An Unbelievable Event For Me

It really is fun writing articles for my own personal Website "TecumsehCityBlog" that I can post and hope that many people read.  I know that I do not write as many articles as I did before but my life is different now.  Accordingly, I have had to adjust.

As well, I have to state that the writings are somewhat different these days compared with what I wrote before. Of course, a lot of the articles today are very similar to my past approach when I was dealing with "businesslike" articles on my old website. However, a good number of them are not the same at all now. They are a lot more personal in nature than before that allow me, dear reader, to tell you a lot about my life in a manner that I have not done previously. 

My whole life seems different as well these days. I don't mind sharing information about myself in a manner that I have not done before. I guess I just want you to know more about me because I think it may help you in dealing with some of the matters in your life. For the better, I trust! 

Let me give you one example of how my life has changed in a manner that seems very significant to me. All of a sudden in this incident, I remembered what I did about 50 years ago because of something that just recently had an influence on my life.  To be direct, I was just so amazed about what took place because I have no real explanation for it happening at all. I am just so pleased though that it did.

I happened to be on the Internet just doing some reading recently and came across a story dealing with a Judge in Ontario. The Judge's name was Russell Otter. 

The story was a very interesting one in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Newsroom:

"The Honourable Justice Russell J. Otter '70 has become the first Canadian to be selected president of the American Judges Association. The AJA is the largest judges association in the United States, with more than 2,000 members, of whom approximately 15 per cent are Canadians.

Justice Otter became a provincial court judge in July 1993, currently sitting at Scarborough Courts.  He was elected president of the Ontario Conference of Judges in 1999.  From 2002-2015, he served as executive director of the Canadian Association of Provincial Court Judges.  The husband and father of two is also a proud grandfather of five, a marathoner and a long-standing volunteer fitness instructor at the YMCA." 

That was a rather significant role for the fellow who was the first Canadian appointed to this high position. In reading the story though, I thought that the name was a very familiar one to me although my familiarity was with the name "Russ." Interestingly, I read that his timeframe was exactly similar to mine. He graduated in 1970 from Law School, the same year that I did.

I have to admit when I looked at his photograph I did not recognize him at all. I did some more research into him and found a photo of him from the past. It looked exactly like one of the fellows I knew so well so many years before so that it confirmed that we were in fact classmates! He and I were people who knew each other very well for 3 years because we both were in the same Law School class at exactly the same time.  I have to admit as well that we were terrific friends during those 3 years because our backgrounds were similar. We dealt with each other so much and were great classmates together.

However, our lives changed subsequently because I went overseas for another year for my Master's Degree in Law. To be honest, when I came back, I really did not speak very much at all with him because I had my life that I was dealing with at the time that was obviously different from the one that he was experiencing. We were each doing our own careers. I think that I saw his name on several University of Toronto Law School matters over the years that he was involved in but my own life was so different that I did not participate in them. In fact, I eventually left Toronto to live in Windsor so that I really did not participate in very many U of T events in Toronto.

What it really meant to me is that while we were great friends for 3 years in Law School, our relationship changed so dramatically that we hardly spoke to each other for the next 40+ years. I have to admit that I knew very little of him during that timeframe and was very surprised when I read about his life. I immediately phoned him just so that I could say hello again to my fellow classmate after so many years.

Regretfully, although I had a terrific phone conversation with his secretary-- I think that was her position-- we did not speak with each other in that phone call. He was not in the office but was away on a trip I was told. I must admit that I wondered whether he would ever call me later or whether he would just not bother given our separation for so many years. I was not even sure that he remembered me.

Last Friday, the phone rang in my house. I picked it up and a gentleman asked if he could speak to me. To be honest, I knew exactly who it was! Notwithstanding the almost 50 years, his voice was recognized by me immediately and absolutely as my classmate, Russ Otter! He did not have to identify himself to me at all. While the photographs I saw on him on the Internet made him unrecognizable, the voice did not. Nor, was the way he talked with me different either. He was my classmate that I recognized right away even though almost 50 years had passed!

We talked about ourselves and our history over the last many years for about a half an hour until he had to leave to meet some people with whom he had an appointment. We were so open in our discussions with each other that it seemed that we had never separated. We knew each other so very well during our conversation that it was truly amazing.  He confirmed with me that he still knew a lot about me. I truly was so astounded about how well we got along with each other.

I just wish we had met each other a few weeks earlier because he had just gone through Windsor a little while ago and we could have met when he came here. He told me that he expected to be in the Windsor area about a year from now and hopefully we can meet then. I, of course, told him that we may well need an out-of-town representative to deal with an American Judges Association matter here and, if so, I was hoping that he could be appointed for it.

So there you have it, dear reader.  I am so thrilled with what happened. More importantly, I just can't believe that people who haven't talked to each other for half a century are still such good friends!