Went to a talk by a Supreme Court Justice this week…  big crowd. Superb talk. At the formal dinner afterward, I found myself at a table  with his grown children and other relatives. Turns out that I had known (as I had suspected but was not sure until then) the Justice’s younger brother (who died young) pretty well, years ago. We’d chased girls, been friends… had fun together, in pre-history. And here I was, all of a sudden with his brother (at the next table), and one of his children…a bunch of  other relatives. So I got instant access… instant intimacy with this remarkably nice family. HERE’S THE POINT, other than name-dropping.

Here was one of the most powerful men in the country and it was perfectly clear that he had this amazingly nice and very close family. They were all nuts about each other and very deep in each others lives. I sent him a note  and a book today (we’d talked some so it wasn’t outrageous) saying, among other things, that the measure of the good life may not be great achievement alone but the THICKNESS OF THE LIMBIC STEW in which you live. He had it both ways, of course. Quite a good guy. Even if he thinks corporations are people. [ I was a corporate lawyer for an awfully long time. If they were people, I’m sure I’d have noticed. Some dogs are a lot like people; I can accept that. But corporations? I’d be surprised.]

Chris