Deja Vu
By Judge David A. Barnett

In the many years I have served as a district court judge in Oklahoma, I have made many adjustments, but one of the most difficult was the adjustment to being the only judge in the small county I had moved away from upon graduation from high school. Up to the time of finishing high school, my whole life had been spent in that community. The difficult part was that I had lived in eight or nine other communities in four states in the 24 years since I had graduated from high school. None of the other communities was less than 100 miles from the county seat to which I returned as judge. My visits to the community had been primarily on holidays, and I had not kept in close contact with many people in the community except my immediate family and a small number of close friends.

I soon learned that I had missed out on much of what had happened in the 24 years I had been gone, both in the life of the community and the lives of the folks I had known as I grew up. The result is that I felt a little like the legendary Rip Van Winkle, who napped for 25 years.

On a day not long after I had assumed my duties, I checked my calendar and found a divorce case styled as D— v. D—. When I looked at him, I almost felt as though I was looking at a kid I had graduated from high school with 24 years ago, who was also named Ricky D—. After my initial puzzlement, I asked the kid who his dad was. He advised me that it was none other than my high school classmate, Ricky D—.

On another occasion, I heard the probate case of Maggie W—, who during her life had been a friend of my mother and a member of her home demonstration club. Maggie’s sister Emma, and her mother Mrs. M— had also been members of Mom’s club. I had been fairly well acquainted with all three through my mother’s association with them. I remembered that Mrs. M— was a small lady who suffered from arthritis, and bore visible signs of it. When the case was called, the executrix of Maggie’s estate, a small lady suffering from arthritis who looked exactly like Mrs. M—, was brought into my chambers in a wheelchair. I knew that Mrs. M— had died many years before, but throughout the hearing, I had to keep reminding myself that the lady was not Mrs. M—, but her daughter Emma.

I recall numerous other incidents of seeing the offspring of someone I had grown up with, and having to keep reminding myself that I was seeing the next generation, and sometimes even a third generation. Now that I am well into my 60s, I’m just happy to see someone who looks familiar, for even when I look in the mirror each morning, I see my dad instead of the young man I thought I was!

Judge Barnett is associate district judge in Tillman County.