Page 338 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
(pronounced “peeper”) Bar Review course—an obviously unfortunate, but memorable, name—which was taken by nearly everyone.
The course aside, studying for the bar was in many ways more pleasant than any studying that I had done to that point. Over a period of almost a week, Phyllis and I repaired to Lake Mahopac, where I essentially did nothing other than eat, sleep, drown in the details of every aspect of New York law that could possibly, I thought, be on the exam; and then swim in the lake, at least twice each day, to get away from the Civil Practice Law and Rules and the common and statutory law of real estate, bailments, torts, and every other specialized area that I could think of. My studying having been finished, we drove back to the city early on July 20, 1969, so that I could rest up and go to bed on Erev Bar Exam significantly before my normal time to turn in. Pretty mature, right?
Well, there was one minor hitch. I had failed to take into account the fact that Commanders Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin, having blasted off from Cape Kennedy (later, once again Cape Canaveral) on July 16, would land on the moon that evening and then wait until 10:56 p.m. before they finally opened the hatch of the lunar module to let Armstrong appear, descend to the surface, and say that “one small step” had been taken. He and Aldrin then spent about two and one-half televised hours on the surface. Needless to say, the historic evening and the aftermath of the walk were pretty exciting; I doubt that I fell asleep before 1:30 or so. Thus, it was with very bleary eyes that I took my seat at Fordham Law School that morning to take the exam and was stunned to open the test to find that one of the three essays (there were also innumerable short answer questions) was about, of all things, the New York State Labor Law! There could not have been a more obscure, useless, or unanticipated topic. New York had its own Labor Law? Anyway, all of my years spent mastering the art of answering exam questions on inadequately explored topics (who, after all, was Petya and why did he matter anyway?) came into play, and somehow, subject to dealing with social probation questions at my Character Committee interview, I would become a member of the New York bar.
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