Shaking Hands With The Governor

No, the title of this post is not a euphemism. It describes a real event in my life.

Yesterday, I was dragged out of my office where I wanted to spend all day writing motions and taken to a judicial swearing-in ceremony. The Great Man is anxious to have me try a case with him next month in Anderson County, where the Oak Ridge laboratories and nuclear weapons facilities are located. A little further away from these famous places and within a mile of where our friends Pam and Andrew live, there was a fatal railroad-versus-automobile collision at an unregulated railroad crossing. The case involving that collision was re-assigned to this new judge, and The Great Man has been friends with the man for many years.

Anyway, Governor Bredesen was there. The County Mayor spoke and introduced the Governor, who said some nice things about the new judge. The old judge, who was retiring, helped the new judge into his robes, and then the new judge said a few nice words about the Governor to thank him for the appointment (and some rather un-nice words about the Governor's predecessor), and let everyone else go about their business, which consisted of a lot of meet-and-greet.

I milled about with the crowd around the Governor, and shook his hand. I can confirm that he has medium grip strength and good eye contact. I did not have anything of real substance to say to him, though, and so it felt like kind of a wasted opportunity. Yes, there are things that I would like to see different in the state but this was not a good forum to let them be known and besides, the purpose of going there was to be political for the benefit of the new judge, not to suck up to the Governor. It occurred to me later that I was wearing my new cuff links that day, a gift from The Wife, and that the cuff links are of gold elephants. While they aren't Republican elephants, Bredesen is a Democrat; I should have been wearing donkeys, had I wanted to appeal to him.

So I said more things of substance to the new judge, managing to get a little bit beyond "Congratulations, Your Honor." Still, I wish that I were a member of the Inn of Court here in the area (as I had been back in Los Angeles) since that would have let me invite him to the next Inn meeting. Alas, I suspect that the Inn here is quite socially exclusive and the last thing they want is a newcomer like me showing up.

There you have it, I met the Governor. Woo-hoo.