Other than a brief, stop-and-go conversation at a hockey game in Norfolk, we hadn’t talked to Buster O’Brien in more than 50 years – when he was throwing footballs with uncommon accuracy and leading the University of Richmond to heights not seen before or since.
Four years ago, we connected. So, howyadoing, old-timer? It’s been a while, and you’ve done quite well for yourself as a trial lawyer, then a circuit judge, this even-older old-timer said.
If you are lucky, you will know a few people that, no matter how long it has been, it always seems like you saw them yesterday … friends forever. William R. “Don’t Call Me Bill” O’Brien, for example.
“I’m living on house money,” he said then, so matter-of-factly a punch line surely was to follow. It was typical Buster … upbeat, laughing, never-met-a-stranger, just happy to be here, Buster.