Conversations With Bob

My dear friend, partner and mentor, Bob Weiss, turns 89 tomorrow, an age at which most folks are content to rest and contemplate their past. However, whatever activities Bob may engage in tomorrow, looking backward will not likely be chief among them. I last spoke to Bob this past Sunday when he called to request that I give him advice about action he was contemplating on a matter involving his cooperative. On his birthday, he will more likely be thinking of this matter or planning one of his various literary projects than looking backward over a life well lived.

It wasn’t until the end of our call that the subject of Bob’s impending birthday arose. He told me that he didn’t need anything in the way of physical gifts. When I suggested that a nice smile sent his way would be a perfect birthday gift, he agreed and then added, after a thoughtful pause, that a nice breakfast with friends wouldn’t be amiss either. Despite the fact that we were speaking over a distance of almost 300 miles, his smile regarding the latter notion was palpably evident in his voice.

This response is typical of Bob, for he values personal relationships and getting together far above physical things. I believe that he has always found more substance in thoughtful exchange than he ever did in things wrapped in glittery paper and tied with ribbon. I can recall many such moments, from picnics and concerts on the grounds of Reed College with Bob and many of his other friends to a pivotal, private moment many years ago on a flight to Calgary while on a business trip together. The nugget at the heart of each of these remembrances is that of meaningful conversation, sometimes solemn and considered in nature but more frequently cheerful and merry.

For, above all, Bob is a creature formed from curiosity. He is curious about many things and more often than not our more interesting conversations begin with Bob, in response to some remark I thought of as a throwaway, saying something to the effect of: “What do you mean by that?” This response is never offered as a challenge; it is, rather, always an expression of genuine interest. For he is never content with shallow conversation, and would always rather know what lies behind a thought, no matter how callow or ill-formed. And because of his gentle inquiry, our conversation then begins to take flight, for I must extemporize about what I meant while simultaneously contemplating the consequences or effects of the comment that began the conversation.

I have known Bob for almost 40 of my 42 years as a practicing attorney. I was introduced to him as a young associate by a former partner of mine who was a student, with Bob, at the University of Chicago Law School. As my practice evolved, it was Bob I found myself increasingly drawn to and, eventually, I changed firms and proudly became his law partner. Even though we are not technically partners now since he is no longer a member of the bar, we remain partners in spirit. For Bob is still the person I call when I have an especially difficult legal issue to work through, since his careful questioning and thoughtful input always help to bring about a workable solution. Depending upon the topic, one of us is the flint and the other the steel and our conversation inevitably strikes the spark of resolution. When I mentally re-examine these conversations, I rarely find a singular moment of inspiration attributable to either of us, but see, instead, a process of resolution resulting from the interaction of compatible, companionable minds.

The pivotal, in-flight conversation noted above did have to do with Bob’s past, as well as my own. The flight in question was our first together as law partners, and I was well aware that Bob won the silver star in World War II at the Battle of Mortain in Normandy, but had no idea how. I was also acutely conscious of my own military non-history which I have written of elsewhere on the blog and won’t repeat here. Up to this moment I had always respected Bob as a lawyer, but I had no idea how he, a wounded veteran, might react to an upstart young man who had taken it upon himself to sue the government in the midst of the Vietnam War. I decided that I needed to face the issue head on and, given that our seats were adjacent to one another for the next few hours, it seemed a good time to deal with the matter.

So, I told Bob of my history and asked, pointedly, if my history was of concern to him (as it had been to other lawyers of Bob’s generation). His response was a laconic “no”, followed, after a slight pause, with a statement that given the nature of the Vietnam War he thought my actions had been perfectly appropriate. Having worked up enough of a head of steam to broach the issue only to find it was a matter of no concern, I used my remaining energy to ask Bob how he won the Silver Star at Mortain. He replied that he had been at Mortain, the Germans had counterattacked and surrounded his unit, he had been a forward artillery observer and had the only working radio on the hill on which they were isolated, and that for 6 days and nights he had called in artillery fire to keep the Germans at bay. The Panzer Division which had surrounded them was never able to take the hill.

That was the entire conversation, and it lasted at least 30 seconds. When I asked if there was more, he replied: “no”.

As I got to know Bob better, it became clear that there was a lot more about his time on that hill in Mortain that continued to affect him. As a consequence of my curiosity about what had really happened, my curiosity about what it was really like to be a soldier in battle, and my increasing belief that the story was one Bob should tell both for the sake of the emotions he had so obviously kept bottled up for so many years and for posterity, I became not Bob’s muse, but his nag. As I kept asking for more information, I would get another little morsel of information that would make me want to beg for more.

Eventually, Bob decided to write a book about his experiences at Mortain – not to shut me up and get me out of his hair, but because he became convinced that it was a story worthy of being told. That book – Fire Mission – can still be purchased on Amazon. At least it could have been until last Friday when I purchased the last four copies they then had available to give to other friends of mine as gifts in honor of Bob’s 89th birthday.

So, tomorrow morning, I will celebrate Bob’s birthday by giving one copy of the book to each of Bill, Dick and Ralph – all veterans themselves: one a West Point graduate and Colonel during the Vietnam era and after; one a captain in a Nike Missile unit in the late 1950’s; and, one a sailor in World War II in the Pacific.

I will then have one remaining copy unspoken for if any of my vast readership cares to receive it.

Bob and I continue to converse and will do so as long as we possibly can. While in the process of writing this piece, Bob sent me an email about yesterday’s Supreme Court decision allowing jailhouse strip searches of people arrested for the most minor of crimes, wondering “what kind of a mind decided the strip search case?” I won’t bore you with my responsive ruminations about why people might be willing to sacrifice personal liberties for security and what inevitably results. I mention them only because I expect Bob to respond and for this conversation, too, to play itself out in our time-honored fashion.

Perhaps Bob’s proudest moments was being honored in 2007 by being made a Chevalier in the French National Order of the Legion of honor. Helen and I were privileged to be at the presentation of the medal in Portland and I was very proud of my friend. And later that year, when Helen and I were in Paris armed with a letter from Bob authorizing us to acquire a lapel pin version of the medal on his behalf, we went looking at the location Bob suggested, we found nothing there that even vaguely resembled the kind of shop that would have such a medal. However, we persevered and eventually found not one, but two, such shops virtually side-by-side, and we purchased a lapel pin for Bob after discovering the authorization letter to be wholly unnecessary. So every time Helen and I are privileged to see Bob wearing the medal (something that doesn’t happen very often, since he doesn’t feel comfortable wearing it for fear he is showing off), we enjoy fond recollections of Bob’s ceremony and of our time in Paris.

So, Bob, please consider this piece as my smile directed at you in recognition of your birthday. I hereby skip the glitter and the ribbon, and I offer this to you in its place. And, if I could, I would be with you in Portland tomorrow morning for that breakfast. But, since I cannot be there, I will drink a mocha and eat a muffin in your honor in Seattle instead.

Of course I would have had the muffin and the mocha tomorrow whether or not it was your birthday, but – and please trust me on this – tomorrow they will be consumed on behalf of your continued vitality and our ongoing conversation about life.

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