Recently, I was summoned for jury duty at the Broward County Courthouse, with instructions to appear promptly at 7:45 a.m. I was assigned Juror ID=LY4279.
     I was excited and honored to finally exercise my civic duty after having lived in South Florida for six years now. Ok, I'll admit, the real reason I was so excited, was that it was a nice way to get out of going to work.     
      I had been called twice before in my life, both while I was in college in Cleveland, Ohio, and both times I was excused.
      My whole life I've been so accustomed to being judged by others: parents, school teachers, Franciscan priests, college professors, my older sisters, and bosses at work. Now, at long last, my time had finally arrived, where I could act as judge and  jury, and have a say on who I thought should be exonerated or ushered to the gallows.
     The day started off well enough, I was one of a third group called and escorted into a court room, where we lined up in front of our chairs to tell a little about ourselves. The case, to my disappointment, was a civil case involving an Italian restaurant being sued, when one of their polls holding their store banner had slumped over and obstructed and injured a bicyclist passing by
        What a disappointment. 
        I was hoping for a case with a little more sizzle, like the Sam Sheppard case, one of the most famous and controversial criminal trials in Cleveland history, when the Bay Village neurosurgeon was accused and convicted of murdering his wife Marilyn in 1954.
       In any event, I stood up and told the judge a little about myself, while the defense and prosecuting attorney's feverishly worked their legal pads as the process of the jury selection got under way. I thought it was going well, telling where I was born, where I worked, my educational background, etc, etc. One question they’re interested in especially during a civil trial, is if you’ve ever been involved in an accident. I was. When I was nine-years old, I was run over by a Higbees truck. Higbees was a major department store in Northeast Ohio (long since gone).
         I no sooner got the words out, when the judge’s eyebrows lifted skyward, as did the defense attorney. And they grilled me further. Did my family sue? How badly was I injured? When they learned my parents settled for just hospital bills, the inquisitive judge wanted to know if my parents ever regretted not suing. I said probably. Then he wanted to know how I felt about my parents not suing for more damages. I said, I didn’t really think about it; and didn’t think it would influence my judgment.
         I knew I was a goner and wouldn’t be invited to serve on the jury. And I was right.
         My day was done at 11:45. Believe it or not, I was really looking forward to reading a book all day at the court house.
        Those of us who were rejected strolled to the elevator and joked that we should have lunch at the restaurant being sued just to spite the defense attorney. I said I knew being hit by a Higbee truck would eventually come back to haunt me.
         Having to recall the time I was run over by the truck when I was a youngster brought back some awfully strange memories.
         What I remember was playing a pick-up-basketball game at my elementary school, St. Charles in Parma, Ohio.  As I was riding my bike home around dinner hour, I stopped at the red light at the intersection of Ridge and Snow Rd across from the Parma Movie Theatre, still there by the way.
        My parents always nagged me about walking by bike when crossing the street. That’s about the last real clear recollection I had about that raw November day. Somehow, I got pinned behind the wheels of a truck; it was dragging me for a few hundred yards before someone motioned to the truck driver I was behind his back wheels.     
        Everything else is a little fuzzy about what unfolded. I vaguely remember screaming to the swarm of bystanders hovered over me to get away; that I was alright. At that time, and this is about the last thing I remember, I noticed my leg was oozing with blood ,and then I tried to walk and quickly collapsed. As it turned out, the bike ended up saving my life. It was one of those old banana bikes, and it was crushed like an accordion as the truck rode over me.
        Someone ran up to my sister Katie in front of our house on Gerald Avenue, and told her I had just been killed by a truck. She raced into the house, and my Mom was already on the phone with the hospital.
         I've had better days. 
        I suffered a broken pelvis, torn ligaments, and broken collar bone. Luckily, I didn’t suffer any head or brain damage. Well, that’s what the doctor told me anyway.
        I was in the hospital for three weeks. My Dad worked with me in the walker every day, as I tried to learn how to walk all over again. I recovered, though I do have one leg shorter than the other, which probably explains why I always end up tripping over myself, along with tripping over my words
        The worst part was having to face my classmates again
        Since I was a chubby kid, the first thing Richard Busta wanted to know when I walked into Ms. Canada's classroom was if the truck was ok.
        Having broken my collar-bone, the doctor didn’t want me with crutches under my arms, so I had no choice but to head back to school with a cane. How embarrassing.  I was the butt of jokes, everyone was doing their best Walter Brennan impression (remember, from The Real McCoy’s gimping along) as I slogged down the hallways
         I’m not sure why I’m sharing this story. Only that my jury experience brought back some memories that I just as soon forget.

****
Pulitzer winner update

     A couple of Pulitzer winners responded to my emails, when I wrote them, and asked what it’s like to win, and if they learned they won journalism's top prize before the official announcement on Monday afternoon.
 Here are their responses

``To answer your questions. What do you do when you learn? You start to sweat, or at least I did, and feel increasingly dazed. A sense of happy unreality sets in, which becomes slightly more real after the official announcement. As for whether one learns early, let's just say journalists are not the best secret keepers in the world--and they're job is to find out things as soon as they happen. ''
-Mark Feeney, The Boston Globe, for distinguished criticism

 ``Yes, we give a speech in which we share the prize with everyone else. And yes, words starts to leak out the weekend before. Otherwise, how could you have your wife and daughter there in the newsroom at 3PM when the news moves over the wire?
-Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post, for distinguished commentary

-Bill Lucey
billlucey@bellsouth.net