TO-WIT: THE LEGEND OF BAGHY PANCE
For years now I have volunteered each summer to spend a week as a counselor at Camp Ahunkomonee, the law camp for kids up in the Poconos. Its close enough to be only a day’s drive and yet far enough away to get me out of the claptrap monotony of my regular grind. I like being with the kids, they’re the only ones who address me as “Counselor” without sneering.
Although my primary assignment is to teach cross examination eye-rolling to third year campers my favorite job is campfire storytelling, particularly on those dark and stormy nights so perfect for horror stories. That’s when I collect my campers around the fire and tell them what it’s like to be a lawyer.
The last campfire was such a night. “A long, long time ago, in a bar association far, far away,” I began, “there was a young man named Baghy Pance. He was a very smart but poor young man who wanted nothing more than to be a lawyer.”
“‘Why in tarnation do you want to be a lawyer’,” his father asked, ‘isn’t shoveling manure good enough for you?’”
‘“I like it just fine,’ Baghy replied, ‘but I want to do it with a suit on.’”
“Because he graduated first in his class he was offered a six figure job with a big city law firm to do ERISA work (‘Oooh,’ all the kids murmured appreciatively) but what he really wanted was to help the common folk.” Until that moment I don’t think I ever heard kids that young use the word “putz” before.
“So he moved back to his home town and set up shop representing common folk aplenty. He soon found however that it didn’t pay all that well and that the more affluent people in town wouldn’t hire him because they still remembered him as a poor, manure shoveling hayseed.”
“One day Baghy decided that if he was going to make any real money in the law biz he needed to change his image in a big way. ‘To hell with the common folk,’ he thought and he bought himself a big, fancy red convertible and some handmade custom suits with contrasting color vests, he courted and married a beautiful young socialite and he joined every club in town, including, most jarringly, the Masons.”
“Soon his career took off and he started getting every big case in town. All of his criminal clients were getting acquitted, all of his tort clients were recovering millions of dollars, all of his divorce clients were doctors and he was making tons of money.”
“One day he was cruising the highway in his big red convertible thinking of how his life had changed. ‘Oh, oh, oh, I have this great car,’ he thought, ‘this beautiful young wife, these wonderful new clothes, all these great fee-paying clients, all this money.’ So entranced was he by his great good fortune that he never saw the telephone pole until the moment he hit it head-on and was at once dispatched to his hereafter and he found himself standing directly before God.’”
“‘How could you take me now, Lord,’ he asked, ‘how could you take me now? I had this beautiful red car, this gorgeous young wife, all these wonderful new clothes, all these rich clients and all this money, how could you take me now?’”
“The Lord looked down at him and said ‘Honest to God, Counselor, I didn’t recognize you.’”
The kids were quiet then; the only sound was the dying crackle of the fire. After a few minutes one camper raised her hand. “But who was taking care of the common folk,” she asked. “Yeah,” all the other campers chimed in, “what happened to them?” The sun was now starting to come up and I could tell it was going to be a great day.
©2015, S. Sponte, Esq.