NO MORE MR. NICEGUY

Another little hiatus while I went on a Superbowl weekend with friends. First, I have to tell you about my friends, Jean and Crystal. We have been best friends for 35 years, ever since the first year of law school. What is really weird is that our husbands even have a good time together.. We patted ourselves on the back because the husbands all had good hair and were reasonably handsome, and could survive with practicing lawyer wives who had opinions about everything. Now my husband is gone, and I thought this might alter our good weekend times but it really didn't. Because a friend from law school is a friend forever. And they do not hesitate to tell you what they think.

Jean started out by saying that she had been reading this blog and said it was too nicey-nice. She said it didn't sound a bit like me-- all that sweetness and light. " Write about something you don't like" she said. "Let it all hang out". So I will, but I don't think Jean will like it because she doesn't see "Lolita" in the same way I did.

In law school we were only seven women in a class of 125 and we thought we were real pioneers. Getting a clerking job was a real problem because no Phoenix law firm had ever hired a woman. The firms would come to interview at the law school and try to act as if it were serious, but everyone knew nothing would come of it. That's not true now but it was then. ( For example, when Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from Stanford Law near the head of her class, the only job she was offered was that of a secretary putting pocket parts in the back of a firm's library. ) This situation was about to change, however ,and we were hopeful.

The Law School professor in charge of employment opportunities was a sort of wimpy guy that I don't think the school knew what to do with - this job was a place to park him. And in our little band of seven woman was a young girl with very short skirts and a modicum of underwear whom I will call "Lolita". The combination of these two was deadly. It wasn't long before everyone knew that Lolita and the professor were sleeping together . The employment opportunity office came to a virtual halt. No woman got a hint of a clerkship job that year, nor the year afterward. Lolita was just the epitome of what everyone had said about the failure of women to be real lawyers , I thought. I was bitter.

35 years later we three friends talked about it. Jean still sees Lolita and she was very calm about it. It wasn't Lolita's fault , Jean said, Lolita was just young. Crystal said I was wrong to blame Lolita for her skirts and lack of underwear, the fault lay with the wimpy professor -- he should have overcome the temptation and done his work. I said I didn't care, it still makes me mad because it was so hard for us to find our initial job and make our way.

"But we did it" Crystal said and we three did. It just was damn hard.