangerous. One can be easily trapped by those who park around your car when you have left it believing escape will be available at a moment’s notice. … More Parking in Seattle is an Existentialist Crisis
The night before a trial is a particularly poignant moment. I find I cannot organize what I am thinking for this post without some reference to antiquity, and recall those who also find it hard to sleep before such a battle. The soliloquy Upon the King from Henry V comes to mind. As William Shakespeare … More A Soliloquy Upon the Eve of Trial
There is nothing more delightful than Christmas in England. It is a peaceful time of joy and hope, and as I have come to believe, it is the experience of the British as a people that makes it so. This thesis has been long incubating in the back of my mind. Christmas dinner two years … More Christmas in England
Fr. Karol Józef Wojtyła drove an ancient Ford Escort with a 1.1 liter engine and a 4 on the floor manual shifter. He kept a small tin for mints on the dashboard with an image of Our Lady on the lid. In this most holy expression of unassuming transport, he completed the journey from Poland … More The Pope’s Old Ford: Lessons in Simplicity
Among the great surprises of history was the speed of which France fell to the German invasion in 1940. We armchair historians tend to gloss over the event, and focus solely on the heroic last stand Britian made that following summer. In doing so we miss a remarkable drama that unfolded in the few weeks … More Churchill Recalls: The Fall of France- May 10 1940 to Dunkirk
So I have this dream. It is night and I am living alone in the house my grandparents built during the Second World War. It has been raining, in real life a rare thunder and lightening storm has blown through the Seattle area over night. I look out the window and see my car is … More The Hindenberg Ticket
By Robert Frost In this bit of a lawyer’s road review I wish to dedicate this poem to our daughter Rachel J. Patterson. Most of us from around these parts graduate from High School, maybe go to college but nearly always return to the headwaters of our family origin, a town a lot like Everett … More The Road Not Taken
“I say this to Congress, we have to stand up to Putin. Send me a bipartisan national security bill. History is watching. If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe will be at risk. The free world will be at risk…My message to President Putin: We will not walk away. … More Defend Ukraine Defend Ourselves
In the Second World War, young Russian women, often just girls, would volunteer to fight at the front against the Germans. If assigned to a tank medical corps, their position was to ride on the back of a tank into battle while the male soldiers rode inside driving the tank and firing the weapons. Russian … More Baby Boomers: Born at the Right Time and Place.
By now in my practice I have come to recognize those things I may cherish my children may find to be so much junk they have to off load when I have passed on from this earth. Regularly I hear the tale of houses packed with bits and pieces of personal property, often still in … More The Probate Song
Lawyers Road Review 