Armchair Traveler

This morning I awoke at about 4:30, very excited and anxious to be underway. After showering, shaving, dressing and putting the last few items in my luggage, I paused for a few moments in my upstairs study, where I have spent so many hours reading, studying, pondering this world, its literature and my place in it. Up to now I have been an armchair traveler only, never venturing beyond the safe cocoon of my little insular world. My daily routine has carried me, as it were, only between the safe poles of my leather reading chair and the comfortable environs of my judicial bench and chambers.

I have been reading and thinking about eastern Europe, and particularly the former Soviet Union for thirty years. Now is the time to venture forth from my secure niche and see it for myself firsthand, and even attempt to give some service there which will be of benefit to those who live there. My teaching of the great democratic bulwark of the jury trial to a new generation of lawyers may the first step in that service. My hope is that all of the years of pondering, reading, studying and musing over the subject and the people may be fruitful in my first venture beyond the leather chair in my study.