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From home to the courthouse in two hours flat! I can drive there in 15 minutes, 10 in light traffic.
I had forgotten all about it, what it was like to use public transportation, to ride a bus.
After nearly 40 years of driving my own cars, traveling at my own speed, following my own routes, I had forgotten what it was like to ride on a bus, to sit with a crowd of all kinds of people of different persuasions, opinions and deodorants, all headed in the same direction at the same time.
Things have changed since the last time I rode, changed a lot.
I used to catch the bus to work sometimes, when I had extra money (rarely) or when it was just too cold or wet to walk from Bishop Duffy or from our home on Mackenna Avenue to my jobs downtown.
From school, the Pine Avenue bus took me downtown to Third Street, where a bunch of us Duffy guys would hang around O'Hara's Cigar Store to play the pinball machines, read magazines and tease the Madonna girls.
It was just a short stroll from there, down a few blocks and across the street, to the Strand and Cataract movie theaters where I'd trade my Robert Hall plaid sports coat for the required bright red, short-waisted official usher's jacket.
Equipped with fresh batteries in my shiny, chrome-plated, high-beam phallus, I'd tour the aisles in search of the illegal consumption of soda pop and dirty shoes propped up against the backs of the velvet theater seats. I had real power then. With the quick flash of a narrow beam of light, I could make people change their behavior. It was magical!
A loud rattle and bang as the bus shivered to an ear-shattering, gravity-defying stop in front of the courthouse brought me out of my daydream about the wonderful past, back to the present.
It was Aug. 5, 2002.
A week before I was scheduled to leave Florida, on my way to Harper's Ferry, Washington, D.C., and then home to Niagara Falls, I was summoned to jury duty.
What the hell, I thought. I'd save some time, ride the bus to court and go over my plans. I had a lot to do before I left.
I figured I'd be eliminated because of my many years practicing law. I was sure that I would not be selected. I'd be sent home, as hundreds of others routinely are, mostly because they made it very clear that they did not want, or actually could not afford, to be there.
Others would not serve because the attorneys on both sides of this civil case had hired professional jury screeners. People paid to help the lawyers pick the best jurors for their case were targeting some of us for removal, based on the way we looked, what we wore to court, or how we answered their voir dire, a French term meaning to speak the real truth in a process by which prospective jurors are questioned by lawyers to determine whether they are qualified to serve on a jury.
I was sure I'd be out of there within a few minutes, two hours tops. I had a lot to do to get ready for my long-planned trip. First on my agenda was the final selection of a vehicle to drive the long distance from West Palm Beach to Niagara Falls and back, including all my stops in between.
I was torn between a sports car and an SUV, and had finally narrowed it down to one particular manufacturer, a highly respected, very expensive company, well-regarded for their emphasis on safety and comfort.
Sitting in the noisy corridors of the courthouse, I read "Consumer Reports" over and over again, trying to decide how much was too much to pay to be safe and comfortable on my trip, but before I could finish reading the magazine articles and Internet literature I had printed at home and brought with me, the monotone, nasal voice called my name over the way-too-loud public address system.
I and seven others, six jurors and two alternates, were marched up to the 10th floor and seated in the courtroom, already filled with lawyers, reporters, court personnel and the parties to the case.
Almost hidden from view sat the plaintiffs, a middle-aged mother and father, who were there to get some justice for their only daughter, their first child, 19 years old, now dead, the victim of a rollover in an SUV.
I raised my right hand, took the oath, and sat down for three weeks of testimony that changed my travel plans and my life forever.
Next Week: The Plaintiffs' Case
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 27 2002 |