TUSooner
9/4/2007, 08:16 PM
:( It was a sad day at the office today. Old Joe Gowan, an office institution, died Sunday at his home. He was the first ever federal staff attorney. He was 80 or 81 and worked full time until about a month ago when he retired, but he kept working as a volunteer. We all really thought he'd die in his office; he practically lived there.
He was interviewing for the job, having lunch in the French Quarter with the great Judge John Minor Wisdom, on the day JFK was murdered. He was hired a month later. He would have received an award for 45 years of US Government service at an awards dinner this very night had he lived. He was at US Navy gunnery school when we dropped the Big One on Hiroshima; he and his mates cheered heartily to know the war would be over before they shipped out to the Pacific. He stayed in the Navy though, and qualified for OCS, which he took at the U of Utah before they cut everybody loose in '46. Got his BA and JD from Tulane and served a time as a clerk to the Court of Military Justice. Not ony was he a crackerjack criminal lawyer during his time in private practice, he was a champion weightlifter. As a staff attorney in the 1960s, he became a respected friend of the "Fifth Circuit Four," Chief Judge Elbert Tuttle and his three colleagues Wisdom, John R. Brown, and Richard Rives, who rendered the courageous decisions that made de-segregation a fact in the South and forced Jim Crow to the sh*tcan of history. (He recently repeated a story about how Judge Tuttle killed two Japanese soldiers who snuck into his tent.)
In his later years, he was shrunken, stooped, and frail, and he used to fart some when he talked to you. You just kinda smiled to yourself and kept listening. But he was a sweet, kind old feller to the end. He loved the Lord and lived by faith. He was wise to the great deception of the world, and conscientious in the service of justice. He's in the home of Perfect Justice and Mercy now, where no lawyering is needed. No doubt he's heard the words we all long to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant." I'll sure miss the old guy.
He was interviewing for the job, having lunch in the French Quarter with the great Judge John Minor Wisdom, on the day JFK was murdered. He was hired a month later. He would have received an award for 45 years of US Government service at an awards dinner this very night had he lived. He was at US Navy gunnery school when we dropped the Big One on Hiroshima; he and his mates cheered heartily to know the war would be over before they shipped out to the Pacific. He stayed in the Navy though, and qualified for OCS, which he took at the U of Utah before they cut everybody loose in '46. Got his BA and JD from Tulane and served a time as a clerk to the Court of Military Justice. Not ony was he a crackerjack criminal lawyer during his time in private practice, he was a champion weightlifter. As a staff attorney in the 1960s, he became a respected friend of the "Fifth Circuit Four," Chief Judge Elbert Tuttle and his three colleagues Wisdom, John R. Brown, and Richard Rives, who rendered the courageous decisions that made de-segregation a fact in the South and forced Jim Crow to the sh*tcan of history. (He recently repeated a story about how Judge Tuttle killed two Japanese soldiers who snuck into his tent.)
In his later years, he was shrunken, stooped, and frail, and he used to fart some when he talked to you. You just kinda smiled to yourself and kept listening. But he was a sweet, kind old feller to the end. He loved the Lord and lived by faith. He was wise to the great deception of the world, and conscientious in the service of justice. He's in the home of Perfect Justice and Mercy now, where no lawyering is needed. No doubt he's heard the words we all long to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant." I'll sure miss the old guy.