Idaho Lawyer

I flew to Boise on Friday, January 8, to be sworn in as an Idaho lawyer. A client doing real estate projects in Idaho needed opinion letters, and I had to join the Idaho Bar to give them.

The clerk of the Idaho Supreme Court swore me in, beneath the Great Seal of Idaho.

I was surprised to feel so moved by the oath, in which I promised not to turn away the downtrodden or disadvantaged, but to make sure they got justice. I do regularly provide free counseling for new women business owners, many of them financially struggling, but I seemed to be covenanting to do something more than that.

I had a beautiful flight to Boise. I got bumped up to first class and spent most of the 45-minute flight taking photos of SLC receding...

the snow-capped mountains beneath us on the way through Idaho...

and Boise, with its river, appearing below.

I also had time for some favorite luxuries--reading The Economist and eating one of my favorite cookies--the Delta biscotti.

I decided to spend the rest of the day, after being sworn in, exploring my adopted state. I Googled "Boise sights" and learned that the Old Idaho State Penitentiary is the top tourist destination. It was built in 1870 and used until 1973. It is empty now, but on this cold day I seemed to feel all the ghosts of the former inmates--stretching all the way back to the days of the Idaho Territory.

I visited the gallows, where witnesses watched hangings through a glass window, and the "drop room," where bodies fell from the gallows through a trap door. The whole thing seemed inhumane, to say the least.

I visited the solitary confinement cells, mere slits with a round hole in the ceiling as the only ventilation. The cells got so cold in the winter that ice formed on the walls.

I was interested in the signs--so restrictive and dehumanizing for prisoners.

Next stop was the Idaho Historical Museum.

It was a treasure house of displays that helped me understand my adopted state--agrarian in the south and covered with forests up north, and increasingly high tech all over. At one point, near the turn of the 20th century, Idaho was nearly split in half, with the north going to Washington State and the south going to Nevada.

There were Native American beaded gloves and moccasins....

a Victorian parlor...

neon signs from long-gone bars...

a saddle and an ox yoke from Oregon Trail days...

a collection of cowboy chaps...

and even a mountain goat.

There was also an artist's life work of dozens of water colors of Idaho places. The farm, the mountains, and the desert symbolized, for me, the distinctive parts of this beautiful state.

I had time for one more museum before catching my plane--the Boise Art Museum.

There was a special display of quilts by African-American women in Alabama, juxtaposed with the museum's own collection of quilts by Idaho women. I have always loved quilts, as necessities turned into art by hard-working women. I thought of Grandma Eyring, turning old clothes into bright patterned quilts that she gave to her children and grandchildren.

I treated myself to a silk scarf in the museum gift store and then headed for the airport, for one last luxury, a self-indulgent meal (cheese enchiladas with lots of cilantro and tomatillo sauce), before the plane flight home. I had turned a work obligation into a very fun day.