Well, though the circumstances that bring us here together are indeed beyond any measure of sadness, it’s still my honor and privilege to have been asked here to speak with you today.

I obviously can’t talk about what it was like to have been a colleague or close friend of Professor Vernon through the years, although I wish that I could.  I hope I can share a little bit of what it was like to be a very nervous and somewhat scared first year law student in my very first semester in his Contracts I class.

I was nervous because Professor Vernon, as you probably know, wrote the textbook and casebook that we used for his class, so his brilliance was obviously exemplified by that. And, in addition, we knew that he knew what was in it (laughter).  We read cases whose names now, I think, are going to be etched into our memories like Raffles, Peerless, Frigalament, and Red Owl.  We met women in these cases like Lucy Lady Duff Gordon and we met cows like Rose the Second of Aberlone.  And we worked through problems that he took the time to actually name.  He named some of them the Meteorite and the Rock, Are Heffers Cows, Reading is Not my Bag -- years before Austin Powers was so famous -- Sleeping Under Bridges, One Million Bricks, and the Head Hat Trimmer -- in a nod to professions that no longer exist.

And the way that Professor Vernon taught us in class was as quirky and as funny as his book.  My main recollection of that class was that it was very, very funny.  Because even though he was pretty gruff, and he raised his voice at us a few times, we usually deserved it, but afterwards he always grinned and winked at one of us to know that he was just kidding.  At least we thought he was (laughter).

So I spent most of my class time laughing, unless I was called on, in which case I spent it standing up, which was another issue we had in his classes.  In fact, two of my colleagues who sat behind me, Tim and Nick, they used to give me a hard time because all during class they said that my shoulders would shake because I was trying not to laugh.  It was distracting to them. But I always laughed because of his asides and his comments.  He is famous around the law school for saying, “Ho, Ho, Ho, I revoke” (laughter).

I don’t recall who the student was, but he asked someone once about whether a particular item was valid consideration for a contract.  The student stood up nervously, “Well, uh, I, I would say, I would say that, uh, yes, yes, that would be valid, yes, I would say that would be valid consideration.”  Professor Vernon said, “Well, you could say that, but you’d be wrong” (laughter).

And he had that deep, gruff voice that he always adopted with us, except once when he was describing a vagrant who came to someone’s house and tried to enter into a negotiation to take out their garbage in exchange for a sandwich.  He characterized the vagrant as saying [high pitched voice], “Can I have a sandwich? Can I have a sandwich?" Which became sort of a rallying cry amongst some members of our class (laughter).

One other time he said something about what position a successful plaintiff should be in after he wins a case in a contract dispute. And he said he should be in the same position as if the contract had been performed.  He had an acronym for that was PIAGAPAP which he wrote on the board and then pronounced as "piagapag" (laughter).

I looked through my notes for the class in preparation for speaking and I noted that I had a couple of quotes that he said.  I don’t know the context, I don’t know what these were in relation to, but I took the time to write them down so I thought I would share them.  "No oranges in here, you dope." "He was a very little man." And, "Who wants clean paintings?"  So, you can imagine what class was like.

I guess the bottom line is that class was great and it was very funny, if at times a bit nerve racking, especially while standing and having him say, "Why don’t you stand up and tell Mr. Hansen why he's wrong," was a famous saying.  (laughter)  At the time, of course, we didn’t give it much thought.  We just thought that Professor Vernon was a big, funny guy.

We had heard that, at some point, we had a vague notion that he had been ill.  But he was so funny and so feisty we never really thought about it too much.  I realize now that Professor Vernon must have worked and struggled and strained to get to school early every morning and to teach us about contracts and to take that time out of his day and out of his life to do that.

He didn’t need to, he could of retired I’m sure, and been relaxing somewhere.  I know that a less committed person probably would’ve, I’m sure I would’ve.  But for whatever reasons, and I don’t pretend to know the reasons why, he got up, came to school, he yelled at us, he made us laugh, and he taught us how to be lawyers.

And I feel bad for all the students down the road who won’t ever have the chance to stand up in his class and be told why they're wrong. But I cherish the chance that we all had to do that, and we really did adore him.

And there is no doubt in my mind that having had Professor Vernon as a professor made me a better student, a better lawyer, and in some measure a better person.

For the rest of my life I know that when I see, read or hear the word "contract" I will think of Professor Vernon.  I’ll chuckle a little bit -- and I’ll miss him.