Down to the Hard Road

Almost Legal Humor is the way defense trial lawyer Stephen R. Crislip describes his book, Down to the Hard Road. Operating upon the premise that the most difficult lawyers (or people generally) are those born without humor, he reports from the road during a series of lawyer meetings over a specific period. Utilizing the no theme approach of the Seinfeld show and the reporting style of the late Pete McCarthy, who wrote a travel book entitled McCarthy's Bar based upon McCarthy stopping at every bar in Ireland with his name on it, Crislip humorously wanders along a lovely string of meetings in glorious places with totally random descriptions of locales, people and the silliness of the times, as subjectively viewed by a big boned boy writing from tiny seats on small regional jets. The author contends his family's residence in West Virginia for over 218 years gives him full and absolute standing to give his West Virginia viewpoint, including the standard West Virginia directions: "Go down to the hard road until you come to the four lane and follow it to the Robert C. Byrd Freeway".... which one, you ask, since everything in West Virginia now bears this description. In the spirit of the adventures taken, the author vows to donate all proceeds over the production costs to a community charity so that everyone who buys or reads the book can feel good about themselves -- even if they lack the humor gene, and even if they pitch the book like a disposable camera.