Elk Cliff Bank

Some of you know I played law professor this Fall, teaching a "practicum" course at Washington & Lee University School of Law. Under a new program, students in their final year at this school take only clinical and practicum courses intended to acclimate them to next year's "real life." (Occasionally a student might take a "doctrinal" course if he or she has a prospective employer who requires a particular course not yet taken.)

Actually I didn't play law professor; I stepped back in time and re-played "General Counsel." I was the boss of the Office of General Counsel, Elk Cliff Bank. The students were attorneys in the Office of General Counsel and employees of the bank.

"What's Elk Cliff Bank?" asks Virginia.

Colonel Francis Anderson founded Elk Cliff Bank in 1832. The bank was a state-chartered “wildcat” bank. A wildcat bank issued its own money. That money was only recognized and honored by Elk Cliff Bank, so you might imagine how much or little comfort the bank's customers felt back then.

The bank was headquartered in the plantation house of Elk Cliff Farm, which had a safe room in its basement. Folks would stop by to make appointments, then return to meet with the Colonel. So the bank has a long history of personalized service.

Beginning in 1863 and 1864, when the National Bank Acts were enacted and national currency arrived, the bank made a point of looking forward. Unlike many family banks, Elk Cliff was not afraid to hire qualified, experienced “outsiders” who favored innovation. That tradition continues today.

Our big job was to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Our second class began in the Fall of 2008, then we gradually stepped into 2011.

Gobbledygook and Psychobabble

Finally, in September, it's time to freeze sweet corn. Three or four ears have been favoring my lunch plate for more than a month, and now the last two plantings are ripening too rapidly for us to eat. Same with green beans. In fact, at the moment I'm behind on everything. My editors probably think I should be working on a deadline that's passed instead of writing a blog entry.

"Are you going to mention why?" says Virginia.

Why what? Maybe. Sometimes a little diversion goes a long way. I could admit that teaching a law school class has bled time from my usual pursuits, offering a captive audience for someone hungry to share tidbits after more than 17 years of fairly solitary studying. Two classes, two drops. When I left the building, it was raining. I don't know if that's a bad sign or nothing at all.

I let the writing get away from me, consume me, as if 17 years of passing persistence called for redemption. Maybe I had to be doubly sure it was real work. Are these the doubts of a possible imposter? Peel the onion. Does it stink?

Making Notes

The god of bad notes guards my piano. A friend gave me a carved African statue, saying it would swallow the missed notes I threw from the keyboard so other listeners wouldn't hear them.

Virginia grew yesterday. I've finally learned to jot down ideas when they come to me. Otherwise they may be lost forever. I keep bound journals everywhere I frequent so when the muse speaks I write. Handy little books, I found several at K-Mart long ago. When they were filled with good and bad notes, I couldn't find the same kind anywhere until I went online and ordered a couple dozen.

Speaking of bad notes, yesterday I filled the air with them. I lay the blame on worn out contacts, which I replaced this morning, an unfamiliar piano, a noisy room, and a lack of concentration. We, the Arrowhead Trio -- consisting of a violinist, clarinetist and me -- did a run-through of a concert scheduled for Thursday evening at DuPont Hall, Washington and Lee University. We played in the Commons of the university, where students and faculty dine and socialize. As we played, they hovered or passed by, quietly studying, noisily yelling greetings to friends, checking email, singing, humming, and mostly ignoring us in the corner. Kind of like playing at a charity fundraiser or wedding reception, it was a good way to expose the music of Hovhaness, Arutiunian, Milhaud and Shostakovich, all twentieth century composers, to a captive crowd. One by one, we goofed up, leaving no one person to criticize.

In the evening, when I arrived at the weekly practice of our community chorus, the men warmed up while the women completed a sectional rehearsal. One of the basses, who has opera experience, led us in five-note scales of "enns." Taking advantage of the opportunity to offer five-cents' worth of advice, he commented on how difficult singing is because it depends on human body parts that can't be controlled like a man-made instrument. Disregarding for the moment the fact that human body parts must behave in specialized ways to play any instrument and machines have a tendency to break down, I think of the many "untrained" singers who perform seemingly effortlessly. As the bass pointed out, while singing can be difficult, it can, at times, also seem remarkably and smoothly simple. Those are the moments singers live for.

I see, floating on the fringes, an image of a teacher who begins discussion of a new topic with the words, "I know this is difficult, but...." I recently read about a study finding that if a doctor tells a patient a procedure is going to hurt, it hurts more than when the doctor doesn't mention it. I think I'll vote for the banning of predictions of difficulty. Let's try to make things look easy.