#149 John Sare - An Advocate For The Arts

In this episode, I visit with John Sare, a true Bartian,  about practicing law, living in New York, his journey from High School to now, and the life lessons he's picked up along the way.

In our 40th year, I interview friends from my graduating class of 1982, The College High Wildcats. This class was the last graduating class of College High School before the name was changed to Bartlesville High School.  Sooner High School and College High were combined into one school called Bartlesville High School.

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Transcript

Narrator: 0:00

Welcome to the Last of the Col-Hi Wildcats 1982 podcast, brought to you by Deetsoman Productions

John Sare: 0:10

just was kind of depressing sometimes. And, and it was just it was like a time in life thing. It was a thing that you just had to get through. And I went one night, we all work pretty late those days, you know, and there's no obviously no zoom or email. And so people just, you know, it's just a standard just order out dinner eat at your desk and leave around 10pm having been there since 9am. And, and I had colleagues, we all did this. And so one night I was in colleagues office, Madeline Ritland, who was a brilliant tax layer. And I was complaining about my life, you know, all the things that were like wrong with my life. And, and she just was looking at me kind of rolling her eyes, like please, please. And finally she said John. Assuming just for the sake of argument that it is true that everything in your life has been a complete waste up until now. That actually is not a reason to waste the rest of it. And that was like some of the best advice I ever got.

Scott Townsend: 1:16

Hey, this is Scott Townsend. Welcome back to the Last of the Col Hi Wildcats. 1982 podcast. And today I have with me if you remember this page was at nine National Honor Society semi finalists. Honor students in the chapter of the National Honor Society. Distinguished as National Merit semifinalist was the editor of the Nautilus and he hasn't strayed far from his, what he was doing in high school. Seems like he's just doing more of it now. John Sare. John, how's it going?

Unknown: 1:59

All right. All right. Good to see you.

Scott Townsend: 2:01

Good to see you, too. So where are we? Where are you coming to us from?

Unknown: 2:05

I am coming to you this morning from Germantown, New York, which is about 104 miles north of New York City. And it's where I have a weekend house that has been more or less my permanent house during COVID. I still maintain an apartment in New York, but I'm here a lot. And I've had this house for many years. It's a wonderful get away from the city.

Scott Townsend: 2:27

So yeah, that's awesome. I was looking at your bio here. So you're a lawyer, practicing in tax exempt. I'm going to read this because I'll get it wrong. tax exempt organizations, trusts and estates art and museum law. That sounds really interesting. State Attorneys General and family offices. Looks like you went to Columbia Law School. Your graduate, you were the editor. So that's that's what I meant by not being straying far from your high school roots. They're editor of the Journal of the law and the arts at Columbia, and graduated summa cum laude It's summa cum laude at the Southern Methodist University. Right. When I was graduated, it was laude how cum? but it's an old job. And then he was by Phi Beta Kappa. So there was a lot to cover there, man. What have you been doing since high school?

Unknown: 3:33

Well, I've been having a pretty good time, I would say cross these many years. It's kind of hard to believe it's 40 years. I'm sure that's true for everybody. I was sort of doing the math and saying, Well, if there were about 300 of us, I think there were more than that times 40 years, that's 12,000 years have gone on since we will walk up on that stage at the auditorium downtown. That's a lot of years. And a lot of things could go on. But, you know, after that first summer out of high school, I went to SMU and really actually loved being there. I wasn't so sure I would love being there. I really kind of harbored fantasies of going east but my parents didn't see it that way. And so I went to SMU and actually had a wonderful experience in time there and was editor of the Daily campus there. Which there have been other college high people who had been editors at the Daily campus before me, people from a few years back like Giles Hudson, and earlier than that. Karen Potter, I believe had gone to SMU, had been an editor of the Daily campus at SMU and I finally did that. My junior year. I was also I was a journalism major, but I was also an English major. And in some ways, I discovered a subject I'd never heard of before called Art History while I was there and in some ways I wish I'd had an art history degree too but two I guess was enough. And I sort of made up for the art history other ways, later on. But anyway, I, I edited the daily campus, which was lots of fun that I got a job as an intern at the Dallas Morning News. And I worked there on the city desk is the junior guy on the city to ask from the summer of 85 until the summer of 87, a little over two years that I was there. And because I was the most junior person I was, I had to do a lot of the scut work. And so I spent a lot of nights sitting in the Dallas city hall in a room called the cop shop, where we were supposed to listen to police radios, see what's going on. Every couple hours, I call up the homicide division and say y'all got anything good going on tonight. I'm call the morgue anything going on I need to know, you know. And that wasn't every night. That was just some nights because because I was temporary because I was an intern. They didn't. They didn't really give me any specific feet. I kind of filled in for the people who were the real beat reporters. And and the real beat reporters on the city desk at the police station at the Dallas Morning News, the Dallas times Herald were some real characters. And that was a that was a good education. It was a good education in dealing with difficult situations. Because, you know, you just haven't really experienced life or you've gone out to the scene of the homicide and tried to interview the surviving family members and interview the homicide detectives and interview witnesses. And I was like, you know, 2122 years old and going out and doing this and I go back to the city desk with my pathetic quotes. And they'd say, no, no, you need to ask harder questions and you need to be stronger about it. You know, so there was a real process because I was I was sort of a polite, small town kid, you know, this was not well, I was really raised to do but eventually I really got into it and enjoy doing it. And I covered a lot of other things too, besides besides crime, but there was a lot of crime and buying crashes, parades, elections, just foolishness too. And over the course of that I managed to interview way to Roe against Wade on the telephone once and I even met Thoreau. And wouldn't consent. He wouldn't come back for the interview. She disappeared after the event that she was at the woman known as Jane Roe. But Wade was the Dallas County District Attorney even in the 80s. And I did I interviewed him briefly. Timer tooth cool. So anyway, it was it was a good, a good a good adventure. And pay was lousy. And if I were going to stay, I would have had to basically submit to being some kind of a beat reporter in the burbs, which I really want to do. And I'd gotten into law school. Anyway, I got into law school my senior year at SMU and deferred it for a year so I could work and then and so everybody, but the morning news knew I was going off anyway. And that actually was like a great thing because they didn't have to consign me to the miski Bureau. Or the first year was Bedford Bureau I was working downtown with with the big boys. And that was fun. So then I I then knew I was going to law school, went to law school move arrived at Columbia Morningside Heights in August of 1987. And Columbia is in the Morningside Heights part of Manhattan. So it's 100 and 16th. And Broadway. And I, I've been to New York a few times, during college, I SMU had various ways arranged for me to be able to go to New York for journalism things and English department things. And so i i and i really Columbia was always my kind of a number one choice of where to go to school, because I still wanted to be in New York and be part of New York things theater and museums and things like that. And Colombia had a tradition of, of its alumni doing things in arts related ways. And so that, and that was a good place to be. And for that purpose, there was a center for law in the arts, so I could take classes in one the theater and the seminar law and the visual arts. I took copyright with Professor Jane Ginsburg, whose mother was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And so and she Jane is a very eminent copyright scholar in her own right. The intelligence she got from

John Sare: 9:27

both sides in her family she's brilliant person. And so yeah, there was there was this wonderful exposure to the law, the visual arts and law and the arts generally there which then laid the foundation that plus the law itself you know, I was doing regular law too. I was doing contracts and civil procedure, property law and income tax just like everybody else and and plus this other stuff I could do on the side. And and then after, in loss when you're asked, Will you do the summer And or work at a law firm and they pay you a lot of money to do nothing except over lunch. And so I did. I did a set of those Dallas and good Vincent Elkins and Akin Gump down there in the summer of 88, which was great fun, never eaten so well in my life. And then the next year, I did my summer internship at a law firm called Milbank, tweed, Hadley and McCloy in New York, and Milbank is a wonderful old York firm, had had an has a great Preston State's Department. And I was I decided to trust the states, which is, you know, is basically a state planning writ large, I mean, it's a lot of different kinds of work for your individual clients was, would be an interesting place to be, in part because individual clients did a lot of work in the arts and philanthropy generally. And that was of interest to me. And so I worked at Milbank and became a partner there. I mean, I was there, really from 1989 until 2004, working on Wall Street. And you know, I look back at it in retrospect. And I think of it as kind of a golden time, there was a lot of hard work, and a lot of very challenging personalities and situations, but also like a tremendous amount of fun. You know, it was it was just, it was just really interesting having that window into the world of, of wealthy, powerful people and institutions. And so I enjoyed doing the work intellectually, the work was interesting to my colleagues were great. And I, then I had an opportunity to become a partner at another firm in 2004. And that's when I moved to my current firm, Patterson, Belknap Webb and Tyler, where I've been for the last 18 years. The vast majority of my clients, by the time I changed were nonprofit institutions. I had some individual clients, and for those I usually did their philanthropic and art related work, a lot of them were doing a lot of work in the UK with foundations and things. But I also represented lots of big institutions doing cultural things, museums and other kinds of institutions. And so many of those clients came with me virtually all of them. And so I ended up with a sort of the same work I've been doing. And so I sometimes joke that I've, for the last almost 32 years, I've had one job, I've just done it in two different places. So

Scott Townsend: 12:33

that's awesome. So what made you decide to kind of major or focus on the art and museum like art and museum law? Getting cards pursuing?

John Sare: 12:48

I, it's several different things. I mean, I always had kind of an instinctive interest in, in the arts, you know, in literature and whatnot. I mean, in my I was in a very happy, you know, taker of English classes at college high. And, you know, even though I did, I did the journalism stuff, but I was specifically interested in the arts aspects of it, even even when I was doing the journalism. And I think nobody in these segments that I've watched, I've watched some of them. I haven't watched all of them. I don't think anybody who's mentioned the Nautilus to speak up. But you know, we had this amazing teacher, he did Hicks, who was one of the most remarkable people I've ever known or worked with. And she was a tremendous inspiration, and also sort of made you feel like garnering knowledge and writing about it. In a persuasive, interesting, engaging way was maybe like the highest calling in the world. And so it was, it was a it was a great thing to be tutored by Edith, and we don't call her either. That was perfectly understood. And, and she and I really bonded. I kind of made a point of getting on her radar even before I arrived to college. Hi, I was I was down there in the summer before 10th grade hanging out trying to meet him and make sure she knew who I was. So when I got there, I was like a known quantity. Then she'd go out for smoke between classes. And that was before they made that addition on the north end of college high there were steps back there. And we go sit out stand out there somehow. blisteringly cold or blisteringly hot weather and she'd smoke or cigarettes and lean down and speak in this very soft voice, this kind of cigarette voice. She always thought she sort of sounded like Lauren Bacall did, and and we talked about what we've been doing in class. So I loved her. I love that class. And I love the way that she was sort of taking me into her confidence all the time. And one of the one of the guests that came to speak to class in this period, was a man called Brendan Gill. And Brendan Gill was the theatre critic at the New Yorker. And because I was interested in these things I knew perfectly well who Brandon and Gil was very keen to meet him. He just written a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright called many masks and he was on the publicity tour. And so of course, he came to Bartlesville to talk about his Frank Lloyd Wright book because of course, the price tower is there. And there was a retired English teacher called Betty Turk, who was kind of shepherding him around town and Betty Turk brought him to Mrs. Hicks's class, and we got to interview him. And I just could not stop asking questions to the point that Mrs. Turk finally asked me to please get me to shut up. But I mean, to me, like the chance to talk to the theatre critic Yorker was like the most thrilling thing I could imagine. And I think he was a little tired of my theater questions. He wasn't really there to talk about what was playing on Broadway that season. And, but I was interested in and I got to SMU, and I discovered that not only was I interested in the arts, but I also was like really interested in nonprofit institutions. And I discovered that I really liked being part of the university, and being and I got to know the president of the university and the vice president for finance, the Vice President for University Relations and vice president for, for Legal Affairs, I got to know them all. Because I was so interested in the life of the university. And the way universities put together, I knew a lot of Dean's, and it was like, you know, I discovered that this was a world I liked being in. And a friend of mine says that, you know, that I'm an institutionalist. And I think by nature, being part of an institution, like that appealed to me. And so I think, working, working in the arts, been a sort of a process of being part of any number of institutions, and helping build institutions and sustain institutions and really being part of figuring out things like, you know, the capital campaign, the, the, the development of collections, politics of the board, all that stuff. So it was a it was a, I don't know, it's a way of like, learning about yourself wondering what your aptitudes are, and that that happened to be one of mine.

Scott Townsend: 17:11

I looked on the page. Everybody watching, listening, get to your books out? PAGE 126. Again, that

John Sare: 17:22

data, yes, yeah. I probably wrote that. I don't remember. But I, she, she, she she developed cancer in my junior year, and she had lung cancer, the smoking, you know, caught up with her. I thought she was tremendous. I thought she was tremendously old because she was 59. Won't be a year. But but she, you know, I thought, Oh, my God, that's so old. Anyway, she was you know, she had memories going back 40 years, you know, imagine that. And so, but she, but she had been a heavy smoker. For decades. That's how you get that Lauren Bacall voice. And so it wasn't a great way that she had lung cancer. And she tried to teach but it was difficult. We have a lot of substitute teachers, my junior year. I would go see her sometimes, you know, at her house or she was Miss come in and and then, but she was completely unable to teach senior year and Darla Trester came in then. And then my recollection is Edith died in February or March of 82. And hence that In Memoriam there. It was it was a sad thing is such a great, a great figure in college high and in journalism.

Scott Townsend: 18:46

Going back to Bartlesville so we'll we'll get back. We'll get in the time machine here. And let's jump back to Bartlesville. Growing up, did you were you born in Bartlesville, did you?

John Sare: 19:01

I was I was I was born at Memorial Hospital downtown. Oh, wow. My parents at the time were living in Dewey. But my father was from Bartlesville and had been born in Bartlesville in the 30s, and my mother was a barn stall or ranch outside barn stall over in Osage County and her parents were living in Bartlesville by the time I was born. And so I'm not quite sure why we were doing my father always was investing in things buying buildings. Next he had had some buildings up and doing I know. And then I was transported to Bartlesville I think about the age of two and and then live there until I left in 1982.

Scott Townsend: 19:46

Right, right. So growing up Elementary School, which one to go to

John Sare: 19:53

South View. South South View that's where I started there's it's a little Cool, it's still there. I don't know if it's still open, but it's down around. Visit it's like 21st Street or something. It's like it's sort of south part of the old part of town, South even of college high. And it was only for kindergarten through third grade, if I recall correctly. And I went to kindergarten first and second grade there. Mrs. Wagner, Mrs. Ballard and Mrs. Ingersoll were my teachers. And I got along best, I think with Miss Wagner and this is Ingersoll I retention with Mrs. Bauer and then we moved to the quarter 13th in Osage, which was really where I grew up. In that house. We lived out on a street called College view. When we were going on I was at southview. And then, then I

Scott Townsend: 20:56

was at the White House, the White House on the White House on 13th and

John Sare: 21:02

square columns. Yeah. Yeah. Because you live near there, I think. Right.

Scott Townsend: 21:08

And I love that and we lived that in well, actually, yeah. When we first moved here. We rented a house from my dad's brother on Armstrong for a couple of months, and then we ultimately moved out to Oak Park. Oak Park Elementary.

John Sare: 21:27

Okay. Yeah, but I live there and Paul dismaying lived block away. I just watched his second one. And I mean, he I noticed he mentioned me and he mentioned that like, you know, we kind of live near each other. We even did indeed we did. He lived next next corner up if I recall correctly on Dewey and 13th. It was Paul dismaying. Oh yeah. And so so we lived there I went to to fourth and fifth grade at third say no correction, third and fourth grades. This is bone and the bone. And fourth grade was Mr. Owens. And, and Mr. Cox was the principal. So boom, this was all at Garfield. Oh, Garfield, yeah.

Scott Townsend: 22:22

Yeah. What did you think about Garfield?

John Sare: 22:24

Well, I thought it was kind of scary because it was so big. And and the students were a little bit more diverse, shall we say? That had been the case itself view. And so there was a little more economic diversity. And therefore there was there was more tension, I would say, plus, we were older, you get older and the kids are much more like poking at each other. And it was just enormous to me to just see my lights, the South, he was like, the low rise, one storey building, and then suddenly, I'm in this building with these enormous stairs and eco ways. In those days, part of what you hear echoing the hallways was the sound of the students being paddled. And you know, corporal punishment was was permitted and I dare say encouraged. And so you know, you, you were out, you know, with your, your pass to go to the drinking fountains between classes, you hear somebody getting, you know, flapped in the hallways, and it was the only time I was ever subjected to corporal punishment by the Bartlesville public schools. But I, I would stairs at lunch hour in the building when we were supposed to be outside. And so one, what the deal was, you know, I was running up the stairs. And these girls were running down the other side. And we were sort of sometimes we meet in the middle. And that we were trying to find each other on these different levels of stairs, the front of the back of the building. And so, one time I came running down the stairs, I think I was going to count the girls instead, I encountered Mr. Cox. And he had come to trap us basically. And so he took me and another guy, and maybe the girls too, I think he took all four of us to the office we all got spanked with and and we also were supposed to be quiet in the cafeteria. And and then we were supposed to go out and play softball in some seasons in the colder seasons soccer. And if you talk too loudly in the cafeteria, you can put on the wall, there was a big retaining wall. And so I didn't want to play softball and didn't want to play soccer. So I thought this was perfect. So I would just talk too loudly, get in trouble and then get put on the wall. And eventually people got on to me for this that I was I was kind of twisting the system a little bit but anyway, and then of course Garfield closed because they were going to tear it down to build a community center. And then and then we go into McKinley and so I did fifth sixth grade down there and I a fifth grade was with one of the wonderful Irene Stewart who was a terrific lady and teacher. And then sixth grade was with Anita Boone, who had no that's not right correction correction. I had some classes with a native bone, not as many as I wanted. She had come from Garfield, where she taught third grade, she'd come to like, and was teaching sixth grade and I took one or two classes with her with the way it was organized. I was mainly with a teacher called Mr. Floyd. I did not have the highest opinion. And so there was a lot of tension between him and me. But anyway, we got through that and then and then 1976 I, I played, I discovered my fondness for theater. And did I played the mayor in this in the sixth grade operetta. Well the trouble with Christmas. And I was the mayor who I think if I remember correctly, canceled Christmas in a small town and then got his comeuppance and I, we did a bicentennial play. And I played George Washington and a polyester suit. And then it was it was it was like a blue houndstooth as I recall is this was the strangest wardrobe choice. But anyway, I think I use tube socks is anyway, then. Then Then I went to Central and of course then it was the great melting pot again, it was like this Garfield time seven, you know, it's crying all over? The western town convened there. And it might have been three years there. And I could go on.

Scott Townsend: 26:43

Yeah, that's a good memory. I remember I've said this before on the on the on the podcast, Garfield, oh, my god, I just hated it. I just couldn't get

John Sare: 26:54

out of it. There was something about it. It was oppressive. And yeah. And I, I'm not quite sure why it was just it was just like an old building. It just felt like a place. It's like a prison prison. Yeah. It was really strict, disciplinary and sort of setup there. And yeah, I didn't love Garfield.

Scott Townsend: 27:19

Seems like it was really every day. Great, cool cloud.

John Sare: 27:27

That's how I remember Columbia Law School. But in short, it was it that's how it felt.

Scott Townsend: 27:33

Oh, yeah. Going to going to college. Hi, what's your, probably one of your fondest memory. When you think of college, I think of the class of 82. What's the first thing that comes to mind?

John Sare: 27:50

It may be the class of 81, I spent more time with members of the Class of 81 that I spent with our class. And it was one of those things that like I I gotten involved in the speech program, which was really like speaking in theater, you know, and a lot of the people I did that with were in the class ahead of us. And so, by the time I was a senior, like three or four people who were really like my best friends who had graduated, and were in college, and so I was I given up the speech stuff because I was going to be the editor, the novelist, and I knew I didn't have time to do speech and go to tournaments and do all that and get the grades I wanted and run the novelist, so I've given up speech, and plus bomb touchdown. And I, we also kind of had our tensions between one another one gets the sense, and I was I had either had like tense relationships with teachers or like great relationships with teachers. And so

Scott Townsend: 28:54

what was it about touchstone, that kind of

John Sare: 28:59

right? Sometimes, sometimes he he actually kind of called me out more for some of my antics more than other people did. So it probably just annoyed me that he was like, you know, challenging me in that way. So it was partly that. And in ways that would probably not go down. So well in 2022. He, he, he was very, he was very he was fond of the female students by far. And they were really fond of him. And so it's just it was a kind of flirty atmosphere between touchdown and some of the female students and that was, you know, I have part of that so it was kind of like, he's not he's not nice to me, particularly. So there's, there are a lot of other story I don't mean to suggest it was anything improper by the standards of any reasonable person today, but it was just, it was just different. And there's a great relationship with Edith Hicks and Um, you know, we really were just, I don't know, we just were made to be friends with each other. And I had a very good relationship with Dan Simmons who taught English and, you know, led us through, you know, texts that at the time seemed very, very challenging. My first Shakespeare, you know, was with him reading Macbeth, and I feel like I didn't handle it as some kind of independent study or something. But I think that's, and we've, we've read Great Expectations, I believe in Beowulf and whatnot. And yeah, he was one of the more challenging teachers, George love is somebody a lot of people have mentioned, and I appreciated how hard he made his work. And, you know, it was really we, we were forced to learn a lot. And I will say, with the benefit of hindsight, not sure how much of it was factual, but how much of it was his opinion of the way the world worked, but it was certainly a lot of stuff we had to master to get through that class. And, and it took a lot of time, like it was it was a real, and this people were terrified of that class, because everyone knew you were going to read a lot of material, take a lot of notes, write a lot of note cards, memorize a lot of stuff. Right? You know, what is it I've spent the last 40 years basically doing? That's basically what I do all the time, is I don't do more, but I read stuff, I take a lot of notes, I write a lot of things, I spend a lot of time on it, and use a little bit, you know, he even he would say, I think the first time I ever heard the expression was from him that Yeah, well, sometimes people say my opinions are but right again gets gone. You know, he would say that and but but certainly it was intense and and find its way I took world history and American history with him, and all good training for the life ahead.

Scott Townsend: 31:57

Who was your Who was your gang? Who are your friends that you hung out with in high school,

John Sare: 32:04

but our class, Brett Thomas and I were both doing the journalism thing. And so we we spent time together. I because of the speech things, I spent time with San Diego, and with Allison Holmes, who graduated a year early. And Sandy and I had had jointly worked on the junior high play a play we did at Central district Redmond, which was called Hey, teach. And it was a play set in high school and Sandy, Sandy played the teacher. And I'm not sure I was even on stage in that, quite frankly. But I was certainly involved in it. And so so we were working on those things kind of in that period. And then that was part of the group. And then as I said, there were people that were a year ahead of me, in the class of 81 that I was friendly with Steve Middlebrook, Tom Morris, Monica valgus, and some other people who were like, you know, kind of the theater speech crap, to some extent. And, and I was very busy, you know, I didn't I didn't socialize, like, I wasn't the kind of guy you were going to find at the Sonic or the canteen, or, I mean, like, I just wasn't there. You know, I was I was either at at school working on the novelist until they closed the school every day at five, or I was at the Bartlesville, examiner enterprise, you know, marking up the paper, because we would we would get set downtown at the at the E as we call it. Right. And for I was reading or, you know, listening to music or whatever, I was kind of solitary in that way. Not only he was gonna have any tails with me out, you know, to drunken parties. And carousing, drowsy and go, John Alessi was somebody I would see sometimes because he was in the neighborhood. I remember after some play, we did, and I think it might have been a teacher in the ninth grade, that he had a party at a cast party at his house. And the Clarys were my neighbors. And so I, you know, spent some time with the clear east the last couple of years, junior to us, and then Karen and her and their brother, Kevin, who's no longer with us, and so I'm hanging out with them. In my neighborhood. There was a family called the Boers and Susie Moore might have been in our class, I think so. And she had several siblings, including a guy called Mike Moore. And who sues him. Yeah, but Mike Moore worked for years and years at the bookstore out at the Washington Park Mall, and I would see him out there so he sadly died a few years yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Mike, you know, our neighborhood was like a funny little neighborhood, we were like a odd group of kids there. And so we had the valgus is down the block one direction and the mores down next block the other direction. And, and we were all really interested in artistic things. And I remember being out of the yard like in 1979 and Mike Moore, who was I think, four years older than us and, and Neil valgus, same age as Mike, they were out there talking about Woody Allen movies, and they were both making movies. And so you know, they would make these like anywhere from three to you know, 20 minute movies, and they made one one's called law horrendous news creature, which was about a swamp monster that came up out of the Caney River and tried to eat Bartlesville or something. And, and sometimes I was allowed to, like write the musical score, I'd sit at the Moors, you know, Oregon, and like, compose a score from my brother pedestrian piano training for these movies, including one about Mrs. Hicks. And then the Nautilus even though I wasn't even at college high. But there's somewhere out there, somebody hopefully has the Super Eight film of Mrs. Hicks being interviewed and people talking about Edith Hicks. Ethanol was in about 1979. So I skewed old in that sense, you know, I definitely skewed to the old, an older crowd.

Scott Townsend: 36:30

I was, if I were to describe you, from what I remember, I was going to say I remember you as kind of kind of an old soul. Maybe a little older than you were, you know, kind of came off that way. And that's not bad. That's no, that's just you seem to be a little bit ahead of us. I didn't really know what I was doing. You seem to know what you were doing. And I think we were friends. I think we weren't, we weren't

John Sare: 37:05

we definitely work. Yeah. I remember that. And I, but yeah, I was, I don't know, I was in my own mind, I guess I kind of am a bit of an old so I mean, I spend a lot of time, you know, inhabiting the past imaginatively, you know, my reading the I tend to read books, history books, or books that were written in the past. about the past, I watch a lot of old movies, I travel extensively look at historic architecture. You know, I mean, I'm sort of somewhere about 1940, in terms of where I am in the world.

Scott Townsend: 37:45

Just a few more questions here. What, what are you over the last 40 years? What are you most proud of?

John Sare: 37:54

I would say, you know, the least the legal work that I've done that has made a difference in institutions, enduring institutions, and I've worked on a number of gifts and other transactions that have led to some important art collections and individual works of art coming to some of our major museums, important archives, going to major museums, artists, creating foundations to sort of perpetuate their legacies as artists, and endowment funds that have created various kinds of scholarly Institute's that universities and the new museums, I'm very proud of that, you know, I can walk around New York City, and to some extent, other places in the world to not just New York, especially New York and see, you know, in the wall labels, and things are on view, things that I touched in one way or another that I helped make happen. And, you know, I've been doing this so long now, you know, it's, it's, it's quite amazing to me how it's all mounted up. And, you know, sometimes I can be at the mat and look at a museum and I can see a wall label for a painting and, and my name is not on it, but but I know that like I did the legal work that resulted in that painting, being at the Metropolitan Museum, and that's a very nice field, which that you somehow contributed to something that endures.

Scott Townsend: 39:23

And it's cool, very cool. The flip side of that is what's been the most challenging time in the last 40 years. John's there. Um, this is the Barbara Walters moment, this is the three. I want to try to get you to cry here.

John Sare: 39:43

That's not likely. But I think that the kind of just just getting through the 90s was sometimes challenging. I've said earlier that like I look back on my days and Milbank, Tweed is kind of a golden time, but it was also like a time I was working really hard. If I felt like I was not going to make partner, I was just kind of generally unhappy with my station wife, you know, and it was just really like, it just was kind of depressing sometimes. And, and it was just it was like a time in life thing. It was a thing we just had to get through. And I went one night, we all work really late in those days, you know, and there was no obviously no zoom or even email. And so people just, you know, it was just a standard just were around dinner at your desk and leave around 10pm having been there since 9am. And, and I had colleagues, we all did this. And so one night, I was in a colleague's office, Madeline Rivlin, it was a brilliant tax layer. And I was complaining about my life, you know, all the things that were like wrong with my life. And, and she just was looking at me kind of rolling her eyes like police, please yeah. And finally, she said, John, assuming just for the sake of argument that it is true that everything you do in your life has been a complete waste up until now. That actually is not a reason to waste the rest of it. And that was like some of the best advice I ever got. The fact was that everything I had done was not a waste. I just was choosing to see it in a negative light, because I was in a bad place. But it was the Bad Place was taking me to a place of just saying, oh, hell with it, you know, like, you know, what, what's all this going to really amount to and when she said that to me, but just because even assuming it's true that your life has been a waste of your time, that's no reason to waste the rest of it. It rang a bell for me. And I really liked it 97 or 98 not not long before I became a partner, I became a partner in 2000. And I had lunch with her shortly before the pandemic in New York and she now lives in the suburbs. And, and she came in for lunch with me one day, and I told her that story, and she had no memory of that good advice. But when I told her she started to cry, and but it was it was it was just like this one of those wise things people tell you and I learned a lot from my colleagues at Milbank, you know, there were there were there are so many things. I still quote, you know, various partners and associates set saying to me, wise, witty, wonderful things, and another colleague of mine, from Milbank, J. Swanson Development Day. A saying that, just remember, John, we only go around part of once. And that was another one that just like, like it was late was like, I don't know, somebody just slap my forehead, like, wow, think about that. But like, we like to say we only only go around once,

Scott Townsend: 42:40

right? Oh, you only go around once.

John Sare: 42:43

Part of one's heart wants the brain, the brain inside of that statement is that it's never quite as long as you think it is. And you're never you never really know when it's going to be and you never really use what you've got fully. And so almost by definition, you only go around part of once, there's always going to be stuff you miss, there's always going to be stuff that didn't happen. And and and it's to me, that's always been a kind of galvanizing that if we will only go around part of once a by just by definition, we're going to be disappointed, some things are just never going to happen. Because we just never talked to them. And sometimes that we think we might have, because our life expectancy is X may not be there for us. And I've discovered it knowing really, really old people, people in their 90s, who I've been really lucky to know, a number, including a friend of mine who's who's 99 is still going strong. And I was talking to him not wanting on the phone and 99 he was he was dealing with people hadn't had COVID that's gotten over. But you can tell there was a tone of regret in his in his voice that will you know, maybe this is it, you know, and nine, even 99 wasn't really all of it. And so I think that, you know, those those kinds of ideas that really like animated me in my life and kept me going through all kinds of, you know, difficult clients and difficult colleagues and just difficult situations. You know, whether it was 911, or the crash of 2008, you know, both of which had like enormous effects on my personal my work life really, I mean, I was fine, but like, the COVID Whatever is all those things that like those those kinds of ideas that helped me a lot.

Scott Townsend: 44:30

Well, I know you need to go here. I'm running up on the clock here. My last question and we could go on. I got everything you just brought up brings up more questions I want to ask but the last question like I asked everybody else is you know, what would you tell John ser 18 year old John stare as he's walking across the stage knowing what you know now. What would you if you could meet yourself? Knowing what you know now what would you tell John? Oh, Um, what advice, would you I

John Sare: 45:02

think it would be completely contradictory. It would be slow down and do more. And those things don't go together. Like, they just don't go together at all. But the fact is that like, I always felt like this imperative to just kind of go and go and go. And as a consequence, there were times that I probably could have luxuriate it a little bit, but I didn't. And like one of those times, yeah, what if I'd taken off a year, but rather, two years, instead of just one year between college and law school, when it really made that much difference in the scheme of things, maybe not. And, and, and so, you know, there's a side of me, that's just like, just trying to, like, enjoy what you have more. But that's also true on a day to day basis, you know, I don't have to spend as much time going to doom scrolling, because I do spend a lot of time to do this scrolling, it's a huge waste of time, you know, it's like, there's a lot of bad news in the world, there's more bad news in the world than there ever was before. But like, you know, like, you can slow down and do something, like good rather than do something that's like, not good. And that, and that's the other side of it, that's the like, do more, do more of the things you want to do. And I've really embarked on a program lately of really trying to fill in some of the big gaps in my education. And there are things I could have done a long time ago, because I was busy doing other things. And maybe the wrong thing, sometimes the sense of you know, too much worrying about work or too much dooms role like, but now I'm really trying to get them done. And so I think it's, it's, it's, it's a constant process, I would have to tell my younger self, of trying to find that balance between like luxuriating and enjoying and appreciating what you have and what you're doing, giving yourself time and space, and not maybe being quite so negative about some of the bad things that are happening. And at the same time, that you're giving yourself that space, use it, use it really well, and do things that that like other people wouldn't do. And, and, you know, I, I went to Europe for four months after I took the bar exam, I had no money, I was living on borrowed money, basically, everybody thought I was crazy to do it was one of the best things I've ever done 17 weeks with a backpack, and you know, not many 1000s of dollars traveling around Europe. And it was it was such a great thing. And so, you know, I, I think, you know, I look back at it now and say, Well, why didn't I do six? You know, it's like that, that like, why don't I do a little bit more. So I don't know, I think I sort of joke that I also would tell my 18 year old self hydrate, don't get dehydrated. Stretch. Yeah, I can't tell you the benefits of stretching, you know, the foam roll,

Scott Townsend: 47:55

I believe I know it, I know it firsthand, of all time,

John Sare: 47:59

like I always had a knee operation and the foam roller and some some Pilates and it went away. You know, I didn't have I didn't need an operation. And so I think part of my electrical 18 year old self was take care of your physical self. It's not all in your head. A lot of it's in your head, a lot of it is in the way you orient yourself to the day's problems. And whether you look at them with negativity or not, and getting the right balance on that more days than not, but taking care of the physical self. I want to make sure you laughed a lot. You know, like, to me I look, I look back at the decisions I've made some times and like, the best decisions were the ones that put me in places where there was a lot of laughter. And colleagues who I thought were funny. And we we brought a kind of joy that really experienced partly through our capacity to make fun of it. And not undermine it, not destroy it. You didn't have to be a jerk about it. Right? You could, you could certainly find the humor in it. And I think too, I look back. And I like, again, these are these are choices where I feel like I made I made good decisions. And I looked at I'm really grateful I made them. I wasn't always aware I was making them. I think this had to do with like the way I was raised, I think it was something my parents kind of imbued in me. But like, I always was important to me always associate with people I thought were people of integrity and goodwill. And I can't get anything else really that has like made a bigger difference than like weeding out the rotten apples along the way, you know, and really like maintaining that strong sense of who you are and what you're willing to do and what your limits are and what's good for you. And that's very important skill and I think it's really hard for adolescents to do it. Of course 18 is adolescent. Right? It's, you know, there's the scientists say that like the male brain is not grown. And that's not fully formed until 26. And women women get an easier path toward adulthood evidently, and we said that throughout school was the girls are more kind of poor than the guys who are advanced, but apparently there is now science that backs this up. And so I think it's, it's important in the midst of all that, to like really assess the quality of the thinking, the quality of the information gathering, therefore, the quality of the facts, the moral compass of the people around you how well they know right from wrong, good from bad. How will you know those things? I think that's all really important.

Scott Townsend: 50:56

Well, John, I could go, we could go on, I don't know, I gotta let you go. It's been a blast visiting with you and you brought up a lot of a lot of things that I'm going to enjoy thinking about today. I like to slow down do more. I like all that. All that stuff.

John Sare: 51:22

Ponder that only you only go around part of once that one takes a while to sink in. But like, the more you think about it, the more it's like Yeah, that's exactly right.

Scott Townsend: 51:31

That's in that Roger, let your colleagues told you you're just because maybe your life has been or let's suppose that it has been

John Sare: 51:41

even assuming for the sake of argument this is the way lawyers talk to each other as to the nature of this argument that your whole life until now has been a waste that it's not a reason to waste the rest of it.

Scott Townsend: 51:51

That's great. Yeah. That yeah, a hole. Yeah, I love that. But anyway, so John, thanks a really appreciate it. Last call. Hi, Wildcats. This might be one of the last of the call. Hi, last of the last of the call. I Wildcats episodes. We're winding this down. I think I may. We might have two more maybe and then I'm going to set it down. So I really appreciate you getting in on this time. Busy.

John Sare: 52:20

Was fun to do it tribute to you personally to put this together

Scott Townsend: 52:41

All right, well for John, Sarah, this is Scott Townsend. Thanks for watching and listening. Last of the Col-Hi Wildcats 1982 podcast. Have a great day and we'll talk to you

Narrator: 53:01

soon. The Last of the Col-Hi Wildcats 1982 podcast is a Deetsoman Productions visit the last of the call Hi Wildcats 1982 YouTube channel. Listen on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Scott Townsend: 54:41

This podcast is made possible by our Patreon members which Bolin Ben Townsend, Mark Thompson, Sandra Yeager and Christy Brooks and by the generous donations made via the GoFundMe campaign