Welcome To The Court

(Editor’s Note: It was a gold, desktop, battery-powered grasshopper oil derrick that, when switched on, bobbed up and down. At the time, such derricks were atop Signal Hill in Long Beach. Just under 32 months after this letter was written, in November 1986, voters removed Bird and two other justices from the court. Governor George Deukmejian elevated his former law partner, Malcolm Lucas, to chief justice. He left the court in 1996. Bird died at age 63 on December 4, 1999 of complications from breast cancer.)