Reunion

For a few months I've been on an organizing committee for a special event. The Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia is celebrating its 75th birthday this year. It will host a series of events, culminating in a fancy fundraising dinner in the spring.

But tonight, as a kick-off, Legal Aid is sponsoring a first-ever alumni reunion. At last count we had over 200 former attorneys, law clerks, summer interns, board members, social workers, volunteer attorneys, support staff and the odd loaned-associate coming (and some of them were pretty odd.)

My first 6 years of employment in the law were spent at Legal Aid, as a law student/intern, law clerk, staff attorney and senior staff attorney. I'm looking forward to seeing old friends, both those I've stayed in touch with and the much larger number I've lost track of until now.

But now there's a threat of snow.

As I once wrote here:

One of the joys of living in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area is the charming sense of level-headedness we bring to the topic of inclement weather.

If two lobbyists stand at the corner of 15th and K and one whispers, in the quietest voice possible, the word snow, the effing city goes on panic alert.

The T.V. weathermen all start flailing their arms in a manner reminiscent of the robot on Lost in Space, shrieking "Danger, Will Robinson ... Danger, Will Robinson."

Legal Aid's Executive Director, Jonathan Smith, has sent out a confirmatory e-mail this afternoon to those who've RSVP'd, affirming that Legal Aid current staff and alum are no weather wimps. What he wrote is poetry:

We have been watching the weather report and see that tonight might bring us a storm. We hope you will come nevertheless. Legal Aid staff, volunteers and Board members have long been known to venture into the storm that others flee. The storm of poverty and injustice didn't keep you away -- so what is a little snow?

YAY Jonathan!