May 31: "Law school?''

It’s been a month since the end of my first semester back in school. During that time, I’ve been working at a convenience store and worrying – needlessly, it turns out – about whether I would get the financial aid required to attend summer school. I’ve also been waiting for Mississippi State to release the President’s List.

I will confess that I’ve been sort of glorying in finishing the spring semester with a 4.0 GPA. I don’t really need the President’s List notification to confirm this – it’s a part of my student record now – but being on the list somehow makes it seem more official.

But Wednesday, I begin summer school classes, so this is probably a pretty good time to put last semester behind me. If you know me, you realize I have a strong tendency to sort of live in the past, mostly to my detriment. Most of that past, at least for the past five years, has been a painful memory. Even the things that began sweetly and still stir my heart, ended badly. And I can’t seem to give that up entirely.

So shifting my focus to what lies ahead is not as easy as you might assume. I just can’t seem to let well enough alone, as the saying goes.

But there is good reason to look forward.

About a month ago, I met a beautiful, talented, smart woman. I won’t go into any other details because it’s always been my policy on this blog to protect the privacy of those people I meet for whom a fair amount of privacy is in order.

But I will say that this woman is an attorney and through out conversations, an idea has emerged – an idea that is almost as frightening as it is exciting.

This woman – I’ll call her Lisa – is an attorney. In fact, she went to Law School in her late 30s after working as a bank examiner for many years.

Law School. I confess that I’ve been toying with the idea ever since my Media Law professor at MSU suggested that I had “missed my calling.’’

And in some respects, my interest in Law goes back to my childhood. I remember as a child, the Daily Journal ran a syndicated “Ask the Lawyer’’ type column. I would cut these articles out of the paper, consider the question and the answer supplied and think about why the lawyer gave the advice he gave. I liked the idea of being a lawyer.

But somewhere along the way, I got the writing bug and I can’t say my interest in Law was something that stayed with me, at least not consciously.

But now, as I consider my future, I wonder if going to Law School might be a worthy pursuit. I have to confess that writing briefs and making arguments before the court has an enormous appeal. Of course, like any job, the good stuff is often a small part of the job. The practice of law is mostly drudgery. Then again, what isn’t? We endure the drudgery to get to the “good stuff,’’ in almost every occupation.
But there are some serious obstacles I would have to clear if I were to go off in this direction. Some are practical, others psychological.

Practically speaking, I would have to assume even more debt to go to Law School. I figure, I’d be anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000 in the hole at the end of the process.

You could look at that as an investment in my future, I suppose. But at the same time, could I make enough as a practicing lawyer to pay back those loans? There’s a saying that goes, “Some artists deserve to starve!’’ and the same applies to attorneys. Lord knows, there is no shortage of them and Lord knows there are an awful lot of them that are making next to nothing.

So if were to make the commitment to becoming a lawyer, I’d have to be a successful one, and that means long, long hours for lots of years. I have always dreamed that someday, I’d spend my “Golden Years’’ enjoying myself to some degree, doing a bit of traveling, working in the yard, playing golf, visiting my as yet-to-be-born grandkids.
But it looks as though I’ll be working hard until I drop. Of course, this is likely no matter what occupation I chose.

Becoming an attorney would also mean finding a firm that would hire a middle-aged recent Law School grad with a felony record or, failing that, the ability to develop my own clients, which is also a risky venture.

Of course, I could be getting ahead of myself. First, I’d have to take the LSAT (the exam that all prospective Law School candidates must take before admission) and knock it out of the park. I’d have to score very, very high.

The main reason for that is my academic record. My years of being an indifferent student are coming back to haunt me in this regard. By my calculations, the best GPA I could finish with would be a 3.47, which is pretty good – unless you are applying for law school. In that case, it’s near the bottom. To compensate for that “low’’ GPA, I’d have to ace the LSAT.

And, of course, there is the matter of even getting to that 3.47. To achieve that GPA, I would pretty much have to maintain a 4.0 GPA the rest of the way – that means I would have to make an A in both summer school terms and the fall and spring semesters.

That’s a tall order and it dawns on me that my 4.0 in the spring is merely the first step. I would need to do it again. And again. And again. And again.

It’s a challenge, to put in mildly.

Then there is another matter, one more psychological than anything else – three more years of school. Do I really want to commit to something like that?

Ever since I went to prison, I’d lived in equal parts past and present – reliving the awful nightmares of the past while clinging to the dream of a future when I was working, in a loving relationship, living in a place where I knew I would be more than a year or so, a life where I didn’t ever had to be lonely anymore and I would have the simple things that most people take for granted at my age but have eluded me for so many years.

Live in the moment? I’ve hardly ever allowed myself to do that. Or perhaps, I’m just not capable, anymore. I spend my life regretting the past and hoping for the future. I fear I am damaged beyond redemption.

But there is mostly pain in my past and the present if filled with uncertainty. To survive, I have had to dream that the future is somehow better than either my past or my present even though there is nothing really that guarantees that.

But I can’t stay where I’m at, so going to school – either as an undergrad as I am now or as a graduate student or Law School student – are steps toward that future I so desperately cling to give me something rather like hope. If my life is to be a disappointment, it won’t be because I didn’t try to make something out of it.

So to me, going to Law School is another three years of living in limbo. It’s a helluva risk.

I’m just not sure.

All I really know is that summer school starts on Wednesday and I have to be ready to continue this journey, even if it doesn’t amount to much more than tilting at windmills.

So here I go!

May 10: "In Stitches'''

It was a little bit before noon Monday and I was hammering away at an enormous section of awning that had been wrapped around a tree in the tiny little town of Woodland, Miss., trying to finish up before we broke for lunch.

I was in Woodland, a “suburb’’ of Houston, with a group of six folks from Mississippi State as we helped out with clean-up from the big tornado a couple of weeks ago.

So there I was, slinging my sledge-hammer in the bright blazing sun, trying to dislodge the long sections of sheet metal from their metal posts.

With a thunderous smash, a piece of dislodged sheet metal flies away from its support and….

If you saw the movie “The Outlaw Josie Wales’’ you may remember a scene at the end of the movie. Josie is finally confronted with his old regiment-leader-turned-bounty-hunter. His pursuer has had a change of heart and is content to let Josie go as his eyes drift down the Josie’s boot where drops of blood fall from a wound and splat, splat, splat on Josie’s boot.

And this is precisely what I saw. Big, fat drops of blood were splattering on my left work boat. I looked at my boot, and then looked at my left hand. It was pouring blood from a couple of gashes on the back of my hand from where that piece of sheet metal had jumped up and bit me.

I didn’t think much of it at first. The gash was at a place where the blood vessels are close to the skin, so the amount of blood was not alarming. One of my colleagues started pressing on gauze from the First Aid kit onto the wound. It took about five gauze bandages to stem the flow enough to get a look at the wound itself. It was pretty deep, pretty close to the bone.

So instead of going to lunch, I went to the emergency room at the hospital in Houston.

I had to stop by the admissions desk and fill out some paperwork and answer a few questions.

The first three questions the admissions lady asked: Do you have a living will? Do you have Power of Attorney? Are you an organ donor?

“You do realize all I have is just a cut hand, right?’’ I asked.

“Oh, it’s standard procedure,’’ she said. “We have to ask those questions to anybody who comes in.’’

After I answered her questions (no, no and yes), the ER nurse examined the wound and asked me what I had been doing when I was injured.

“I was bustin’ up a chiffarobe for Miss Mayella,’’ I answered, but it was clear she didn’t get the literary reference.

“Huh?’

“I was breaking up a metal awning with a sledge hammer and one of the pieces of sheet metal cut me,’’ I said.

She seemed satisfied with that answer. She gave me a tetanus shot, bathed the wound and set up the little table for the doctor, since it was obvious I would need some stitches.

The doctor came in and began to anesthetize my hand and prepare the sutures and he made small talk.

“You’re not from around here, are you?’’ I said, having noticed a distinct accent.

“I’m from Croatia,’’ he said.

As he was busy taking care of my hand, I began to wonder how a doctor from Croatia wound up in a hospital in Houston, Miss. I’m guessing he did not finish at the top of his class at medical school, but since it was a pretty simple procedure I wasn’t too worried.

He seemed like a nice guy and he had 11 stitches in my hand in no time. I was out the door and headed for lunch with instructions to be careful not to use the hand in such a way that it might bust loose the stitches.

I had to stop by the admissions desk again. Noting on the paperwork that I have no health insurance, she wanted to know what I could pay. I looked in my wallet.

“I have $25?’’ I said.

“That’s fine,’’ she said. “You’ll be getting some information in the mail in a few days.’’

By information, I assume she was talking about a bill.

I don’t know how much the bill will be, but I do know how much I can afford to pay. The hospital in Houston is not going to be happy, I figure.

But I’ll deal with all that when I can, as I can.

After lunch, I went back out to the clean-up site and worked one-handed the rest of the day, mainly dragging tree branches and other debris and putting them on a big pile next to the little gravel road where it could be collected later.

We were supposed to stay overnight and to finish up the project, but both of our chain saws broke down, so we packed up about 5 p.m. and headed back to Starkville.

Once we get the chain-saws repaired, we will return to finish the job, probably in a week or two.

I intend to be more careful next time. I can’t afford not to be careful, I guess.