THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604210198
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Paul South
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Courthouses, William Faulkner said, were the heart of small towns.
In simpler times, before the advent of television, videocassettes and satellite dishes, rural county courthouses provided the finest of free entertainment. Folks would pack pimento cheese sandwiches and apples, and go downtown early to get a good seat.
The nice man from the funeral home would put hand fans in the courtroom pews. Those primitive air conditioners depended on the strength of the human wrist, and bore pictures of Jesus on one side, a plug for the undertaker on the other.
Townspeople and farm folks would pack in together like fat puppies in a cardboard box and watch as lawyers ranted and raved, sweated and swayed, and sometimes even swore, but only under their breath.
At recess, folks ate their sack lunches, and talked about who was sick, who had died, who was getting married and who was having a baby. It was a time for neighbors, often separated by a mile or more, to catch up, to talk, to renew.
Lawyers were held in high esteem in their communities, right up there with the school principal and the minister. They earned a decent living but didn't get filthy rich.
An old lawyer friend of mine, Jim Beech, once told me about those days.
``Back then I didn't build a bank account,'' he said. ``All I wanted was a good name.''
Courthouses were fun.
Courthouses aren't much that way anymore. For the past week, I watched a civil trial in this county that by one lawyer's own admission came down to one issue:
``It's about money,'' the attorney said.
The case was tried in an air-conditioned courtroom. Only a scattering of witnesses and interested parties - about a dozen folks in all - spent the week watching the trial.
There were no sack lunches. The nearest pimento cheese sandwich was across the street. At recess, there was no catching up to do, only sad, serious faces. And these days, lawyers are held in much the same regard as used-car salesmen, presidential candidates, federal building bombers and journalists. As they say back in Walker County, Alabama: We ain't too high on the pole.
While the trial went on, a friend showed me that he was reading a book I had recommended, Howell Raines' wonderful ``Fly Fishing Through a Mid-Life Crisis.'' In it, Raines borrows a line from an English poet, and takes it a step further.
``Time is the rider of us all,'' Raines writes, ``especially if our only pleasure in football, fishing or love, comes from keeping score.''
Maybe that's why folks don't crowd the courthouse anymore, making it the heart of our small towns. It's not a place for renewing communities, or eating pimento cheese, or building a good name.
Like the lawyer said, it's about money.
And because we keep score in court, just as we do when we fish or love or watch football, time is riding us harder all the time, and makes this world a little sadder, older and colder. by CNB