Welcome to my newest writing adventure- my attempt to connect with people I've met and the things I've done in life, in addition to those that challenges that are still ahead. I always admired my oldest brother Duke's ability to write stories about things that interested me- he was a reporter for a Wisconsin newspaper and then became a lawyer. I was always a big reader- I tell our kids that I have read the World Book encyclopedia from front to back numerous times, and that's where my trivia skills were first devleoped. But writing didn't get really interesting to me until I became good friends with a fellow summer camp counselor whose real job was as an English professor at Cal. I brought him my papers that I had written as a college freshman, and he went through them and critiqued them for me. And he did it in a way that motivated me to continue writing and get better at it. Bill Engel- thanks for getting me started!
I am living with my wife and kids in southwest Louisiana, a practicing attorney and felony prosecutor in our rural parish. I also have a civil law practice and have come to really like helping businesses get started and grow. There's just something powerful about building something- I don't get the same powerful feeling from suing a company for damages, which results in a degree of tearing a business apart. However, just like I feel very strongly that a criminal defendant deserves a good defense, I feel that the plaintiffs' bar has brought about many important changes in our country. These changes have made our lives safer, and kids these days face far fewer dangerous situations than kids fifty years ago. Kudos to plaintiffs' lawyers!
I am an avid football fan, having spent most of my life either playing or coaching the game. My next oldest brother, Joe, made sure I made it to my games and practices when I was growing up in Augusta, Georgia. He is most responsible for fostering my love of the game. Our oldest son, Andy, is a high school football coach in Baton Rouge, and I couldn't be prouder of him. He is the offensive line coach (where he played during an All State playing career at Notre Dame of Crowley), and to watch his guys working as a team and so proficiently is really a thing of beauty. Our next son, DJ, is a freshman linebacker at LSU, and working hard to be a contributor for that team as it sets its goal on a national championship in 2011.
I will try to write about those things that mean a lot to me, and about those things that helped me get where I am today. Hopefully it will be entertaining to some, and one always worries that some may find my work worthless. But as a man much wiser than me once said, "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
Teddy Roosevelt spoke those words in a speech he gave at the Sorbonne in Parish, France on April 23, 1910, and what he said means a lot to me. It means that whenever I have a jury trial upcoming, and I am working until midnight for the weeks prior, if I begin to have any doubts about either my ability to connect with a jury or to meet my expectations of what I owe to a victim or our parish, I think about those words and find great strength in them. When I coached football and baseball, I would trust the system that enabled me to give the players enough quality reps and a thought process to handle any situation that may arise in a game. When you lay it all out there for everyone to see, and you've given it everything you have, then there is no way for you to fail.
I hope that you find this fun to read. I think it will be fun to write. No matter what, I plan to enjoy my time in this arena, and may even find myself in a worthy cause or daring greatly. We shall see.
