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| Home > Non-Legal Articles |
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| Non-Legal Articles |
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| These are representative essays Brad publishes in the local newspaper occasionally. They may help you know something about Brad. |
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| Death |
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| My father the veterinarian brought the kitten home from work. We three kids, too young to be clever, named it Kitty. Kitty became a ten-pound white yard tom; a mottle of black and brown spilled over one eye. We kids loved Kitty and Kitty adopted us, in the manner of cats, as well. The Lancaster urchins were Kitty’s odd pride, in both the human and feline senses. |
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| Fear |
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| Kim and I, before we became a law office, were paint and wallcovering contractors. In 1990, a Japanese firm invited us to work on a Virginia colonial mansion in Omotego, Japan. The “Amelican” house boasted four sixteen-foot Doric columns and a Gone-With-The-Wind staircase; it nestled into a steep hillside. The rear foundation lay seventy feet below the chimney cap. Laborers accessed these heights from scaffolding built for Japanese laborers. |
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| Mentors |
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| John Terris invaded Dalton Gardens in a dying Volkswagen, ink still drying on his music education diploma. Coeur d’Alene School District assigned John six elementary music programs. One was Dalton. I sat in John’s first band class, an undented rental trumpet in my hand. Our herd of noxious sixth graders made stupid blats and giggled wildly. John pattered in, unnoticed amid childish cacophony. His baton timidly tapped the conductor’s stand. |
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| News |
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| I walked the Interurban bridges. No reporters scribbled. No photo flashes blinded me. Lucy, our little dog with the big attitude, towed Kim and me down the newest section of Interurban Trail, over those lovely pedestrian bridges, and up to the dignified bronze raven that graces the Interurban’s southern terminus. We pulled a few weeds and sequestered some windborne trash. No one died. The SWAT teams stayed home. Our saunter was not news. |
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| Ox Mountain |
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| Omar, aged eighty-three, loved the Mariners and ship traffic passing on the Sound. Time eroded Omar’s memory. He forgot cooking. The washer stumped him. Unfortunately, Omar’s attorney (call him Smutch) “helped” Omar. Smutch made Omar’s son-in-law (call him Dolt) Omar’s legal agent. Dolt, with Smutch’s assistance, pilfered Omar’s ready cash. Then Smutch helped Dolt refinance Omar’s residence, so Dolt could “manage” what remained of Omar’s funds. Omar found out. He came to me. |
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| Pacifist Assassin |
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| Decades ago, I passed some years happily incarcerated in Fuller Theological Seminary’s deepest basement. There, among fine minds living and dead, I encountered Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German, 20th century A.D.). Concerning his earliest works, I wrote a half-dissertation in my abortive doctoral studies. From Bonhoeffer, I learned a lesson. Right conduct frequently confounds our ethical ideas about right conduct. |
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| Regret |
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| Butch spent his first nine years of life in the lap of a spinster. When her infirmity deepened, she left Butch the Boston terrier with my father, the veterinarian. Dad brought the dog home to his three young kids. |
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| Sweetness |
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| Life brings unexpected sweetness. Dawn’s illumination of hanging mists in Hamlin Park. Eclipse of a harvest moon over Lake Washington. Rose petals after rainstorms in North City yards. A thoughtful speaker over lunch at Rotary. Wenatchee tree-ripened peaches. Odd conjunctions of disparate ideas, spilling laughter over beer. A friend’s ear when needed. Great old books.
Kim’s snuggle in darkness. |
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| Truly Selfish |
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| In 1845, Henry David Thoreau (American transcendentalist, 19th century A.D.) cobbled together a cabin in woods near Walden Pond, outside Concord, Massachusetts. Thoreau rhapsodized nature and solitude. He ruminated, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” and “have become the tools of their tools” Walden. Thoreau sought escape. |
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| Truth Speaking |
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| Nate came to me the troubled father of young Jana. Jana’s mother had recently died of overdose. Nate’s own mother now challenged Nate’s custody of Jana. This grandmother believed herself a more able parent than her son. She belabored Nate’s misdemeanor joyriding conviction years ago; he unforgivably embarrassed her. |
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| YMCA |
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| Around 1959, Grandfather Lancaster shuffled me through the door of my first YMCA in Yakima, Washington. I floundered in their swimming pool for Grampa Paul, demonstrating half-learned strokes from Red Cross swimming class. After I had mostly drowned myself, Paul towed me to the locker room. We stripped off our trunks. He handed me a white towel scented with bleach. A foggy door swung open. I sat on the steam room tile bench, my rag draped to obscure what needed hiding. |
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Facsimile: (206) 367-3109
Toll-Free: 1-888-367-3122
Info@lancasterlawoffice.com |
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17503 Tenth Avenue NE
Shoreline, WA 98155
206-367-3122
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