After writing my last article on my law professors, I thought I would get it out of my system.  I didn’t.  The thoughts keep flooding in.  Even though these experiences happened over 40 years ago, some are as vivid as yesterday.  And, each year, the stories enlarge and get better.

I mentioned in my last blog that Torts was also a six-hour, year-long course.  It was taught by Dean McCleary.  He had been the dean from 1939 to 1958 (I arrived in 1959).  Any number of times during the course of the year, he would hand out true-false questions.  Each time he would hand them out, he would say, “This is something I prepared for the boys coming home from the war [no, not the Korean War].  They might be helpful to you, but you will probably never see them again.”  I found out late in the second semester, by accident, from an upperclassman, that the true-false questions were always on the final exam.  All of them.  He told me the questions were always the same.  Sometimes the answers changed.

One day in class, Dean McCleary called on me.  I just didn’t hear the question.  So, I said, “I’m sorry sir, what was that?”  Dean McCleary didn’t hear too well and he responded, “That’s right, a question of fact,” and fired another question at me.  The good news for me was that as Dean McCleary asked each question, he would nod his head up and down or sideways.  All I had to do was observe his head and answer the question accordingly.  I must have answered a dozen questions, all correctly, without having a clue as to what he was talking about.

In the previous article, I mentioned Professor “Rosie the Goose” Anderson.  Rosie taught Remedies and his exams were notorious.  Upperclassmen told me that you had to make sure you inserted the magic words in answering his exams.  The trouble was, no one knew the magic words.  The day before the exam, he went to the chalk board to discuss it.  He wrote an 80 on the board and said, “There are 80 points in the exam.  If you get 60 of them, you get an “A.”  If you get 40, you get a “B.”  I felt like I was listening to a pitch man at the carnival.  “Come right up and knock over the pins and you take home a Kewpie Doll.”  I vaguely remember Rosie saying that 28 points will get you a “C.”

After the exam, I checked and Rosie gave out one “A” and two “B”s.  The rest of the class got “C”s and “D”s.  So much for the 50% “B.”  We were still looking for the magic words.

I participated in the light opera spoof of the faculty.  I was to play Professor Willard L. Eckhardt.  Professor Eckhardt was renowned throughout the state for his treaties on real property law.  He co-authored his books with Professor Peterson.  Professor Eckhardt wore a 1940’s type hat with a wide brim.  I needed to find such a hat for the performance, but wasn’t having much luck.  Then, a few weeks before the performance, Professor Eckhardt approached me and offered me one of his older wide-brimmed hats.  It was the real deal.

I played Eck and Hank Westbrooke played Pete (Professor Peterson).  We sang our song to the music of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.  The issue addressed was who should be the dean.  Our lyrics went like this:

    I’m Eck, I’m Pete, Co-authors we
    The Keaton and Prosser of the Faculty
    If we keep on writing at our present pace
    We’ll outsell Tobacco Road and Peyton Place.

    Together we’re twice as witty and wise
    As any one of these other guys.

    We collaborate on our books it’s true
    But it’s not hard to figure where the credit’s due
    I work day and night and I never miss a thing
    Yes, watching the construction on the new west wing.

    Two deans is what this school requires
    Yes, one for the boozers and one for the dry’s.

Then came the Finale with every performer singing.

    Now you may question the propriety
    Of our castigation of the faculty
    And we realize with some remorse
    That the Dean and the professors have the last recourse.

    But, if we succeeded to amuse you all
    We really don’t object to flunking out at all.

                           FINIS