Alfieri, Anthony V.

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John Hart Ely: Fathers and Sons

Alfieri, Anthony V.

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University of Miami School of Law

University of Miami Law Review Volume 58 Number 4 Article 3 7-1-2004 John Hart Ely: Fathers and Sons Anthony V. Alfieri University of Miami School of Law, aalfieri@law.miami.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr  Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Anthony V. Alfieri, John Hart Ely: Fathers and Sons, 58 U. Miami L. Rev. 953 (2004) Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol58/iss4/3 This A Tribute to John Hart Ely is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Miami Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact library@law.miami.edu. University of Miami Law ReviewVOLUME 58 JULY 2004 NUMBER 4John Hart Ely: Fathers and SonsANTHONY V. ALFIERI*I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. The Ely refrain. Heard afternoons over lunch. Heard across thehand-carved Stanford Dean Desk, his feet propped up, argyle socks andsneakers. When are we going to see you and Ellen? Bring the kids!I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. The house on Poinciana, diving, and the sailboat. Learning to playStride piano. Some kid at the Music School teaching me. Alwaysmusic: jazz, guess the composer, can you hear me back there? Every-where a collage of photographs and posters. The Totem Pole, the Mus-tang, and the pipe. Don't stand on the piano! In the hall outside, ArtKane's "Jazz Portrait Harlem 1958." Damn pipe won't light.I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. Animal rights, Portland, Clark and animal rights, relenting to eatfish and chicken, for the protein. Ice cream, the rules of ice cream, afterdinner only, once scoop or two? New Haven, Cambridge, Palo Alto,Washington, D.C., and back. We had the same rules in our house.I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. John and his mother, West Hampton, the almost sub-four-minutemile in high school, the band and glee club at Princeton, Fulbright eve-nings at the London ballet. Famous law school classmates, Abe Fortasand Gideon, clerking for the Chief Justice, MP duty, hitching on to theWarren Commission. Oswald didn't have the guts to shoot him in theface.I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. San Diego and Defenders, Inc. I liked being a public defender.New Haven, pizza and the Black Panthers. I lived in an Italian neigh-borhood you know. The Yale tenure wars and the disappointment in old* Professor of Law and Director, Center for Ethics and Public Service, University of MiamiSchool of Law.UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW REVIEWfriends. Dissent and the move to Cambridge. Harvard and the hiringdeals. Just sitting in my office and Stanford calls. The art of fund-rais-ing. Now I'm going to give you a number. Competing with Harvard andYale. Never called a faculty meeting. The diaspora to come. I don'twant you guys to leave. The books, chapter by chapter. Write the bookfirst, you'll never get back to it.I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. The Ely women: brilliant and handsome. Finding Gisela and latelove. Sons Bob and John, leading the NCAA in goals, graduate Marx-ism and going abroad. John in Albania. Bob and MJ in the New Yorkwalk-up. I don't know how they do it. Bemused by cherished grand-daughters Elizabeth and Katherine. Dear friends Lee, Denny, Henry,and Harold, so many, the Ely Fan Club. Generations of students, reach-ing around for the AALS directory on the bookshelf. I think I may havetaught him.I don't want to sound like your father, but here's what you shoulddo. The summer my father died John gave me Alan Dugan's PoemsSeven, a birthday gift. He wrote: I won't tell if you won't. We didn'ttalk about my father's six months of dying. His decision, not mine.How old is he? I'll take that, ten years. We pretended. I forgave him.He was right. Watching his own dying was enough. The two Johns:father and mentoring friend. Both gone. No come up and visit! Nowhat's going on? Thanks for the moment. "Thanks for the momentbefore dreams."'1. On Being Easy in the Ritual of Separation, in Alan Dugan, Poems Seven: New andComplete Poetry 216 (2001).[Vol. 58:953

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John Hart Ely: Fathers and Sons

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