FRIDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

note: this is an article that Violet wrote when she was a teen correspondent for Waco Tribune Herald. Violet was a sophomore in high school. The date of the article is September 6, 2001.

What are you doing Friday Night? Well, if you are like thousands of other Texas, you will be attending a high school football game. The lights, the crowds, 22 young men on a 100-yard field to play a game with a ball made of pigskin ----It just don't get no better than this!

High school football has been around almost as long as high schools in Texas. We are known for the sport and the importance we place on it. Five-year-old boys start on flag football teams and graduate to full contact by age 7. Maybe we do start them a little young, but you can't take away the fact that participating in a team sport is a part of growing up and has some great lessons to be learned.

Team sports give children the opportunity to learn how to work with others. Taking instruction from a coach and doing as he says, no questions asked, is a lesson in humility. A guy might be very good at his position but with the wrong attitude can be sidelined indefinitely. Hmmm...learning how to take orders from a superior ---you just might use this lesson later in life.

The schools take the education of their athletes very seriously. Without the passing grades, even the best athletes on the team are benched until their grades improve. Statistically, a very small percentage of high school athletes make it into college ball and even fewer into the ranks of the professional athlete. So, academically these young men may just need to know some of this stuff that they are studying. Or at least how to say, "Do you want fries with that?" in more than one language.

Friday night football is a lot of fun at our school. It is definitely the place to be -- all of your friends are there. A large portion of the student body participates in the Friday night activities -- the varsity football players, cheerleaders, band, flag corps, dance team, Blue Crew, Panther Patrol --those are the kids that are required to be there. The entire student body comes out, in mass, to cheer on the team --Our Team--banding together against a common enemy---whoever the opponent is that week.

Men of my my father's generation can still give you a play-by-play description of the big championship game of their high school football careers. These bonds are established on the practice fields with their teammates every day of the week during football season and extend throughout their high school days and all through their lives. Being a part of a team is important all of your life.

Maybe we do take our football a little too seriously in Texas. But maybe other states just don't take their football seriously enough!

Friday Night Football is a great tradition -- so why not go out to your local high school football field this Friday night and see what all the excitement is about?!?

Last Day at the Office by Violet

So today is my last day at the office, and I have wrapped every project up and put away all my working files. I am not ready to leave the working world yet and get back to school. That’s one reason I’m glad I immediately started law school after I graduated from undergrad- because if I had any time off, I would never want to go back. So now after taking a year off of law school to get my MBA, and get 7 months of real world law firm experience- I must now go back to the institution that is Baylor Law. There will by crying and gnashing of teeth. But I’ve complained enough, and now im actually just sad to leave the office that I have been to almost every workday since February. I will miss all of the attorneys and the staff- both of whom I had great conversations and learned a lot. I will miss the daily lunches of course, but also the constant change of work and interesting cases. My stomach is actually in knots as I type because I don’t want to leave here. There is no stressful studying, only stress over real situations and real clients. I enjoyed helping people, although they were rather macabre situations for the other side: foreclosures, evictions, probate, bankruptcies. But at least now I know that I’m ready to be done with school, and that I know exactly what I want to do when I get out. Between now and then, I just have to pass Practice Court and the Bar- no biggie, right?

THIS GENERATION THINKS THEY INVENTED THE WHEEL

.....but they did not invent cardiovascular exercise. When Violet regaled me with her stories of afternoons spent in the dance studio taking ZUMBA classes I simply smiled to myself. How many years ago did I purchase the book for Jane Fonda's workout or enroll in my own jazzercise classes? Thirty years ago I, too, was extremely interested in all things new and exciting....a dance class, movie star's theory on exercise or latest movement to music fad. anything to (try) to make exercise fun.

I have to admit, having danced in high school, the exercise while dancing faze was the longest lived for me. Dancing and having fun with music was the simplest and most consistent of my cardiovascular improving trials.

My mother probably thought at the time that jazzercise and books with video cassettes showing us how to exercise was just about as silly as I deem Zumba to be. They played sports in the fifties or simply walked were they wanted to go instead of driving everywhere.

Who knows what they will come up with next? The pharmaceutical companies have become rich by developing pills to be taken for cardiovascular health. Or at least to combat the effects of poor cardiovascular health. I cannot imagine that heart health will EVER be that easy. I wish that it were but don't believe that it ever will be.


So whatever the next generation comes up with maybe we should give it a try. Whatever keeps us moving and dancing, I'm all for it!

MPRE- May Practice Relaxed Ethics?

So as I prepare to take the ethics portion of the Bar exam on Friday- the MPRE- I have begun to notice how gray the lines of ethics really are.

You CAN turn in a client who threatens to murder someone…but you don’t have to…

You CAN deny an appointment to a case because you are so disgusted by the clients course of action that you cannot logically represent him.

But heaven forbid you enter into a partnership with a non legal professional- because that sir is unethical.

I guess as a profession that always finds loopholes in claims and issues, we would also interpret ethics in a similar manner. It’s just interesting how many choices there are for what they call the federal “model rules”, that is ethical standards that the Bar Association holds their members to. Many of the answer choices on the practice exams tend to be “the lawyer can do so and so, and but doesn’t have to take on that liability if they choose not to get involved”.

Or as I read out to nick on the plane ride home , “a member of the bar should aspire 50 hours of pro bono work a year”. Wow, I though that’s a lot- before reading the word aspire again. Sure I should do 50 hours a year for charity, but even the ETHICS book says that you can designate one lawyer in the firm to do the 50 hours for every lawyer and just be the Pro Bono guy. How does that work?
Hopefully I can at least get all of these tricky ethical standards or lack of standards into my head by Friday- but maybe if I fail I could just argue that I thought there was an optional obligation to pass the MPRE before the bar exam, and that it was merely an ethical suggestion and not my duty as a member of the legal profession.

ZUMBA AYYYYEEEE

So, I am not the most coordinated. And I NEVER claimed to be the most athletic. Especially in the presence of my overly- athletic siblings. But I have come to enjoy working out since I’ve been at college- mixing up my workouts- and just being generally active.
During high school, I stayed on varsity tennis all four years, despite my lack of ability to climb the rungs of the competitive ladder. I wasn’t even too keen on the idea of team sports, hence the choosing of tennis. But I think it was the overall release that I enjoyed by devoting hours of may day to something that wasn’t all mind consuming. And just like I stretch my mind throughout the day in Chemistry and Calculus, I enjoyed hitting a tennis ball, running lines on the courts and hours of serving practice to get the little yellow ball into the white square.
When I came to Baylor, I ran around too much freshman year with friends to worry about finding a tennis replacement- that and I was working 30 hours a week on my feet at Outback steakhouse. But once I started sophomore year I decided to check out the Baylor gym- that’s when I started running. It was something I never really liked to do, but it seems like something that people make themselves do- so I tried it. I was able to watch TV and study or read a magazine all while getting my exercises.

So for three years this is something I just made myself do about five times a week. It wasn’t till law school that I realized the correlation between the “working out” and my better moods. Especially when I had been cooped up study all day, getting to the gym to go run, or lift weights was the highlight of my day (pretttyyy nerdy).
Now I have discovered work out classes- basically the past two years- under the bearobics program and the Baylor student life center and golds gym . I started with simple weight and cross training classes and then adventured off to Zumba, Because I have never been athletic- I was extremely embarrassed to start going to these classes that require a smidge of coordination. I was never a dancer (although I took years of tap, ballet and jazz- thanks mom- and despite my hereditary predisposition to rhythm – my mother and aunt won nationals in drill team in high school ’76) but I realized that if I went to enough classes, I would at least be worked out enough that it supplemented my want to get on the treadmill that day. Pretty soon I realized it was nice to mix up my work out that way, and I was having more and more fun releasing my inhibitions in weight class or Zumba- a high energy dancing class. Zumba even has it’s own Wikipedia page- apparently it’s “ created with specific beats and tempo changes, transitions the workout from one toning, strengthening or cardio move to another, and targets every major muscle group in the body”. And that’s pretty much it. But an hour doing that goes by a lot faster than running.

I started taking my sister this summer to classes with me and she shows me up so bad. First of all, she’s an all star pitcher, once proclaimed “Crawford Hurler stifles McGregor “ in the local paper- those are some pretty bad-a descriptive nouns and adjectives for a softball pitcher. And not only is she inherently athletic- she also has had dance moves since she was born. She taught me how to fast dance before my first big junior high dance- when she was only 7 or 8. Throughout high school we would dance in our room so I would be loose enough not to make a fool out of myself when I went to dances. And this ability apparently also translates to Zumba. I was so much less inhibited whenever she would come with me to class, and now I’m having to work at it by myself because she has been very busy taking 17 hours of class this summer and working and babysitting and running the world.

While I continue to miss my work out buddy, I am definitely up for all new things now. Whether it’s sprinting around with my boyfriend Nick, playing tennis, or joining the workout classes with all the Baylor Freshman- I know that it improves my mood and gives me the push that I need throughout the week. Hopefully I will have enough time during PC to at least run a little bit. What worries me is that even my most devout gym junky friends completely abandoned work outs in favor of studying and sleeping. I hope I don’t get that exhausted. But tomorrow’s another day, and today- after work- I will be attending 15 minute ABS class as well as 7:00 ZUMBA!

ST. JO, MO

I just had a wonderful weekend to top off a wonderful week of work.

Last week at work, I was extremely busy putting some final touches on a lot of the projects I have been working on.

1. I drafted a brief for the Fifth Circuit court of appeals on behalf of a convicted felon. Usually our firm only deals with civil cases, but one of the young partners was appointed to this appeals case. Best part about the whole project was that I got to go to the scene of the action and measure out where each individual was standing when the event occurred. Almost like a CSI: Waco. Then I was treated to lunch at a Thai restaurant. I’m getting really spoiled here.

2. I spent about 8 hours this week finishing up the accounting for a guardianship proceeding. Even with only 12 months of documents, it was fun to go back and remember all my accounting information from my MBA and apply it to a personal and legal accounting situation.

3. I sat in on a couple of client meetings that were very interesting, I feel as though even the clients are starting to view me as part of the meeting, and not just some student “sit-in” that they have to be careful what they say around.

4. I worked on a motion Pro Hac Vice- which in latin means “for this occasion” or “for this event,” it is a legal term usually referring to a lawyer who has not been admitted to practice in a certain jurisdiction but has been allowed to participate in a particular case in that jurisdiction. So in this case I filled out an application for a lady lawyer who is going to come to Texas to practice a court of appeals case with an attorney in our office. I also drafted the motion Pro Hac Vice telling the court that she should be admitted. For some reason- this project took me forever- and most likely because everyone corrected my Latin pronunciation- supposed to be said “Pro Ahhhhc Veeechay”- while I simply said “Pro Hac Vice”. Hey- I only took Spanish, sorry for not majoring in the classics.

I finished all of my project son Thursday-all of which I tried to efficiently tie up early so I could get on the road to go to Dallas to start my relaxing weekend. This weekend has been planned for a while, and I was excited to go up to Missouri and meet Nick’s family, visit a new state, and see the Kansas City Chiefs up close.
When I got off work around 3 or 4, I started driving up to Dallas to meet Nick for our flight out that night from Love Field. I had never flown Southwest before- and I loved it- so much easier and faster than American. So we boarded a plane around 8:30 and got to Kansas City, Missouri around 10:15. We were picked up by Nick’s Dad who drove us 30 miles in to St. Joseph- the city where Nick grew up and still calls home. Once settled at his parents house, we were surprised to find out that Nick’s parents coordinated the entire Taylor clan to come in for the weekend. His brother, sister and sister-in-law greeted us with pizza and smiling faces. Already such a happy guy, Nick was ecstatic that his entire family was there for the weekend. He must love his family just as much as I love mine. I can’t imagine being grown up and far away from those that I see nearly every week. Mom would just die.

I was already in vacation mode upon arriving in Missouri- and I continued to lay around, enjoy good conversation, and eat throughout the next couple of days. I haven’t relaxed like this since I went on Family Vacation for the fourth of July- and before that even longer. Also- I probably won’t get another chance to relax for a while- so I gladly soaked in the relaxing aura of the weekend.

Friday afternoon we were supposed to attend Kansas City Chiefs training camp- but it was rained out – and fans were not allowed in the indoor training facility. So we hung out, talked, watched home videos, and ate wonderful food all day. Saturday morning we got up bright and early, determined to catch a sight of the chiefs, rain or shine. Luckily it was a beautiful day and the NFL players were out in full pads playing on two large practice fields built specifically for their new training camp location at Missouri Western. Nick and I were noticeably the only fans there not donning bright red and yellow- fair weather indeed. I have never even been to an NFL football game, so it was so incredible to see these impressive athletes practicing within yards of where we were standing. Nick got some great pictures and I just watched for players that Nick and my brothers had been telling me about. It was so much fun, I loved the excited fans, and the loud mouth players, and the coaches yelling at everyone to work harder. I now definitely have something to brag about to the firm when they take me to lunch this week. “This weekend? Oh nothing really, just went to an NFL training camp and threw passes to Matt Cassel”



Coming back completely drenched in sweat from being in Missouri Heat (not as bad as Texas, but still hot and humid) we cleaned up and Nick took me on a short tour of St. Joseph Missouri- Birthplace of the Pony express, and the town that Jesse James was shot in. I saw Nick’s high school , middle school, houses he grew up in, and his dad’s office. It was a very pretty city, and very similar to Waco.

That night, after I went on a quick run around the neighborhood, we had another wonderful meal of rotisserie chicken, and vegetables cooked on the grill. Topped off with a beautiful mixed berry and cherry tarts- it was such an amazing treat.

Sunday was by far probably the best day. I really enjoyed the church that Nick took me to that morning, and when we got back from a wonderful sermon, there was a brunch ready and waiting for us, and Nick’s grandparents and aunt there to meet us. With another amazing spread, we feasted throughout the afternoon and it definitely felt like a holiday with all the family around and stories being told.

The church we went to really reminded me of growing up in UBC when my dad and mom took us there. A very small tight knit church, where the sermon was definitely more conversational than the traditional Baptist churches I’ve been to- but not too lax to where people were dancing in the aisles and waiving their hands in the air. Just in the middle of the spectrum but with a great feeling to the fellowship- with plenty of scripture quoted- a must for me since studying with BSF throughout grade school. I’ve been visiting all over, but trying this new church really made me want a church home. And I can’t decide which one that would be in Waco.

As I came back into Waco, I felt not exhausted from the travel, but deeply relaxed because of the 10+ hours of sleep I got every night and the lounging around that we were able to take part in. I was thoroughly entertained, taken care of and pampered all weekend. And now I have pictures of NFL players to wow my brothers with next time I see them.