Seattle to Reno

JJ Campbell was going to ride his motorcycle to Las Vegas and on to Yuma in April, so I decided to take a long weekend and ride part way with him to Reno and then return for work.

We watched the weather and decided to take I-5 South into Oregon. A guy I know, Marty Hayes, had ridden his motorcycle to Phoenix for a trial earlier in the week and had to lay over a full day due to snow. That's his snow-covered bike pictured below. He suggested we stay away from Eastern Washington and Oregon, which was higher and colder. So, even though it was rainy in Seattle, we headed south on I-5 and would later make a decision whether to turn east at Mount Shasta or further south at Donner Pass.




























We stayed the first night in Oregon, and then headed into California the next morning. A California Highway Patrolman told us the road was clear around Shasta, so we headed east. It was in the high 20's and low 30's, with some light rain now and then, but the road was clear and basically dry. No ice on the road, but snow on the shoulders of the road. We thought there might be loose gravel from the road crews, but it was fine.


We dropped down into Susanville and warmed up over some Kentucky Fried Chicken and then hit the road again. We got into Reno late the second afternoon. We stayed a couple of nights at the Silver Legacy. I noticed some empty buildings and felt Reno is being hurt by the economic downturn and Indian Casinos. The lack of people was noticeable since I was last there a couple of years ago, but maybe it was the time of year.
















When it came time to leave, the television reported that there was snow on the highway to Donner Pass, with traffic backed up. I decided to head north through the desert into Eastern Oregon and Washington, hoping to bypass the storm and stay dry, even if colder.

The skies were big and I could see storm clouds coming. There were some light snow flurries in Susanville as I headed north, then a few light showers as I headed northeast, but I pretty much missed all the rain clouds and storms-- rode right between them. The scenery was beautiful. It was pretty cold. I had four layers over my legs, and nine layers over my chest-- (1) long T-shirt, (2) wool shirt, (3) leather vest, (4) light nylon shell, (5) rain pants bib, (6) sweat shirt, (7) jacket liner, (8) leather jacket and (9) rubber rain coat. That, with chemical hand-warmers in the toes of my boots, made the ride pretty comfortable. All that, and the electric seat.

It was a trip I've made several times before, but always in the summer. This might have been a little early in the year. Then, again . . . . it was worth it. (JJ Campbell rode back from Yuma later in the month).

Stimulating Unemployment and Inflation

The policies of the Obama Administration are continuing to stimulate unemployment, not jobs. Moreover, rampant inflation is coming, a future result of those same policies. There are two very knowledgeable and well-respected economists who explain it quite simply—Dr. Walter Williams and Dr. Thomas Sowell.

The following is condensed from Dr. Walter Williams' July 14, 2010, article “A Failed Obama Hero”—

Let’s look at the failed stimulus program of Obama’s hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The unemployment figures for FDR’s first eight years were: 18 percent in 1935; 14 percent in 1936; by 1938, unemployment was back to 20 percent. The stock market fell nearly 50 percent between August 1937 and March 1938. During the Roosevelt Administration, the top marginal income tax rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. In 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5 percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000.

Where do the trillion-plus dollars come from that Congress and President Obama are spending in an effort to stimulate the economy? The only way government can spend a dollar is to tax or borrow it.

In the case of a tax, one should ask what would that taxpayer have done with the dollar had it not been taxed away. He would have spent it on something that would have created a job for someone. If the government hadn’t borrowed the dollar, it might have been invested in some project that would have created a job. When government taxes, borrows and spends, it shifts unemployment from one sector to another. Of course, the sector that benefits tends to be a political favorite of the shifter.

Between 1787 and 1930, our nation has seen both mild and sever economic downturns, sometimes called panics, that have ranged from one to seven years. During that interval, no one considered it to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression because there was no constitutional authority to do so. It took the government to turn what might have been a three- or four-year sharp downturn into a 15-year meltdown.














The following is condensed from Dr. Thomas Sowell’s July 13, 2010, article “Signs of the Times”–

Barack Obama has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money just by using the magic words “stimulus” and “jobs.” It doesn’t matter that the stimulus is not actually stimulating and that the unemployment rate remains up near double-digit levels, despite all the spending and all the rhetoric about jobs.

Not only has all the runaway spending and rapid escalation of the deficit to record levels failed to make any real headway in reducing unemployment, all this money pumped into the economy has also failed to produce inflation [so far].

How can the government pour trillions of dollars into the economy and not even see the price level go up significantly? Economists have long known that it is not just the amount of money, but also the speed with which it circulates, that affects the price level.

The velocity of circulation of money in the American economy has plummeted to its lowest level in half a century. Business are holding on to their money. There should not be any great mystery as to why they don’t invest it.

With the Obama Administration being on an anti-business kick, boasting of putting their foot on some business’ neck, and the President talking about putting his foot on another part of the anatomy, with Congress coming up with more and more red tape, more mandates and more heavy-handed interventions in businesses, why would a business risk money it might not even be able to get back, much less make any money on the deal? Banks have cut back on lending, despite all the billions of dollars that were dumped into them in the name of “stimulus.” Consumers have also cut back on spending.

People don’t know what to expect next from this administration, which seldom lets a month go by without some new anti-business laws, policies or rhetoric. Businesses have no way of knowing what additional costs the politicians in Washington are going to impose, when they are constantly coming up with new bright ideas for imposing more mandates on business.

One of the little noticed signs of what is going on has been the increase in the employment of temporary workers. Businesses have been increasingly meeting their need for labor by hiring temporary workers and working their existing employees overtime instead of hiring new people because temporary workers don’t get health insurance or other benefits, and working existing employees overtime doesn’t add to the cost of their benefits.

There is no free lunch—and the biggest price of all is paid by people who are unemployed because politicians cannot leave the economy alone to recover.

Walter E. Williams was born in Philadelphia in 1936, holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master’s degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faulty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Economics. More than 50 of his publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He is also the author of several books.

Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. He left home early and did not finish high school. Eventually, he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Thomas Sowell entered Harvard University and studied economics. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), Thomas Sowell went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968). He has published a dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California.

Thelonious Monk

Our jazz quintet plays a lot of songs by Thelonious Monk-- Well You Needn't, Straight No Chaser, Misterioso, In Walked Bud, Let's Cool One, Blue Monk, I Mean You, and 'Round Midnight. Monk's songs sound unique, and I wanted to learn more about him.

Thelonious Monk lived 1917 through 1982, so he died at age 65. He was jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music. Some have said he invented "bebop," but I think he's a lot bigger than that. He wrote about 70 songs.

"His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk


There's an excellent biography about Thelonious Sphere Monk written by Robin D. G. Kelley titled Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original (2009). It's hard to imagine how a book about a jazz musician can be a "page-turner," but it is, at least for this reader.


Monk's melody lines and harmonies are very distinctive, and I wondered if his song writing and improvisation came naturally or if he really had to study and think. The answer is probably "both." But, (as am amateur musician) I was relieved to learn that he practiced a lot. A lot.

Kelley writes how Monk, working his way through "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," the theme song for Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, sounded on a recording of his practice--


The first take is painstaking; in five minutes, he gets through just one chorus of the melody. As he wrestles with each measure, every note in his reinterpretation of the melody is carefully placed. By the second take, played rubato (out of tempo), there are more alternations to the melody and increasingly dissonant harmonies. Toward the end of this take, Thelonious begins to integrate stride piano and improvises for the first time . . . The fourth, fifth, and sixth takes, which together add up to a little over an hour of continuous playing, are an exercise in discovery. Monk works through a wide range of improvised figures in a fairly systematic way. He repeats certain phrases, making small rhythmic and tonal alterations each time to see how they sound. . . [This] represents a fraction of what it took to transform "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" into a Monk original.

Monk played with all the other great jazz musicians through the 1940's to 1970's-- tenor sax players Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane, trumpet players Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davie, alto sax player Charlie Parker, and drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. There are many, many more.

(That's Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Hill outside Minton's).

It's probably safe to say that Monk's genius was under-appreciated, and there were many times when he couldn't get gigs. He was prohibited from performing in New York for a period because of a minor drug conviction. But, some of Monk's troubles were caused by a then undefined mental illness. Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. It may have been manic depression or schizophrenia, or he may have been bipolar.

On February 28, 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and was featured in an article inside.


















Here's some of what author Kelley writes about Monk's music--

Monk's unique sound has a lot to do with how he voiced his chords. As early as 1941, he was already experimenting with "open" voicing-- i.e. sometimes playing just the root and seventh of a dominant or major seventh chord, eliminating the third and fifth. The impact on the ear is quite startling. A standard major seventh voicing with the root on the bottom- C-E-G-B -sounds consonant, but remove the E and G and suddenly you have a highly dissonant chord, because the two remaining notes are only a half-tone away from each other. Invert the chord and you have a minor second. Often he would eliminate the root altogether and just play the seventh or the ninth in the bass.

Also, Monk was given credit for introducing the half-diminished chord, a minor seventh chord with a diminished or "flat" fifth (e.g. C-Eb-Gb-Bb). It became an essential element of Monk's harmonic language, partly because of the dissonance created by the C-Gb. That flatted fifth or "tritone" was critical to what would become his harmonic signature.

Practicing Law

Each lawyer has a different set of dreams and goals. Mine include wanting to help the little guy, take on some cases which other lawyers may fear as too hard or impossible, solve some tricky legal questions in a novel way, and then be recognized for a tough job well done. So, I guess, I wanted to be a hero (hopefully) and help “make some new law” by having a case reported in the law books as a “case of first impression.”

The promise of fees has never been the determining factor. Fitting cases usually involved modest or no fees at all. I recall a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln—“do a good job practicing law and the fees will take care of themselves” or something like that. It’s true.

The “hero” thing probably came from watching black-and-white television shows growing up-- guys like Hop-a-Long Cassidy, Cisco Kid, and The Lone Ranger.

That, and perhaps also learning from some of the “classic” heroes-- like Don Quixote, Attorney Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), Detective Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" ), and Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper in "High Noon"). Myths. The only real male hero in my life who was not a myth was my Dad.

The Ronda Reynolds case (posted earlier) got me to thinking about the civil cases I’ve handled that sort of fall into the category. Weird, but they all seem to involve death in some way—

1988-- Burkhart v. Harrod, 110 Wn.2d 381 (1988) involved a young man who had been killed when his motorcycle wrapped around a telephone pole after a wedding rehearsal dinner party. His blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit. He left a wife and small family. It seemed that somebody at the party could have taken his keys away or given him a ride. The cases in the State of Washington hold that surviving family members may sue a tavern owner, parents may sue those who provide booze to minors, and relatives of employees who were over-served at a company party could sue the employer. But no liability had yet been imposed upon a “social host” who over-served an obviously intoxicated guest. There is still no liability against social hosts, as we lost the appeal.

1989-- Halquist v. Department of Corrections, 113 Wn.2d 818 (1989) was sort of a ghoulish First Amendment type of case. I represented a journalist who wanted to video tape record the scheduled hanging of Charles Campbell, who had slit the throats of three women while he was in work release. The case was dismissed on grounds that there was no right to access the visual images of the hanging under the state constitution. The public would have to consider the death penalty in other ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rodman_Campbell

1991-- Rabb v. McDermott, 60 Wn.App. 334 (1991) involved a guy named McDermott who died in a car wreck, leaving two twin boys known to be his. I represented a woman who stepped forward and claimed that her young boy was also a son, although McDermott was not named on the birth certificate and paternity had never been established. We filed a claim against the estate and sought to prove paternity against the deceased. Going without blood tests and in face of the “dead man statute” (which means you can’t use what the deceased said when alive if you might benefit in someway from those words). We prevailed, and a trust fund was set up for the third son.

2000-- Nelson v. Schubert, 98 Wn.App. 754 (2000) involved extreme domestic violence. Schubert was an insurance agent and reserve police officer who once said “Only stupid people get caught for murder.” He married younger Juliana Schubert and fathered two sons. The marriage was falling apart and Juliana was leaving him. She then disappeared without a trace, not taking her purse, car keys or other belongings. Police suspected him and even arrested him, but the lead detective died from leukemia. Schubert was released and never charged. Juliana’s mother asked me to file a wrongful death claim against the husband after the seven-year presumption of death kicked in. Based primarily upon his inconsistent statements, a jury found that he was the “slayer” and awarded the sons about $1,800,000 (although the sons fought us, too). Based upon his civil trial testimony (he should have remained silent, but just couldn't resist showing how smart he was), he was later charged and convicted of murder. (One of his sons committed suicide shortly after that). http://www.seattlepi.com/local/92009_schubert19.shtml

2008-- Thompson v. Wilson, 142 Wn.App. 803 (2008) was where a husband, whose wife was leaving him the next morning, called 911 and reported that “my wife just committed suicide” by shooting herself in the back of her head. The sheriff declared the death a suicide and the husband was never prosecuted. I represented the mother of the wife, left to sue the coroner to change her daughter’s death certificate from “suicide.” That case is still in the works. So far, so good. The jury has said the death was not a suicide and that the coroner acted arbitrarily and capriciously. The coroner has refused to change the death certificate. http://rondalives.web.officelive.com/default.aspx

There is something big and serious about cases involving death—perhaps because they deal with the end of life. Maybe such cases give us an opportunity to respect and honor life, examine how death may come and what it leaves, or… maybe with death in the background we get a chance to see how we act before it.

Parker's Ballroom

Parker's Ballroom on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle was already a northwest landmark when I moved to the area in the mid- 1960's. My new friends told me about it.


An album had been recorded there by Jimmy Hanna and "The Dynamics" and was hard to find. We found one copy and shared it but now it's long gone.

The record had some familiar instrumental hits on it including "Work Song" and "JAJ." That's what I liked about the band-- the horn section-- a trumpet and tenor sax. A couple of the garage bands I joined worked out our own versions of these hits. Still, the Dynamics were the model for me.

While I got to Parker's a few times, I never saw the Dynamics. Never saw Dave Lewis, either, but listened lots of times to him play "David's Mood" (another northwest standard) on his Hammond B 3.




A lot of big names played at Parker's over the years-- Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, BB King, Ricky Nelson, Guy Lombardo, Tina Turner, Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, and many, many more.














The "big names" I saw there were Van Morrison and Them (when "Gloria" was their first big hit) and Doug Kershaw ("Louisiana Man"). Van Morrison had on a dark brown suit with a blue shirt which I thought was cool enough to imitate in a courtroom years later. I remember disliking Doug Kershaw because he embarrassed his bass player on stage in front of all of us-- we didn't hear the mistakes that Kershaw had to point out on stage in the middle of a song.


All the good northwest bands performed there, including-- Don & the Goodtimes, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Merilee Rush. But, I didn't see them at Parker's. Normana Hall in Everett was "our" place to go see and hear Northwest Bands, including Tiny Tony and the Statics. http://www.pnwbands.com/parkers.html This is an excellent site for the history of all the northwest garage bands and more.


Parker's opened in 1930. "Like a few other local dance halls, it spanned all of the sequential musical eras from the wild jazz days of the Prohibition Era right on up through the forties swing scene, from the rise of rock ‘n’ roll in the fifties, to the psychedelic sixties, and onwards to the heavy metal, disco, and punk rock scenes of the seventies. Unlike most other historic dance halls though, Parker’s still stands." http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3827











Check out http://www.pnwbands.com/dynamics.html for more pictures of the Dynamics and a sound clip of JAJ.

UPDATE:  Parker's Ballroom was demolished in December 2012. 

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/Historic-Parker-s-dance-hall-demolished-4102836.php#photo-3865137

Ronda Reynolds

Ronda Reynolds was born in 1965. She was the youngest female cadet accepted into the Washington State Patrol in 1985. Ronda served on patrol for almost 10 years. She resigned and later married Ron Reynolds, an elementary school principal in 1997.


On December 16, 1998, Ron Reynolds called 911 and reported that Ronda just "committed suicide." Lewis County Sheriff's Deputies found Ronda dead in her walk-in bathroom closest. She was lying on her left side, wearing pajamas, and was covered by an electric blanket with her head on a pillow. A second pillow covered her head. Her right hand was under the blanket and her left hand was clutching the blanket. She died from a single gunshot wound in front of her right ear. She was 33 years old.


A little over three years ago Marty Hayes called and asked me to meet Barb Thompson, Ronda's mother. Marty is founder and president of The Firearms Academy of Seattle. http://www.firearmsacademy.com/ He had been working on the case for a couple of years and said Barb was looking for a lawyer to help her get some answers about her daughter's death.


The coroner changed his determination three times between 1998 and 2002 — to suicide from undetermined, then back to undetermined, and finally suicide.

The more they explained the case, the more unbelievable it seemed. For example, there were no fingerprints on the revolver. The husband had signed a $50,000 life insurance form and mailed it in with a premium right after Ronda's death. Jerry Berry, the lead homicide detective assigned to the case, believed the death scene was a "staged suicide." Berry kept working on the case but one day was suddenly ordered "off the case" and demoted back to patrol. He never quit working on the case-- even after he resigned from the Lewis County Sheriff's Department because of continuing harassment.

The probate had long been opened and closed and it was too late to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the husband. So, Marty pointed out an unused state law that allowed somebody like Barb to challenge a death certificate in court. It looked a little late for that, too, and although we were thrown out of court, we prevailed on appeal and were sent back to Lewis County Superior Court for a trial. The appeal is reported in Thompson v. Wilson, 142 Wn.App. 803 (2008) . Jury trial began on November 2, 2009.

This is from the Chehalis Chronicle-- http://chronline.com/articles/2009/11/11/news/doc4af9e7e593040796021282.txt

A jury concluded Tuesday that Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson's suicide determination in a death 11 years ago was incorrect. The unprecedented judicial review is the latest twist in the case of Ronda Reynolds, a former state patrol trooper who was found shot dead under an electric blanket in a walk-in closet at her Toledo home on Dec. 16, 1998.

Reynolds' mother Barbara Thompson has never agreed with the determination that her daughter committed suicide.She first filed a civil suit in 2006. Her case was facilitated by a state law passed in 1987 that allows the determination of coroners and medical examiners to be subjected to judicial review.

Ferguson called a ballistics expert, a forensic pathologist, former Sheriff's Office employees and friends of Reynolds to the stand.




(That's Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds--no relationship-- the reknown forensic pathologist, recalling where exactly in all the evidence he noted lividity, which supported his opinion that Ronda died earlier than when claimed by Ron Reynolds).

Jurors faced three questions, all of which they answered unanimously in favor of Thompson:

Question 1: Was the coroner’s determination of suicide accurate?Jury: No.

Question 2: Did you find the coroner’s determination of suicide more likely than not?Jury: Not likely.

Question 3: Did you find the coroner’s determination of suicide arbitrary and capricious?Jury: Yes.

The judge denied Thompson’s request to ask the jury whether the official cause of death could be changed to a homicide, saying there was no legal authority to make such a determination.









(Jerry Berry, Royce Ferguson, Marty Hayes)

The little guy can fight city hall. It's just not easy.