Day Two: Dean Mahoney

Today was a day.

Among the many things I learned: Kentucky is a large State that requires copious amounts of gasoline to traverse, coal communities are close-knit and closed on Mondays, attorneys have facial hair and sweet hats, and personal assistants hold a tight grasp on intimate affairs.

Today was the day where we met the attorneys we would be working with and got to know the area we'd be working in. To gain a better awareness of the scope of the project, we were driven from Prestonburg (our current home) to the town of Harlon, KY, by Branford Brown, a hilarious and gracious attorney in the area who (thankfully) brought along a GPS to navigate the switchbacks of the Appalachians while his navigator dutifully fell asleep.

When we arrived in the workings of the Appalred satellite office in Harlon, we met with literary giant John Milton and John Grigsby, who gave us some interesting reality checks on the practice of law. Mr. Grigsby then took us on a tour of the local area to give us some background on the coal industry, and even though the Coal Museum was shuttered for the day, we did get to explore an important landmark in coal country: an elementary school that had been converted to a motel. "Mystifying" was how the experience was described by one overwhelmed participant. See it here. The proprietor told the history of the area, including the fact that Colonel Sanders himself had once stationed his troops in the very building that we were standing in! It was eery, exploring in the same place that a figure of such historical and culinary importance would have been resting his coal-dusted feet--it totally made the long drive totally worthwhile.

Several dozen car games later, we returned to our home base in Prestonburg, unplugged the porcelain palace, enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by our resident deanophile and closed the night with group-bonding, facilitiated by our social czar Susan. I think we all learned a lot.