What Pokemon Means to Me

It feels strange to be a 28 year old lawyer typing that title. First Corinthians 13:1 comes to mind: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” (NIV). With all respect to St. Paul and the Corinthians, I can’t put the Pokemon series behind me. Nor do I want to. I am a nostalgic person and the 25th anniversary of the release of Pokemon Red and Green in Japan (ported to the US as Red and Blue) only brings this out in force to a series I love. But I’ve never thought seriously about why the series resonates me and the anniversary encourages me to. Perhaps being isolated under pandemic-quarantine is a factor too. I haven’t bought a Pokemon game since 2010, which itself was five years after my last purchase. I’ve clocked far more hours on Assassins Creed or Halo in that time. I have lived in 5 states and graduated from three schools. I do not own a game system that could play a modern Pokemon game. Yet, here I am using my Saturday night to blog my affection for it. In part, I blame Post Malone because his iteration fo Hootie and the Blowfish’s “Only Wanna Be With You” for the anniversary really, as the kids say, slaps.

For those who don’t know what Pokemon is, the short version is that it is a Nintendo-adjacent video game where you collect and train digital creatures to fight. These creatures, the titular Pokemon, come in various types and rarities. The combat can best be described as rock paper scissors of types; fire beats grass, grass beats water, water, beats fire. I The original games for the Game Boy spawned 7 more “generations“ of games, an ongoing anime show, movies, and a trading card game. There were 150 original Pokemon; each successive generation has added more Pokemon and types.

I imagine that you’ve heard of Pikachu. He is an electric type, so intuitively he is good against water-types and counter-intuitively he is bad against ground-type.

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(In fairness to Pikachu, he has slimmed down over the years and has more favorable drawings, but this will always be my Pikachu)

With 386 million copies sold, perhaps I do not need to explain what Pokemon is; but I also wouldn’t be surprised if many don’t know what it is beyond being a reason a bunch of Millennials and Xenials were roaming parks in 2015 glued to their phones. Needless to say, they got me early. I do not have a 25 year history with Pokemon, but pretty close. Pokemon Blue and Red came to North America in 1998 and I am pretty sure I got it almost immediately. I lived in a little town in NW Pa called Warren and Pokemon was a big deal, as I assume it was everywhere. This was my broadest period of fandom; I had the game, collected the cards, and watched the TV show. It was a huge part of my friendship with my best friend Blair and I’m sure our parents constantly wondered why they bothered bringing us to each other’s houses just to sit and only occasionally talk while we stared at our Game Boys. One of the first tragedies in my life was when we ruined my Pokemon Blue by removing it from his Game Boy with the leverage of a screwdriver. I still own to this day the Pokemon Red that my kind mom replaced it with. Relatedly, I also first learned that kids can be assholes from the trading card game when some older kids down the road duped me into trading some of my better/favorite cards for Japanese cards which were, though cool, indecipherable and thus impossible to play with.

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This is not a unique story and you may be looking at your watch and thinking “So what, he liked pokemon when he was in elementary school, I expected more emotion.“ Well, as a lawyer I need to make it clear that I did made not representations that you should care and will not be held responsible for your enjoyment quality. But it picks up from here.

I mentioned above that I have moved a lot since 2010; that is a symptom of a “problem“ that started around the same time as Pokemon graced my life. I have moved a ton. Warren was my second city/town, but moving from Pittsburgh to Warren at age 4 was not anything notable. Moving again at 7; that was a bit more influential. We moved to Alpena, Michigan, which for you map-types is nowhere close to Warren, PA. In fact, Alpena is and was not close to really anything. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Alpena and still do, but when the regional hub is the 15,000 person town you live in, you do a good bit of traveling. And travel we did; 4 and 6 hours to grandparents, 3 hours to Traverse City and the Upper Peninsula. One might think I would hate this change, but I really didn't. I was a pretty flexible kid and still had Pokemon. Pokemon was my constant, strange to say. A new generation, Gold and Silver, came out the same year that we moved and the love carried on. Back in those days (and for some time after) Game Boys did not have back lit screens. Because parents prefer to not have bright lights in the back seat while driving dark Michigan roads, I had a tiny little light that illuminated my screen. No wonder my eyes are so poor. My parents never heard complaints that we were going on a trip; it was an excuse to play Game Boy. A ton of my durable memories from this time are in a dark back seat playing Pokemon while Matchbox 20 or Alison Krauss played.

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I played several other games, but Pokemon really was the no. 1 option. Beyond it imprinting early, I suppose it was because it was easy to understand but still somewhat challenging and the world-creation appealed to a quiet thoughtful kid that liked to read. “What level does my Pidgey evolve? Where do I find better poke balls? What can steel type beat?” The answer to the last question is Ice-type, if you’re curious. It was an immersive world, but one that could be dropped and restarted anytime. You grow attached to your team that you work so hard to grow in strength and size. Each new generation built on top of the same formula and many of the same pokemon, but in a new world to explore.

It was my comfort zone and I’m sure in some ways that was frustrating to my parents that i was content to just play Pokemon or read when they wanted me to do other things, like snowmobile or actually go on playdates, but they were pretty patient. I did both, but to be honest, I'd rather be playing Pokemon or reading. This safe space came in handy in 2004. I will endeavor to not get too personal here, but 2004 sucked for my family. In the space of a June week, my grandfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer and my father suffered a debilitating hand injury that ended his career as a surgeon. The rest of the year was a year of constant motion. By the next January, I was in a new school in Chattanooga, TN. My parents did a great job shielding us from the worst, but also including us in what was going on, to the extent you can with 11 and 9 year olds. Pokemon didn’t “save me“ but in hindsight it was a huge part in getting through. It ensured there were fun hours in weekly trips to Detroit or Ann Arbor. It provided an escape in my grandparents basement while the adults talked upstairs about lives where the floor had seemingly dropped away and we were in free fall.. The new Gameboy I got was a lifeline i didn’t know I had. Pokemon was my zen when I did not know I needed one.

Thus far I have omitted a huge part of my connection to Pokemon, so I would remiss to wait longer to bring it, or rather her, into the story. I have a younger sister Erin and Pokemon was just about the only thing we had a shared interest in. I love my sister very much (and like her most of the time, haha) but I am pretty sure that that was not apparent to the world for most of our childhoods. To say we fought incessantly sounds like an understatement. There were numerous reasons why, whether known then, now, or never, we just couldn’t get along, but one reason might just be proximity. After we moved from Warren, we spent a ton of time as a family together. I liked that and I think she did too, but like two grindstones that are fairly similar but have dips and bumps in a few places that didn’t match, we constantly grated each other. Pokemon was both a solution and an aggravation to this. It was pretty much the only thing we could both talk about and liked. 90s Disney movies? I was meh. Lord of the Rings movies? Erin couldn’t tell a hobbit from an orc. We commiserated over Pokemon we caught, what badges we had, or what areas we were in. We would do this in the backseat of the car during the aforementioned travel, but also just sitting around the house. However, this shared interest also created fights over finite goods. Whether because I was older or because I was mildly more into the games, I usually got the games first and Erin got the, for lack of a better term, hand-me-downs. I do recall she had her own games sometimes—I particularly remember her having Silver version to my Gold—but after a first play through, each game became sort of part of a shared collection. Despite having moved on from games, I could get irrationally possessive, and that sometimes went the other way too. Game Freak and Nintendo did our family a great disservice my only allowing one save file on a game at a time. I cannot count the number of times one of us, particularly me, got furious that the other had saved over their game and started anew.

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Looking back, I really appreciate this shared experience with my sister, despite the friction it caused. It still gives us a common cultural topic to talk about. Alpena was definitely the zenith of my Pokemon days (though by no means the end, as you’ll see below) but she and I were having these same fights and conversations over game-sharing in 2012 at a beach house in Northport.

After we moved from Alpena, I stopped being an active fan of the ongoing series and rather remained a fan of the series as I knew it. Dumb things like football, middle and high school, and Tennessee life in general got in the way. I skipped a whole generation of games entirely; I call myself a fan but couldn’t tell you a damn thing about Pokemon Diamond or Pearl. But I returned to Pokemon Red/Gold/Ruby periodically; after all, there were still grandparents to visit and the ups and downs of life to escape for a bit from. Oddly, and slightly embarrassingly, enough, a few of my friends got into the new release in our last 18 months of high school year. I have a particularly vivid memory of a bunch of 17 year old dudes in some room at a friends house just playing Pokemon Black and talking about it like it was the most intellectual thing in the world. As someone who took basically my whole middle and high school tenure to collect actual solid friends, here was Pokemon emerging again as part of that process. In college, Pokemon popped up again, this time through emulation of the games of our youths on our school computers. This was just one part of the nonsense my friends and I did to pass the time, but memorable enough that it came up on a recent Zoom happy hour.

Thats the main reason I think I am writing this blog today. Sometimes you just need to return to constants in your life and aside from my family, upon some reflection Pokemon is the dominant one. On a lark, I dug up my Game Boy XP this morning and blew the dust out of my Pokemon Red. I can’t help but still love the game, even realizing how much future generations improved the mechanics. I picked Charmander, the fire lizard, of course and away we went.

My sister and I (as Charmeleon) circa 1999

My sister and I (as Charmeleon) circa 1999

Cell Phones in Courthouses, Part 1

A few weeks ago, I visited the Oakland County Court complex to file some documents with the probate court. This was my second time to this courthouse and the first visit had taught me that lawyers were allowed to bring cell phones into the courthouse (a term I use loosely because the building is a six-story administrative complex). I was not going to the court this second time as a lawyer; just an average citizen petitioning for guardianship of his grandmother, much like the two people I stood in line behind at the clerk’s counter. However, unlike them, I had my cell phone, with access to the internet, Google Maps, and the notes app. Fortunately, I had filled out my forms correctly, but I was back for a second time because I did not have all the correct information the last time. I had the power on my second trip to correct any omissions merely because I passed the Michigan bar examination. There’s an argument that becoming an attorney a winnowing process and/or a mark of responsibility, but in my view, a layperson cell phone ban is an infeffective tool to accomplish the court’s goals.

I knew to leave my cell phone in the car and to ask the deputies in Oakland County about lawyer’s phones because Genesee County courts have the same rule: unless you are a lawyer or law-adjacent (court case workers, probation officers, etc.), your cell phone cannot enter the courthouse. In Michigan, the state supreme court has given counties discretion to make their own rules. Some have opted for the Genesee/Oakland County full-ban model; others allow phones in the courthouse but they not to be used or seen in a courtroom (ex. Alpena County). Between Wayne (criminal courts only), Oakland, Genesee, and Washtenaw Counties, more than a third (37.92% or 3,790,949 people) of the population of Michigan cannot bring cell phones into the courthouse.

In Part 2, I will explore the three categories of reasons that I generally hear in support of a “cell phone ban,“ distraction, security, and county income. I will also explore why these explanations are insufficient and why less restrictive measures would be just as effective.

Subsequent to my writing Part 1, the Michigan Supreme Court went ahead without consulting me and made this blog post a mere academic exercise by requiring all state courthouses to allow cell phones starting in May of this year. In Part 3, I will explain the effect and stated reasons of the supreme court order.

Election Law Reform Paper

At Georgia we had a writing requirement for graduation and i fulfilled mine through a paper in my Election Law Reform Issues class with Professor Lori Ringhand. I wrote this paper in the fall of 2017 and I thought I would share it here, with the caveat that I did write it under time pressure andI have not revisited the research to see how it holds up. I received an A in the class, for what that’s worth, though.

You can find it here

Book Review: Karma's Street Justice by R. Roberts Gibson

R. Roberts Gibson, Karma’s Street Justice, iUniverse Publishing, April 17, 2019.

Karma’s Street Justice is former Genesee County District Court Judge R. Roberts Gibson’s debut crime/romance novel. It is a tale of murder, secret love, and inner city life in the fictional Florence, MI told from the perspective of three characters: Judge Anita Tolliver, Det. Sherman Lacy of the Florence Police Department, and Carlos, a young man who gets wrapped up in a situation out of his control. As Anita and Lacy begin a steamy affair, both must also navigate the turmoil in Florence caused by a horrific murder of a woman and her two young children as Carlos and his friend LL attempt to hide the secret they share. The book aims to be an inside look into the causes and consequences of crime in an urban environment on the perpetrators and those forced to respond. Karma’s Street Justice is not perfect, but many of the weaknesses of the book are a mere symptom of the Judge Gibson self-publishing and are made up for by clear passion and nuggets of value that will hold special interest for the community of Genesee County.

Karma’s most compelling feature is subverting the reader’s expectations about who the “good guys” are in a crime novel. The book is lightly framed as a story told by Judge Tolliver to her therapist, but the true central figure is Detective Lacy of the Florence police department. On the surface, he is the shining protagonist: a man who rose out of the poverty of Florence to become the city’s best detective and a true community leader who inspires intense respect and love from the men and women of the city, including Judge Tolliver (and her husband). However, he is in reality more dangerous than the murderers he pursues; he uses the titular “street justice” to avoid the “technicalities” of the law and his passionate affair with Anita distracts him from his job and reveals his homophobic disdain for Anita’s husband. Meanwhile, the supposed antagonists are two young kids who make a few grave mistakes triggered by drug-addiction, broken families, and an intense summer heat.

     

Purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Karmas-Street-Justice-Gripping-Thriller-ebook/dp/B07QXMVL1Q/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=karma%27s+street+justice&qid=1578064411&sr=8-1

Publication in Genesee County Bar Beat, February 2020 edition

Utah Travel Journal Day 2

7/3/19

Leg 1: ID Falls —> Alpine

Honestly, best part f the trip. Got off cleanly, albeit a little late. I had decided weeks ago to go the Back way to Vernal, today’s night stop. This was supposed to add add 35 min but likely added more. The detour started from this leg; instead of I-15, I took US 26, a 4 lane rd (soon 2) toward Alpine, WY. The route ran up and down in the Snake river valley. Sometimes i was high on a plateau , other times i was in a narrow valley. Stopped briefly in Swan Valley for gas, drink, and potty, where the port a potty was so smelly, even I noticed. Got not overly nicely asked to move my car and had to really control my anger over the 6 hours to get over it. [Later Connor: it was a perfectly reasonable request and Idaho Connor needed to chill the ___out]. Just one of those things. That valley was great, but the Palisades Resevoir btwn Palisades and Alpine was another level. Beautiful blue skies, broad lake, green trees, and the road skirts right along it. Some really great pics and I just really can’t do it justice. Simply magnificent.

Leg 2 Alpine —> Cokeville, WY

First time in Wyoming since 2003 and boy did i spend some time here this time. I turned south on US 89 [in Alpine] which went through small towns with obvious tourist/vacation money (Alpine, Star Valley, Afton, Smoot). Very pretty, with Salt River to right (west) and mountain ridge to left (east). The soundtrack to Legs 1 and 2 were Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. The bright skies balanced sad subject matter, but engaging enough to keep going. Most unique part of this stretch was running directly on the WY and ID border from Geneva ID to US-30. ID uses a TON of irrigation and uses it to grow hay which surprises me to see as most popular crop. Where are the potatoes? [Later Connor: Likely under the ground]

Leg 3 US-30 (pre Cokeville) —> Manilla, UT

This leg, contrary to the descriptor of leg 2, really started pre-Cokeville. US 30 was a big road and you could fly but my bladder made me stop several times despite there being no places to stop. I’ll leave it at that. This was my least favorite leg, likely because it was a middle and relatively similar/same: ranches, rocky mountains, and mining. Thinking I was going to get pulled over spooked me but he/she never caught up. I had a belly ache the whole leg and the wide open roads were not conducive [to alleviating that]. I seriously think i pass one gas station Geveva—>Mountain View and i missed that one in Cokeville bc I didn’t want to look suspicious in front of cop. But…I had to remind myself that ti was still incredibly beautiful and it really was. You could see forever. This leg was Cokeville to Kemmerer on US-30, the US 189 to WY 412 (talk about empty) through mountain view (very pretty) and i got a rest area finally, to WY 414 to Manilla, UT. This last part was tiring because i was behind boats and trailers for most of it. . The Leg 3 entertainment was Hello Internet #125 [a podcast].

Leg 4 Manilla to Vernal

This went all through Flaming Gorge Nat. Recreation Area, which was a combo of red rocks and pine trees. Got high elevation (9,000 ft at peak) and I was in a good mood with a pop. Back on Bury My Heart and had fun with the phenomenal views and switchbacks. The way down I was in a long line of cars/trailers/trucks coming down @ 25 mph and other than worrying about the truck behind me hitting me bc of brake failure (it was steep) (and he didn’t) that was just fine. Big time mining country and it felt like all Northern Utah was spread before me. Found my hotel in Vernal, the Dinosaur Inn and Suites (everything is dinosaur centered in this area) and dropped stuff before heading to Dinosaur National Monument.

About 15-20 miles outside Vernal (near Jensen, UT) is one entrance to Dinosaur National Monument. I saw a tram pull away as I pulled into the visitor center, so I packed my hiking pack for the first time and walked directly through the center and onto the tram (like at an amusement park and tow carriage multi row golf cart basically). We went to the top of hill/mtn and I got to a real dinosaur dig. My choices have really worked out and coming to Dinosaur Nat'l Monument, of all places I could have picked in Utah was no exception. They’ve basically covered with a roof and walls a real dinosaur dig with tons of intact fossils. The dinosaurs were stegosaurus and a long necked dinosaur and a T-rex-like carnivore. Really impressive and I stood and ponder for a while. Instead of the tram, I hiked back down. It was good to get the fresh air and my blood pumping but had some ill effects.

My lack of serves in WY meant i had a protein bar and a chunk of Jerky since breakfast. I had drank a lot of water, but the lack of fuel and electrolytes caught up to me once the sun/heat/elevation made me run through another 40 oz of water. I drove deeper into the park but was really feeling it. I was on the fence and almost turned back to Vernal, but i wanted to add CO to my states list and so i drove 30 miles to Dinosaur, CO [So much dinosaur related stuff in this section]. The town was sad but it had a gas station so i got gatorade and a snickers and my trip home was SOOOO much more pleasant. [I feel like adding that I chose to listen to a F1 racing podcast from England during the drive to and from Dinosaur, CO. I have eclectic listening tastes.]

Showed at hotel and went to dinner at Vernal Brewing Company, another Yelp suggestion. The beer and Pizza was good and i felt fine eating along. The hotel was the dicy-best of all hotel reservations [Later Connor: It was not], but it is fine—>good.

Utah Trip Travel Journal Day 1

Note: These travel journals were written down in a notebook at the end of each day and are sort of stream of consciousness. I’ve done some minor editing, but they will be basically transcriptions of what was notable and/or on my mind at the end of each day. I think there’s value in that that’s worth the expense of proper writing.

7/2/19

Started morning in Salt Lake City. Pretty cool town and phenomenal setting. I was struck with how industrial the suburbs were. I don’t know what happens there, but potentially mining related. There was a ridge of mountains right behind [to the east of] the city that made for a great background. I will be back Saturday to do more in the city.

The morning destination was Antelope Island, which is in Great Salt Lake. The drive was about 75 minutes and that went fast. You take a causeway to the island and some reviews talked about the bugs being “apocalyptic,“ but thoughtcrimes htehre were some, it was not terrible. The lake is wild; it is so incredibly flat and still. Many areas that show as “lake“ a=on a map are dry ground because the lake varies so much. The lake level is apparently all controlled by evaporation. No outflow. A little bit of inflow goes a long way because it's so flat. The lake is only 33 ft. on average max depth.

Highlights of the island

  1. Wildlife-

    1. Some very cool Pronghorn sightings early in trip. Two crossed the road; another was grazing tall grass near the water. [see images]

    2. Lizards, brown and tan (or grey/tan) and about 6 inches long. Thick body. Scurried about on trails.

    3. Bison- very excited to see these. First was about 50 yds away, rolling, laying down, then sitting up [see images]. Best pictures of this one. Later, post ranch visit, saw two more, in various stages of walking towards shoreline. These two were more in the moment (binoc[ular]s) enjoyment

  2. Hikes

    1. One to top of Buffalo Point and others just around

Ranch was a little disappointing but I was sort of itching to get to Idaho in time.

From there, I headed north on I-15, though northern Utah and into Eastern/Southern Idaho. First time to Idaho, 2003 trip didn’t come to Idaho even though we went to “West Yellowstone.“ (In MT apparently)

The trip/drive was great but the only thing that can be put into words is that going 85 (in 80 mph zone) can be dicey as youre high up and can see your car taking off down a mountain. The last 75 miles or so was off interstate 15 and was stead o nUS 26 and 20, which were a 70+ miles/hour trip through Idaho ranch land, and interestingly, the Idaho national laboratory. Later research revealed that the IRC’s claim to fame is nuclear research.

The goal was Craters of the Moon Nat. Monument, which was a great choice. Crater is an area where 2-15,000 yrs ago laval flowed from several volcanoes and created a dark/black volcanic landscape. I got there at 4:30 but the area was open as long as you wanted. I stayed ‘til 6:30p. There was a lot of short hikes, which were made slightly harder bc of elevation, which was roughly 6,000 ft above sea level.

The wind was especially memorable. At the top of one volcanic hill it felt like 60 mph. The hike up there was intense, if only 5 minutes. Great views. The time was a mix of driving the scenic loop and short jaunts, the finale of which had a bunch of fallen lava tubes that created caves. No spelunking for me.

From there it was 75 minute drive to Idaho Falls, ID where I’m spending my night. The hotel is a “Tru by Hilton.“ Trendy is how i would describe it. [I have to insert here that despite never making any comment to the contrary or ever having anyone one else near me, this was the first time I was talked to as if I had people with me. “Theres a key in there for each of you,“ “you guys have a good day,“ etc. Maybe it had something to do with driving a three row SUV…"] Dinner at a bar called Bee’s Knees. I was adventurous and got a “Prairie Burger“ which apparently has Asparagus, Peppers, and mushrooms. Idaho Falls is bigger than expected (60K people) and has a large white Mormon temple.

Sometimes jail is the only place that will take a child in

Almost every part of a juvenile proceeding is either maddening or saddening. Delinquency hearings are usually sad; a boy or girl under the age of 17 is already on a difficult and unhappy path. Neglect hearings are sad but the stronger emotion is often anger: anger that a parent shows such apathy toward their children, anger that a child’s future has an anchor on it from square one, anger that I cannot do anything to help. There are few happy beginnings, middles, or ends in our Tuesday afternoon juvenile motion call.

Today we saw a case that had equal parts of both emotions and blurred the line between delinquency and neglect as no case I have yet seen. The short and simple is that the court had to send a teenager to the GVRC juvenile detention facility because neither parent wanted them in their home. The young man (I will call him M) had to sit in a chair with his hands cuffed to his waist in front of 30 people and hear in minute detail that his mother and his father do not want him. It was excruciating, and I was merely the guy behind a computer in the corner. M was re-detained and will spend this evening and every evening for the next month (at least) within the green walls of GVRC not because of the severity of his crime, but because the only people that will provide him a roof and a bed do not let a child wear his own clothes.

I only somewhat know M’s story and I certainly know hardly anything about M’s parents. I know M is accused of violence toward others and that he appears to have mental health issues. Somehow, I feel like neither should make a difference. I know the mother has other children to think about and I know the father is between homes. Somehow I don’t think either of those things makes a critical difference either. But of course they do, at least for today. I cannot change that reality, and for now neither can the court system. That does not mean it does not suck.

This is on its face just another case in afternoon motions. Mental health, crimes by children, parents not providing support, etc. M’s case sticks with me hours after not merely because of what happened in the big moments on the record—though that might have been enough—but in the small moments after the red light shut off. M was walking toward the deputy, toward the only place that will house him tonight, with only the clothes on his back and whatever small items remained at the facility. However, M has one last indignity to suffer. M’s mother wants a coat back; the very coat M has on. Its the coat keeping silver handcuffs away from a 14 year old’s skin and will be one of the few comforts M has on the van trip back to GVRC. But his mother wants it back. And M gives it to her. And that makes me incredibly sad.

So M, tonight I want you to know I am thinking of you, even though you’ll never know. You're a brave young man and I am glad our paths crossed today, if for just a moment.