Friday, January 06, 2006

The Simple Life, Part II; Or, Robert's Rules of Order simplified

Recently I was traveling up north in Minnesota, near the famous Lake Woebegon, near Woman Lake. Yes, it is a beaufiful lake. Are the women beautiful up there? Well, there is one sweet girl that works at the Woman Lake Bait Shop...but you will have to travel there to see how beautiful she is...

Near Woman Lake lives on of my favorite pals, Herman, who is a down home country lawyer. I stopped in to see him recently and shared some coffee---straight, no decaff, no whipped cream, extra strong, in those big Minnesota Viking coffee mugs. "Up here, we're men of action, not words," he said. "It's a man's paradise. Just pure action. A great life, man,"he said.

I told him that I was living in a larger town of about 5000 people. And, I was attending a lot of civic meetings. I told him that with all the meetings, motions, and minutes, it became a pretty complicated process.

Herman said, "Listen, Wolfman (that's what he always called me), you know that there are really only three great legal texts, "Corbin on Contracts," "Prosser on Torts," and "Billy Bob on Procedure." No other reading is really necessary."

I was pretty stunned by his view that the world was so simple there in Woman Lake. He went on, "Listen, it's just real simple. We only record REAL action," he said. Why sometimes after a long meetin we just have a blank sheet. It makes record keeping real Simple.

Then he let out with a devilish, loud laugh.

I still am searching for "Billy Bob on Procedure." I just assume that it is out of print. If any fellow blogger can locate it I would appreciate it. I already have the other two texts.