Chapter 6

With his teaching at the high school having ended, Jack’s summers now were his vacation time. He knew he would be spending some of that time on the golf course and of course some of the time with Amy. He enjoyed her company and admitted that he was having strong feelings for her. By what she was saying and what she did he thought she was also having feelings for him.

For something to do when he wasn’t on the golf course he thought it would be interesting to see what Amy did as a judge. He however didn’t want his presence in the courtroom to be a distraction. To do that he found the large beard, mustache, outback hat, and large dark sunglasses he had once purchased for a Halloween party. Wearing this getup along with a two sizes too large Hawaiian shirt that had seen better days he entered and took a seat in the back row of Amy’s courtroom. There were a large number of people sitting on the benches in the courtroom which had him fit right in and Amy didn’t recognize him.

It was interesting for him to watch Amy in her black robe dispensing justice as a judge. While she was friendly and caring at the same time she was businesslike and didn’t put up with any grandstanding. She was efficient and handled several cases. He knew if for whatever reason he ever had to appear in front of a judge, he hoped it would be a judge like Amy.

Jack had lunch when the court went out of session but he came back when it was back in session. He spent the whole day there sitting in the back row. As the cases were heard, the number of people sitting in the courtroom were reduced. It turned out that after the last case was heard and the attorneys were leaving all that remained in the courtroom sitting there was Jack.

Amy looked at him and said, “Is there something I can do for you, sir?”

To prolong this deception he said in trying to disguise his voice “Yes there is your honor.”

“And what is that?”

“I was thinking I would like to take a pretty woman like you out to dinner. That is if you don’t have other plans for this evening.”

This was not what she expected to hear and was quiet for more than a few seconds thinking about how she should respond. That became unnecessary because Jack stood and took off the glasses, beard, and hat.

He couldn’t resist and said, “Gotcha.”

All she said after laughing and with a smile on her face was, “Oh, Jack!” She introduced him to her bailiff, court clerk, and secretary saying he was a good friend of hers. She invited him into her chambers. Amy told him she had seen him sitting there and had never thought anything about it since people with time on their hands do come in quite often to watch the goings-on.

At dinner, Amy did ask him what he thought about what he saw happening in her courtroom today. He responded, “You are good in what you do.”

Jack was spending quite a bit of time with Amy on the weekends. The only exception to that was when she was visiting her parents.

Chuck Papes and Donna Radke who were the men’s and women’s basketball coaches at the nearby university each ran a summer basketball camp. Both of them asked Jack if he would make an appearance at their camps and discuss the rules of the games and explain the common fouls. Since these coaches could influence the number of games Jack was given to work in refereeing games he agreed to do this instructing.

Dressed in his refereeing shirt and black shorts he explained the fouls using the college assistants there to demonstrate them and why they were called. Blocking and charging were the most common violations but he did cover traveling and moving picks. Besides commenting on the rules of the games he told them in his opinion the most important skill any player could have in playing this game is in being able to dribble the ball without looking at it. Jack did mention some of the more famous current players he had refereed games in which they played.

Jack finished his appearance at these camps by refereeing a scrimmage. In doing this scrimmage he did call the fouls or violations. There were however no free throws awarded and the team just received the ball to do a throw-in to continue this fast-paced scrimmage. All of the campers were able to play in this scrimmage with coaches giving them instructions.

Just as Jack was off for the summer, the court had also suspended most of its activity as well. Besides golfing with Amy, whose golf game was improving, they were looking for different things to do.

Amy said she remembered the evening cocktail cruise they had done and thought doing some fishing off this pontoon boat would be fun. With that in mind, she had chartered the pontoon boat for a half-day of fishing. It was also mentioned that she had invited another couple to join them but never did mention who they were. Jack when he went to pick Amy up to do this fishing he was introduced to her parents as they were the other couple. Amy said her father loved to fish and she was giving him a treat.