Judge Hughes? I Don't Think So.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan is being sworn in today. Normally that type of news just goes past my radar screen and it's back to real life. This time, though, as the choices were being vetted, I began to notice that at least one of the nominees had things in common with me.

When the name of federal judge Diane Wood was first floated out as a possible nominee, I happened to see her biography: We were born the same year. She was raised in a neighboring town. We were both scouts with mothers active in scouting. She plays a wind instrument as do I. She has siblings. We both received our B.A.s in English.

Somewhere in the sixties we were moving down the same path. Did we attend the same football games in high school? Were we both on the staffs of our respective high school papers? Did we both play in the summer band in Westfield?

But there must have been some differences. Did she move up to first chair in the band while I puffed away in the fourth row? Was she earning specially designed scout law badges while I was having trouble tying knots?

Wood graduated as her high school valedictorian while my guidance counselor kindly told me that my outstanding SAT scores would get me into some college...she was pretty sure.

Somehow Wood got through college in three years in an honors program, while I squeaked by my four years. While I was buried deep in the undergraduate law library trying to understand the analysis of cases and legal writing and all the rest, she was moving on to law school.

After that she just left me in the dust.

What the heck happened to me? And how did someone as young as Wood get to be a federal judge proposed for the Supreme Court?

No clue....but I had a good time in school.

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Now, just to get back to that age thing, yes I know that the final choice for Associate Judge of the Supreme Court Elena Kagan is ten years younger than both Diane Wood and I. I don't want to discuss it any more.

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My mother always contended that I never made the Dean's List until I was paying my own tuition. Maybe it's some type of motivational thing?