WORLDS COLLIDE — OR DON’T

I was sitting in the left-turn lane, waiting for the green light that would allow me to start moving again.

As I rotated my bored gaze through the intersection, I saw potholes (of course), as well as a car facing me and waiting to cross. The light turned green for that driver, and as she made her way through the intersection, a white flash blew through a red light and missed the back of the woman’s car by what seemed like the width of an iPad.

The woman came rolling past me with her eyes bulging and her hand covering her mouth as she looked into her rear-view mirror, contemplating what had just happened.

Or more to the point, what had just not happened.

By the narrowest of margins, she had missed being destroyed by another driver. Even though she hadn’t seen what was happening as things unfolded, she appeared painfully aware of it all now.

The woman had done nothing wrong, but that wouldn’t have made much difference had she been at the joint of a T-bone crash.

I’ve been involved in my share of fender-benders over the years, none my fault as I like to tell my wife; each had damage enough to cost $1,000 to repair but none bad enough to cause a lucrative crick in my neck.

But I’ve also been involved in two pretty major crashes.

Once, a semi-truck pulling out of a driveway T-boned my car as I drove past, spinning me completely around and nearly into a huge electrical pole.

Another time, I was driving north on Central Expressway when an uninsured and speeding drunk driver pounded the back of my car.

Both times, I saw what was going to happen just before it did, not that there was anything I could do about it. Things unfolded, it was over, and I was fine.

And at the same intersection where I saw the woman barely escape a collision, virtually the same thing had happened to me years earlier.

Why me? Or maybe a better question: Why not me?

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BRITTANY NUNN

As I drove through the intersection’s green light, for some reason I happened to look right, down the street across the passenger seat. And there, barreling toward me was a huge SUV. The driver was speeding, and he clearly wasn’t stopping.

For whatever reason, I didn’t freeze. Instead, I jammed the accelerator to the floor, and my car slipped through the intersection just before the SUV.

No damage. No panic. Until, of course, I had rolled a block or so down the street, and I found myself breathing quickly and felt my skin go cold.

Why me? Or maybe a better question: Why not me?

That’s my question of the day: Why do bad things happen to anyone, and given how many of us there are continually drifting into each other’s paths, why don’t they happen more often?

Suite 820, Dallas 75214; or email rwamre@advocatemag.com.

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Law and disorder

As it turns out, lawyers can be funny

For four nights out of the year, local attorneys, judges and other legal professionals step away from their stern courtrooms and onto the theatrical stage to poke fun at their own careers.

“Frankly, they’re all hams. They love to perform,” says Preston Hollow resident Martha Hofmeister.

She has directed the musical variety show, “Bar None,” since its inception 30 years ago. The Dallas Bar Association sponsors the annual program, which raises money for the Sarah T. Hughes Diversity Scholarship Fund at Southern Methodist University’s

Dedman School of Law. The show has raised $1.7 million to date.

This month “Bar None” celebrates its three decades with a best-of show June 10-13, themed, “XXX Obscenely Funny.” Hofmeister and the writers often draw from current events and pop culture for material. (Past themes have been included, “Mrs. Reasonable Doubtfire” in 1993, and “Harry Potter Stewart and the Disappearing Miranda Rights” in 2000.)

The show is two-thirds music and onethird skits, and everyone who auditions plays a role.

“We have five or six people who can do everything, three who can do nothing, and everyone else in between,” Hofmeister says.

In the beginning, the talent among the legal community surprised most audience members who attended with low expectations, or to simply see their friends perform.

“Most of them have done something [in musical theater], but we’ve also had people who have never set foot on a stage before.”

Although comedy is at the core, the 55 cast members aren’t just goofing off, Hofmeister says. It’s a professionally produced show.

Hofmeister was just 26 years old and fresh out of law school, when she became the “Bar None” director in 1986. She served on the DBA’s entertainment committee and had directed a similar show at UT Law School called “Assault and Flattery.”

After launching “Bar None,” she met her husband, Kent, another lawyer and rock-and-roll musician who played in a band called Catdaddies.

“I just showed up for an audition,” he says, and he’s been a part of the show ever since.

This year’s lineup includes a “Gangnam Style” dance and a “Blurred Lines” rendition. To end the show, they’ll perform the Book of Mormon song “I Believe,” but instead call it “You Should Leave.” Another popular skit, “The Texas Tool,” spoofs personal injury lawyer Jim Adler, known for his “Texas Hammer” ads. Playing off the Dos Equis commercials, the show also features, “the most interesting tax lawyer in the world.”

These singers and dancers may have one of the most hated jobs in America, but “Bar None” makes it hard not to love them.

“This is not something most lawyers would do,” Hofmeister points out. “I think [our community] is different. They have an ability to take the profession very seriously and yet recognize there are things about it that are funny. We’re doing the profession a service. We’re saying, ‘We get it.’ ”

MORE INFO:

—Emily Toman

The 30th annual Bar None runs June 10-13 at the Greer Garson Theatre at SMU, 6100 Hillcrest. For ticket information and other details, visit barnoneshow.com.