By Gary Topping– We’ve all seen the bumper sticker that advises something like “Commit Random Acts of Kindness.” It’s good advice, but my experience with it has been ambiguous. Some…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A few years ago, I watched a kind old man, dressed in a simple white shirt and black pants, lean over and speak softly with his…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The Cape Cod peninsula juts out into the Atlantic Ocean from southeastern Massachusetts like an arm in full muscular flex. Nestled into the interior inflection point…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Perhaps the most eventful lunch hour of my long career working in downtown Salt Lake City was ending. After Joseph Rawlins and William Dickson—two of the…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– One day, two ghost lawyers spirited me out of my office during lunchtime and dropped me off on Salt Lake City’s downtown streets so I might…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– One strange day, the apparitions of my law firm progenitors—Joseph Rawlins and William Dickson—forced me from a quiet solo lunch in my office and onto the…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– As I was eating lunch alone in my law office one day, the ghosts of my long dead professional ancestors—Joseph Rawlins and William Dickson—appeared from nowhere.…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The most bizarre and memorable noon hour at my law office in downtown Salt Lake City started with no hint whatsoever of the remarkable events about…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– July is rodeo season in Utah, as well as the month for the raucous Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona made famous by Ernest Hemingway in…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I had an unusual boyhood. After a painful family divorce in the 1970s, I grew up without a traditional father. My surrogate fathers were Trappist monks.…