Just got back from Stop No. 2 on my Bar Review Tax Lecture Tour 2003, this time in Salem. As in Eugene on Monday, I ran overtime -- 4 hours 12 minutes today, instead of 4 hours 15 -- but I was much looser, and at least I shared a few laughs with the assembled crammers.

So shamelessly did I pander to the young crowd that in one anecdote, I used the term "he was all like" to denote the concept "he said." Pitiful conduct in a man of my age. Then there was that troublesome quote I threw in from the Red Hot Chili Peppers -- not a shred of dignity left. Oh, well -- do the tax laws deserve any better?

The bar exam experience is so intense, it's unforgettable. When I tell the students stories about my own bar exams of 24 (Oregon) and 25 years ago (California), it seems like it was just a few years back. Twenty-five years from now, when my lecturing ties are all hung up and collecting dust, these students will still be telling their own tales.

Tom Waits guided me home (Small change got rained on with his own .38), and now it's time for a nap. It's over the hump and on to the home town crowd Saturday morning.