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Bob Davidson
David--
I would never knock the hymns that move anyone. My first 45 record was Rock of Ages with Onward Christian Soldiers on the flip side -- I still feel emotional when I hear either of them. It was sort of natural that I would pick that record: I went to Saint Martin's Protestant Espiscopal Day School in New Orleans through the second grade, where our day started in the chapel.
I don't know Martha's friends by name, but probably would recognize them by sight.
Speaking of Dallas:
When I was working for the FDIC, the week of the first Bill Clinton election, we closed First City Bank and all of the associated banks (this was before branch banking in Texas so all of the First Cities were independently chartered) the Thursday before Election Day. I was the closing attorney in one of the banks in East Texas. The regional office the Houston field office reported to was in Dallas. There was an incredible class distinction between the lawyers in policy making upper management and those of us who actually did legal work: the agency had a program where they picked new graduates of the top five law schools (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, and Stanford -- I can't believe I remember that off the top of my head) for Washington headquarters policymaker trainee postions. There was no path to go from street lawyer to DC -- at best we could beome the managing attorney of a field office. They sometimes sent the DC trainees to a regional office for "field experience" -- one step closer to actual legal work.
The Regional Attorney decided he would send a nice young Yale Law grad as an observer to Beaumont so she could see us actually close a major bank. That bank had $500 million or so in assets so it was a pretty big undertaking. Her government job classification was higher than anyone in our Houston office except the Managing Attorney and the Liquidator in Charge (my favorite job title ever). She was from some town called Grinch or something close in New England -- she had a hard time unclenching her teeth when she talked so it was a little hard to understand her sometimes, went to a private high school she obviously expected us to recognize, and had zero actual law experience -- never even appeared before a judge or drafted an actual legal document, but wrote policy guidelines for us to follow.
When we closed a bank, we spent the week before preparing documents, then the closing liquidator and closing attorney showed up at the bank fifteen minutes before end of business on a Thursday, with either the State Banking Commissioner or the local OCC head, and the Texas Rangers or US Marshalls. The lawyer would hand the closing order to the officer in charge of the bank (the president or his/her designee), the regulator would accept the formal surrender of the bank's charter, and the liquidator would call in the closing team, which was in a nearby parking lot, and the peace officers would secure the bank. No employees could leave or even touch any records without our permission. It was very high drama. Frequently there would be news teams outside. The regulator, then the liquidator would each read a statement to the press, while I stood behind them looking like a lawyer, then we would go to work. We would work all night so that the bank could reopen in the morning, either as a bridge bank to a new owner or as a closed bank in receivership. Friday there would always be crowds of bank customers wanting to know what was happening, withdrawing their money, and generally acting stupid. We had people whose job was to deal with them.
My actual legal team included a couple of paralegals, a couple of skilled clerks, secretaries, and two junior attorneys, along with our management observer. One of the paralegals was originally from Germany. She was very nice, but had that accent -- "You vill bring me ze general ledger, please, right now." I always requested her for my closing team because people obeyed her, promptly. (My favorite thing about her is that she considered the use on contractions like "I'm" or "don't" to be lazy and sloppy.) Since poor Muffy (not her actual name) didn't have anything to do and the rest of us had pretty tightly defined responsibilities, I asked her to help Brunhilda the paralegal. (If you are reading this Holly, forgive me for using that name -- this wonderful paralegal worked with Holly's husband in the Dallas FDIC office after Houston was closed.) Muffy said she enjoyed herself and liked doing actual work with our team.
We would go to the motel late Friday night after working 30 or so hours at the bank, collapse into sleep of the dead, then return early Saturday and work through Monday morning to have the bank really ready for business. With little banks we would be done Monday or Tuesday night. With First City we stayed for two weeks, working 8 to 5. My team was nicknamed "the grease patrol" by the other FDIC employees because I amused myself at closings by finding interesting local hole in the wall restaurants we could try once the frenzy of work eased. The Beaumont area has lots of Cajuns, Greeks, Italians, and other people who make great food, at about half what similar fare would cost in Houston. Poor Muffy had never encountered East Texans before -- she was sure North Dallas was extreme boondocks and Plano was full of real hillbillies.
We went to one really excellent Cajun place on the road to Lufkin, where they had a boxing ring for the patrons as entertainment, and the waitress gave us the napkin roll with our order, Muffy asked for Earl Grey tea. The waitress eventually figured out that she wanted hot tea and offered to nuke some iced tea, to Muffy's horror. She asked what kind of oil they used for frying, if it was hydrogenated, and what sort of breading was on the fried shrimp -- she preferred gluten free. At just about the time the waitress was going to ask Muffy to put on the gloves and step in the ring, our second paralegal -- a good ole gal whose hobby was barrel racing -- told her, "Honey, don't mind her, she can't help it -- she's from Dallas."
Muffy was quite upset at being accused of being from such a flyover hick place, and puzzled when everyone who could hear us started laughing, shaking their heads, and muttering, "she's from Dallas." We tried our best to convince her that "she's from Dallas" is East Texan for "she's a sophisticated urbanite." Afterwards it became our team joke -- everywhere we went, we introduced her with "she's from Dallas" and they laughed instead of getting mad. Back at the office later, it became our saying when anyone was pretentious.
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