Local lawyer Larry Laborde was in absentia on the occasion of his birthday celebration Friday of rolls and coffee at the Perry Perk coffeehouse, but his usufructuarial benevolence underwrote the event by means of the procuration of Perry Perk proprietor Tari Mason.
Members of the Society of Retired Experts (SORE) gathered in honor of primus inter pares Laborde, whose cinnamon roll was reserved for his enjoyment ex post facto.
Cui bono? Tucking into the corpus delectable were SORE members Bob Rounds, Lou Hoger, Andrew Bambrick, Charlie Thompson, Ray Harden, Ken Finer, Gary Becker, Dan Spellman and Lawrence Bice.
Absent Laborde’s leaven of legal learning, the SORE conversation threatened to take a Dogberrean turn, as in the famous comic scene from Shakespeare:
“Dost thou not suspect my place? dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder, and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and every thing handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!”
