I’m sitting in a courtroom, an hour early as is my custom for purposes of getting one of the very few handicapped parking spaces available on the curb.  I’m particularly lucky this date, as a space opens just as I cruise by, though I have to nip through a luke-warm red light to get it.  I avoid those on the north side of 12th Street, since the city, in its infinite wisdom and continually mysterious obliviousness, has situated them butt-up against humongous immovable concrete planters.  I cannot disembark if I am parked by those spaces, so the south spaces are really the only ones I can use.

I tool up the elevator, chatting with a stunned prospective juror. He’s suffering from the mind-numbing process of voir dire, which he calls “being interviewed”.  I had no idea it would be like this, he admits.  He shakes his head.  I don’t think he feels particularly civic.

I’ve answered email, checked Facebook, and meditated.  Now I’m glancing around at the men gathered for the Fathering docket, Jackson County’s answer to the high incident of noncustodial parents failing to support their children.   Two prosecutors, one of whom dates back to my days with the County, speak to one father after another, and one or two mothers.  I think about my son, and the small but steady child support check that arrived in my mailbox every month for nearly eighteen years.  It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.  It bought shoes, birthday presents, 1.5 weeks of daycare, and winter coats.  I told my son every month that his father’s check had arrived.  I don’t know if it meant anything to him.  I can only hope.

The day is lovely.  My hearing occurs at 3:00 p.m. and with any hope, it will be over in an hour.  I plan to take the rest of the day off.  I’ve one or two personal tasks that I want to accomplish, and I feel the need of some blessed downtime.  My legs hurt; and my soul feels a little weary.  But I’ve no complaints.  In the immortal words of Leonard Hughes, Sr., I woke up today, which is more than a lot of people can say.  So let’s get the show started.