The Day The Lawyers Cried
Feather Schwartz
One fateful day in Mudville, the public had a shock,
To simply get a tank of gas, the lines curled round the block,
“There is no gas, no gas today,” you heard Mudvillians holler,
As they watched the price for gasoline go soaring past a dollar.
Their legislators paced the floor and even chewed their nails,
Of course there’s a solution, the one when all else fails,
We’ll simply go to rationing, we’ve done it once before,
In fact it was a huge success! It helped us win the War.
So all across America, you could hear attorneys squeal,
There’s not been such a windfall since FDR’s New Deal!
Like locusts drawn to Washington, the lawyers came in swarms,
With mountains full of paperwork and forests full of forms.
They came from all the fifty states, and Guam and Puerto Rico
To join the firm of Ipso, Facto, Groucho, Harpo, Chico!
A government of governments, behold the new employers!
A hundred thousand jobs to fill and all of them, with lawyers!
The printing of the ration cards is only the beginning,
The lawyers dreamed their wildest dreams – their very heads were spinning!
The paperwork will run to tomes, said legalistic sages,
The laws and the exemptions are perhaps a thousand pages,
New licenses, new permits, all items to be taxed,
(Sierra members knelt and prayed, Yosemite was axed.)
Attorneys would dot all the “i’s”, examine all the “t’s”
While overhead were visions of humungous legal fees,
Break open the Dom Perignon, they raised a glass indeed,
To niggling! To pompousness! To arrogance! To greed!
To pockets they would fill with gold from Hess and John Paul Getty,
And Ipso licked his jowly chops and Facto threw confetti!
A spate of legislation
And incumbent regulation,
Each refinery and station
Needs the right certification,
And a new administration
With its own authorization,
(Just the thought of new taxation
Is beyond all computation!)
And our slightest conversation
Will become a consultation,
Every state within the nation
Will assume dissemination,
So our goofiest relation
Now will have an occupation!
Quoth the lawyers of the nation,
“Oh the joy! The jubilation!”
So as Ipso lit his candles, Facto knelt to genuflect,
But in Oregon – yes, Oregon, a voice said “I object!
There’s something so much easier, it’s common sense, by God,
On ‘even’ days, the ‘even’ plates, on ‘odd’ days, we do ‘odd.’”
“We’ll solve the problems in a day, it won’t take any time,
And best of all, Mudvillians, it will not cost a dime!”
And all across the country, the objection was sustained,
No spate of laws, no legal fees, no coffers to be drained.
The next day, like a miracle, the gas lines fell to half,
And angels up in heaven claim they heard Abe Lincoln laugh!
‘Mid sputtering and muttering and desperate cries of “Merde,”
(Sierra members knelt in thanks, Yosemite was spared!)
Their time had gone, the lawyers claimed, lamenting many things,
Like habeas and corpusi, and dollar signs with wings,
A little David won the day, as strange as it may seemeth,
A tiny stone of common sense doth smote the Great Behemoth.
Farewell the reams of paperwork, farewell the courtroom clogging,
Farewell the pickiest of nits, the pettiest of fogging.
Farewell to giant legal fees, farewell to might-have-been laws,
Farewell to empty jobs to fill with undeserving in-laws.
No pockets would be filled with gold from Hess and John Paul Getty,
And Ipso wept on Facto’s breast, amid the spent confetti.
More sputtering, more muttering, but lawyers had conceded,
No agencies, no ration cards, no lawyers would be needed.
With nothing left to quibble at, no place to fix the blame,
They simply slithered back between the rocks from whence they came.
I’d like to make a motion that a day be set aside,
A day of feast and fireworks, a day of civic pride,
And let the Mudville bells ring out to summon far and wide,
There was some job in Mudville on the day the lawyers cried.
Feather: "I've been a songwriter - mainly of children's shows - since college with many shows produced. My interest in Presidential (and American) history has also been lifelong, and my book: "Ladies: A Conjecture of Personalities" allows my imagination to play with history. My second book, "Garfield's Train" is a novel about the death of President James Garfield in Long Branch, NJ in 1881. I have also e-published an informative little book entitled "On The Road With the Old Gals" - about my lessons learned while promoting my books by lecture. I am currently working on a non-fiction about Presidential marriages. Contact Feather.
