Arent Fox is located in the Washington Square building in the District of Columbia.  The worst summer I had in that building was the summer of the bomb threats.  I am not sure what year it was.  I think it was 1995 or 96.

Concerned with my journalistic professionalism (assuming there is such a thing), I really tried to go back and find the year.  No luck with the Washington Post or Google.  If you put in Washington Square, all you get from the search engines is Washington Square Park in New York.  That is where 74 year old Stella Maychick drove her 87 Delta 88 Oldsmobile into a crowd in the Park, killing five and injuring 26.  You know what everyone does when that happens?  Sue General Motors!

I can tell you the year that Stella drove into the crowd, but I can’t nail down the summer of the bomb threats.  I checked with my secretary and other friends.  They all remember it, but not the year.

Anyway, things were going well at the firm.  I had made partner and had enough clients to feel good about myself.  Then, at about 12:50 PM, the horns in the building went off.  Usually that meant that a fire had been reported in the building and we had to evacuate.  It was usually a 30 minute drill.  But, this time, after the blaring stopped, the voice said, “Let me have your attention.  Let me have your attention.  There has been a phone report that there is a bomb in the building.  Please evacuate the building immediately.”  Then, there was the obligatory comment about not using the elevators.  I thought, I am really going to be upset if the bomb is in the stairwell.

Everybody got out of the building quickly.  Then, we realized this wasn’t going to be a 30 minute drill.  It took the police two and a half to three hours to go through the building with their bomb-sniffing dogs.  It really disrupted the day.  Then, two days later, it happened again, and then, the next day.  It started happening almost every day.

It got to the place where the first thing I did each morning was to pack my briefcase with things I could work on during the bomb scare.  The wailing of the alarm would make me immediately despondent.  When the notification was given, I would pick up my briefcase and head across the street to the Mayflower Hotel.  They had a number of comfortable seats on the front balcony, but you had to move quickly to get one.  The Mayflower never complained, but I am sure that they were not happy to have hundreds of people filling up their lobby.

During this period, I was working quite a bit with Jerry Curry, the former Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.  He was being retained to testify as an expert witness in certain automobile liability cases.  I was retained to prepare him.  He would show up early (we were both retired military) and we would finish our work around 11:00.  Then, we would go down to Morton’s Restaurant, which was located in our building, and have an early lunch.

If you thought the bomb threat was taking its toll on the office personnel, you can imagine how it was impacting on the restaurant personnel.  The bomb threats would usually come in between 12:30 and 1:15.  You have heard the expression “screwing up a free lunch.”  Well these bomb threats were creating free lunches.  People would be in the middle of their lunch and the restaurant would have to be evacuated.

Jerry and I used to get in and out before the evacuation.  The maitre d’ became our friend.  We may have been their only paying customers.  I called Jerry to see if he could remember the infamous year.  He remembered the events, but not the year.  Jerry is running for President of the United States right now.  No, I am not kidding.  He wasn’t happy with any of the Republican candidates, so he decided to run.  You still don’t believe me?  OK, just Google “Jerry Curry for President,” and see what you get.  You will be impressed.

Everybody knew the bomb threats were a hoax, but it was a Catch 22.  The building administrator could not tell the police, “No, don’t come.”  And, the police insisted the building be evacuated.  You can’t ignore the threat and then expect your insurance to pick up the pieces.

There were probably 15 to 25 bomb threats.  It seemed like three times that number.  At the conclusion, Jerry and I went down to Morton’s.  The maitre d’ greeted us like a brand new daddy.  While he couldn’t discuss the matter, he said that he didn’t expect any more bomb threats.

It turned out that the police had traced the bogus calls to pay phones in a certain area of town.  So, having a good idea as to what time the call would be made, they put a pair of eyes on all the public pay phones in that area.  When the call came in, they alerted on the phone and picked up the culprit.  He turned out to be a disgruntled former employee from (surprise) Morton’s, who had been fired.  He also flipped on a present employee, who was still working there.  They were trying to screw up Morton’s lunch business and had done a pretty good job.

The best thing I can say about that summer is that I got through it.  And, that is important.  If you can get through adversity, then you have that banked away.  When something else disruptive happens, you can say, “Hey, this in not as bad as the bomb threat in whatever year that was.”