This January and February, during the height of the Patten/Fratto case with plea bargains and motions flying six ways of Sunday we made a general pest of ourselves in the court room of Judge Dan Papez.
We were to put it mildly a head ache. Most of it was unintentional we were doing our job. But some of it was on purpose because we hoped that if we were enough of a pain the good judge might give us what we wanted just to shut us up.
In the middle of all of that we almost died, and we received a very nice note from the judge wishing a speedy recovery and future good health.
We are still contemplating suing him but if we do it will be done with respect and not a small amount of affection.
The common address to a judge in court is ‘your honor’ and Dan Papez exemplifies honor. Heck the old Croat oozes honor and has done so long before he took the bench and took up the gavel.
A lot of times we wish it were different, that he was not so honorable. We wished that perhaps for the sake of friendship or acquaintance or just to get on our good side during election season he would kind of bend the rules and give us what we wanted.
Fat chance.
In our quarter century of knowing him, he never once, not once said something or did something that could possibly construed as playing favorites let alone bending the rules.
We even tried the almost dying ploy to win sympathy.
It didn’t work.
We know it is often said that every man has a price.
Not Dan Papez.
We have seen him make incredibly unpopular rulings and incredibly popular ones and his demeanor never changed.
Any consideration not directly tied to the law is simply not a consideration for Judge Papez. And when he leaves the bench in January White Pine County and Nevada will be poorer for it.
It has simply been an honor to know his honor.
And we know that even after reading this editorial about how great he is, Judge Papez will still have two words on our request for the Boatman letter: “Fat Chance!”
With the Jewish New Year falling on Monday and Tuesday we didn’t ‘work’ much this week.
Normally we put in 12 hours a day six days a week just to keep this paper afloat.
So devoting two days to prayer and contemplation might seem a bit extravagant.
Know what? It isn’t.
The world got along just fine.
Yes we may have missed a story or two an ad or three but hearing our son chant the songs that were ancient when Columbus set sail is a miracle unto itself.
And we should always set aside a day or two for miracles.