There Went The Judge

If Memory Swerves™, the year was 1968 or 9, the Spring or Summer of Love,  Which Is To Say, Anonymous, Altogether Inadvisable, Sexual Couplings. The Vietnam War was ablaze, while in the states, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy brought a nation to its knees. Civil unrest was the rage, and the fringe-jacketed longhairs were just getting started, conspiring to inflict sit-ins, free love and three-part harmonies about coming to Chicago’s Millenium Park to change the world upon an impressionable populace. Into this topsy-turvy milieu stepped a right-thinking civil servant, U.S. Circuit Judge Frederick Earl “Shorty” Long. Mind you, this was years before judges like Supreme Court pubis spotter Clarence Thomas and television Solomons Joseph Wapner and Judy Sheindlin commanded obesiance from their bully pulpits. Disrespect for uniformed authority was the disorder of the day. Policemen were "pigs," politicians were "Rethugulicans" and coffee baristas "Democrass." Cue Judge Shorty Long. Born in Birmingham, Alabammy, Shorty was a man of many skills, one who pounded the piano and hit the books with equal fervor. He attended Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, but his schooling at the Berry Gordy Hitsville, USA building steered him along a parallel pathway to success. Long’s first taste of musical acclaim was as the writer of “Devil With A Blue Dress,” a song which didn’t chart for him, but was remade into a hit by his legal assistant Mitchell “CC” Ryder. He would have more luck with his next release. “Here Comes The Judge” was a much-needed and soon-heeded warning that put the lawbreakers on notice: If you were in Judge Shorty’s courtroom, the rules of civilized behavior would apply. “Don’t nobody budge, here comes the Judge!” “Don't be eating that fudge, here comes the Judge!” “Take off yo’ hat, where you think yo’ at?!” His sentences were issued with menace: “30 days of boogaloo for you!” “30 days of shing-a-ling for the ding-a-ling.” ‘Twas more than good fun…’twas a reminder that prudence was now in session. Long played many instruments — including piano, organ, drums, harmonica, and trumpet — but no courtroom deviant ever played him. Alas, Shortly Long would die tragically on this day — July 2, 1969 — after his boat capsized on the Detroit River in Michigan. He only released one album in his short lifetime, but when that album was entitled “Here Comes The Judge,” methinks one suffices. R.I.P. Citizen Shortstop™.