Words To Live By
By Mitch Berg
Learned Foot eulogizes a teacher and Minnesota notable who seemed to excoriate a younger, less learned Foot for a wrong answer in a Civil Procedure class – who then could not find the right answer…:
…I asked a friend who did attend what the damn answer was.
It was the exact same answer I had provided in class, and that the prof declared to be wrong. Apparently, because of his advanced age or whatever, he didn’t hear me correctly. I couldn’t find the right answer because I had already given it, and was looking elsewhere for it.
Amid which he discovered a vital life lesson:
And he taught me that in order to be right, you need to speak loudly.
Granted, with some of us it’s manifested more metaphorically than with Foot, but lessons is lessons.
(Scott Johnson also eulogizes the teacher, former Minnesota judge Donald Lay)
