Beach(es) Beat

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I wish I knew everything again. The time when I did know everything began when my buddies and I discovered the delights of a pub in my old hometown of Hamilton called The Honest Lawyer.

We would gather there every Saturday afternoon, about a dozen or so usually, and each young man had his own beery theory about what was wrong with the world. It generally took about an hour to list all the problems, which covered a wide range as you can imagine, except you could not criticize anybody else's girlfriend because this often led to black eyes and bad feelings, both of which took about a week to heal.

I cannot say we actually solved any of those awful problems that we exposed with such eloquence and wit but we all believed we were on the right track and that it would be only a matter of time until events proved us right.

In our defence, I must point out that marriage, children and careers eventually entered the picture so we just didn't have the time to put our theories into practice.

But having said that, in fairness, I must say one reason we didn't make a difference is that nobody ever really had the chance to explain his own theory in full. Interruptions were as commonplace as salted peanuts and in most cases the concluding sentence in any discussion was, "Do you want to step outside and say that?"

At this point the rest of us would leap to our feet, throw our arms around the disputants and assure them their friendship was more important than some silly theory and they should stop jostling about because the beer could be spilled. On this note, the meeting was adjourned and all present agreed to meet next week at the same time.

The pub was named by a man who bought the business and he was so impressed by the integrity of his legal adviser that he called the establishment The Honest Lawyer.

It was a popular meeting spot for years and then some lawyers objected to the name, complaining that honest lawyers were not all that unusual so the name was changed. The Honest Lawyer is gone now, as dead as the theories espoused by the earnest young men who met there every Saturday afternoon but I will always believe the world would be a better place if we only had somebody making notes during our discussions because I knew everything then.