Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 11, 1994 TAG: 9404120017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By EDWARD LAZARUS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is certainly appropriate. Still, I hope that room is found somewhere in that history for another unique - and more personal - aspect of his years at the court: his daily ritual of breakfast.
At 8:10 every weekday, from September to July, Justice Blackmun, flanked by his law clerks, heads into the public cafeteria for the first meal of the day. By this time, the justice has been at work for the better part of an hour. His clerks will still be rubbing sleep from their eyes.
These breakfasts, despite occasional mornings of excruciating silence, were one of the great rewards of a Blackmun clerkship. Breakfast is personal time, largely unencumbered by court business, the time that forms a nearly familial bond between judge and clerk, elder and neophyte. At breakfast I learned the justice had worked on a dude ranch to help put himself through Harvard College. At breakfast we first shared our love of junk mysteries. At breakfast I first saw his unspoken pain at having to vote to put another man to death.
Our first breakfast together, only our second meeting, was on a Monday. One of the court's police officers came over to welcome the justice back from the summer recess. I remember Justice Blackmun's asking the officer about his wife and children, and knowing their names.
One morning, in March, I believe, Justice Blackmun turned to me in line and asked for the spelling of the word ``vacuum.'' A slight panic set in, yet somehow I got it right. The justice looked at me a little quizzically. ``You misspelled it in one of the memos I read last night,'' he noted gravely. I muttered a sheepish apology. ``I wouldn't have mentioned anything,'' he continued, ``but you misspelled it in November as well.''
I wondered how many of my misspellings, misplaced commas, incorrect page citations and dangling participles the justice had cataloged in his mind. He was famous around the court for catching errors that others missed, for insisting on proper usage (standing instruction: ``parameter'' may be used only as a mathematical term) and for checking personally every citation in his opinions. If there has been a more meticulous, scrupulous, detail-oriented person on the Supreme Court, I'd be quite surprised.
One morning, over eggs, we talked about a historical novel on the battle of Gettysburg, which we both had read and enjoyed. The justice's eyes brightened as he mused about James Longstreet, the Confederate general who doubted Robert E. Lee's strategy for the engagement and was later blamed for the crushing defeat. We speculated about whether history had treated Longstreet fairly, and doubted that it had.
My mind wandered to Justice Blackmun's office, where, behind his desk, hangs the sword of a grandfather who fought for the Union. Along another wall stands a small shrine to Abraham Lincoln: framed quotations, a silhouette and documents bearing the signature of the president who had preserved the nation.
As he talked about Gettysburg, the spirit of that struggle - a deep, almost sentimental belief in the idea of the United States - fairly radiated from the man.
A great reward of a Blackmun clerkship is the privilege of coming back for breakfast once in a while. I look forward to many breakfasts down the road. Whoever President Clinton chooses to assume Justice Blackmun's seat on the court should stop by the cafeteria some morning around 8:10. It's a lot more than breakfast.
Edward Lazarus was a law clerk to Justice Blackmun from July 1988 to July 1989.
The Washington Post
by CNB