Jim and all 5 kids - 2009
After HHS, graduated from Davidson College in 1980, where I was president of the College Union and was present (along with Stephen Hamm, who came down in '77 for the concert) for the Police's first American tour in Davidson's own Love Auditorium...about 400 people showed up, and Sting got to load his own amps on the truck after the concert. More people were interested in Mother's Finest...Hamm won an album. Then University of Alabama Law School 1980-83. President of the Student Bar Association. Whooopee! Then took a job in Mobile 1983-1992 with the same firm. Married Anne O'Neill 1986, Mobile native who birthed five little Robertsons, now aged 18-10. She then decided to jettison the father by paging him at the YMCA at a noon workout in April 2000 and advising him that the divorce papers were on his desk at the office. (He had switched law firms in 1992). Sure enough, she was right! Jim (don't you just love switching to third person for the painful parts?) found himself divorced by Labor Day 2000, out of his brand new house that was subsequently sold in the divorce. His ex remarried and moved to Baldwin County. Jim's major clients left his law firm shortly after the divorce (when it rains it pours, and all that). In 2002, facing an imminent "closed door" meeting with his concerned partners, Jim decided it was a great time to go back to school and become the writer he had always wanted to be. He received a Masters in Fine Arts from Spalding Univerity in Louisville, KY. in 2004. Now he's back in the legal world, working of counsel to a Mobile firm, doing some work for individual clients on the side, and writing his second novel. He served as Managing Editor of Culture & Leisure Magazine from 2004-2005, and writes book reviews for the Mobile Register. He still lives in the post-divorce apartment but likes it there because everyone else in the complex is retired and it makes him feel young despite his gray hair. He sees his children when they need money or a meal, which is not too different from the experience of still-married parents of teenagers. Jim has avoided a second bout of matrimony despite several close calls. Those potential disasters were averted in large part because of advice from HHS classmates Lynn Charlton, David Mosley and Stephen Hamm. This may not sound like the story expected of the individual voted "Most Likely to Succeed," but I'm not finished yet. I expect to
Cell: