User talk:Bekisoo

I have had the special privilrdge to be raised by a couple who were unusually intelligent, and who made a difference in this world. They were my Grandparents, my father's mother LaRee, and his step Dad Harry Oscar Arend.

Harry and LaRee were both pioneers in their own right, but it was Harry who was the real pioneer, he left his family where he lived in Washington State, and after going to Law school he went to Alaska, where some others of his family had a store. This was after the first World War, and since Harry was born in 1903 he was not really old enough to be conscripted into the war.

Instead, he went into Alaska's wet and cold wild wilderness and eventually he homesteaded property, he worked for the various Presidents of the United States as a United States Attorney, and eventually was found in company of J Edgar Hoover in the Oval office while in a meeting with President Truman.

When Alaska became a state, Harry was a replacement for one of the first associate Supreme court Justices, and he held that position until 1964, when the Alaska Bar Association mounted a terrible campaign against the supreme court, angry for decisions handed down during its early years.

In November 1964, he wrote a letter to me and my parents, he was alone after finding he was not voted to continue his term, and in the letter he refers to the massive campaign put up by the Bar association. Grandpa was alone that night, he must have been crestfallen to have such indignity to himself. But he had refused to campaign in the manner being done by the Bar Association. I have copies of the full page ads telling people to vote against him.

Harry was a modest man, humility did not allow him to fight this war. He turned the other cheek.

But that night, after receiving the polling and finding he would no longer be a United States Supreme Court Justice in the newly formed State of Alaska, all alone, we were all the way in California and his wife LaRee was in Fairbanks (he was in Anchorage, I believe, or Juneau, I will have to verify that fact--he was certainly lonely.

Likely people will rarely ever meet a kinder, sweeter, more compassionate, bright man as was my Grandfather.

I even have his very robes he wore on that benchBekisoo (talk) 09:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)Bekisoo