Part 13

We arrived safely back in Ontario.  I give my dad back his car, we filled my car up with wedding gifts and headed to Cherryhill Blvd. just a couple of miles south of the Law School.

I now had to find a summer job that would help pay the rent and the tuition.  I was given an opportunity to work at the London Post Office and learned a second life lesson when going for the interview.  I was dressed appropriately and was ready to behave and answer all of the questions in an appropriate fashion.  But I had not anticipated the one question that has never alluded me to this day  -- in this case it was "who was the postmaster general of Canada".  I didn't know and I should have been prepared for the question.  And since that day, my simple adage is "hope for the best; plan for the worst and expect the unexpected".  So, if I was going to apply for any job - and with AI it is very easy, I would be prepared up the yin yang  -- and if applying to the post office, I would make sure that I knew what the cost of a stamp was.

I did get a job.  At London Life Insurance.  It was basically filing old files.  The more important part of the job was putting together the banker boxes.  I became quite efficient in creating the boxes which is something that I continue to do to this day.

I recall coming home from work the first day.  I walked in to the apartment and Judy was grinning because she made our first meal together.  I stopped quickly and asked and then demanded to know what we were eating.  She said a surprise but when she saw the look on my face she relented and said chick cacciatore.  I said no way, no how.  Stop it and take the chicken out of the pan or pot and wash it off.  She thought I was crazy until I explained that to this day I can still remember and even smell the stewed tomatoes that I was forced to eat in nursery school or kindergarten.  It was an experience that ranks right up there with an episode of SAW.  

To this day, Judy has never cooked stewed tomatoes.  I don't mind pasta sauce and love Italian cooking, as long as the sauce is not merely stewed tomatoes  -- it needs pesto, garlic, etc etc etc etc.

Then it was back to school.  I was elected as secretary of the student council so I got a key to the offices.  I took notes of meetings and sat on faculty council.  I was then appointed to the admissions committee. All were great experiences.  Anyone who simply goes to law school has no idea of what can be gained from the total experience.  There may be only 24 hours in the day, but it is a sin to waste any of it.  This sage advice comes from someone who is a tv addict.   That is why quick reading helped me immensely.  That and the fact that I could type like a whiz.  I took typing in grade nine when all the other guys in the class took wood working.  I had a vision of losing a couple of fingers.

I learned on a manual remington to music as in 1, 2, 3 and hit the return bar.  And then came the electric and then the ball and the automatic front and back.  By the time the word processors cam along I was typing all my own stuff and saving a heck of a lot of time.  I still do.

Judy, on the other hand, besides her day job, was doing typing for law students at a reasonable rate of remuneration.

I was taking the usual subjects, ie. labour law, family law, real estate etc.  The real estate course came with a real live incident that caused me to visit the professor and explain why I should be thrown out of the law school.

Things happened this way  --  There was the usual examination.  When I opened the exam book I noticed that the first question looked very very similar to the fact situation in the case of Otis Elevator v. The Bank of Montreal.  (you can check it is real).  So I answered the question and even referred to the case.

About a week later I was call into Professor WR's office.  He wanted to know where I got his exam.  I told him I didn't.  Then he wanted to know how I knew that the first question involved the elevator company.  I explained that I had read the case.  He basically said - no way.

We then journeyed to the law library.  I took him to the soft cover Ontario Law Reports.  Back then they were soft covered and then put into hard cover about every 4 months.  I showed him the Report that contained the Otis case.  He was shocked.  He apologized and said that in 15 years no one had ever ever done that.   I got a great mark in the course and gave my oldest son his middle name.

The next great adventure involved Family Law and a trip to the hospital.