The Verdict -- Robert Gardner

My career as a writer began in 1928, when I was appointed to the

position of joke editor of the Bell High School student newspaper.

As a joke editor, I dazzled the readers with some classics worthy of

Hemingway if not Shakespeare -- the high school version of “Who was that

lady I saw you with last night?” “That was no lady, that was my wife.”

Bob Hope with a stable full of writers would have been hard put to touch

me. I continued to dabble in journalism throughout the years, and some of

this must have carried over to my legal opinions. Bernie Witkin, the

great legal writer of the century, put it this way: “Bob, you will never

go down in legal or judicial history as one of the great scholars.

However, I must admit, stupid though you may be, your writing is

completely readable.”

Since legal opinions are notoriously abstruse, that quality alone was

enough to give me a small amount of fame in those circles.

However, lawyers and judges pale on the social scale when compared to

dogs, as I learned recently. It seems almost anything pales when compared

to a dog. John Barrymore was hailed as the finest Hamlet of his

generation, but ask how many remember John Barrymore and how many people

remember Rin Tin Tin, and Barrymore comes in a poor second.

I found out about this the hard way. I have been laboring over my

typewriter for the Pilot for more than five years. Maybe once or twice a

year, some nice lady would say in the market that she had enjoyed a

particular column. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my dog.

Wow! Double wow! From the response I got, you would have thought I

wrote a new version of Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, considered by most

scholars to be the greatest short message ever delivered. And all because

I wrote about a dog.

Oh, I must admit that most people have never owned a small dog that

has consumed a whole loaf of bread in one sitting so that she looks like

a small dirigible with legs, but it doesn’t take much in the way of

brains to eat a loaf of bread, and it takes even less to tell about it.

Nevertheless, my dog -- her name is Dog -- and I are enjoying our

precious few moments in the sun.

* ROBERT GARDNER is a Corona del Mar resident and a former judge. His

column runs Tuesdays.