PHOTO BY DAVID LOWE After practicing law in Lampasas for 43 years, Pat Cavness plans to retire next month. In one of Pat Cavness’ favorite poems he wrote, a blue mule realizes he can find the most meaning in life when he celebrates what makes him different from others.

Pat Cavness is much like the blue mule.

The longtime attorney, set to retire Jan. 1 after 43 years of practicing law in Lampasas, approaches the next stanza of his life with confidence in the work he has done and in the unique pursuits awaiting him.

One of five Cherokee High School graduates in 1960, Cavness enrolled in San Angelo Junior College -- now Angelo State University -- and intended to take his brother’s advice to study petroleum engineering. The degree plan’s course requirements -- math, science and other subjects that held little appeal for Cavness - - worried him, though.

“I thought there was no such thing as changing majors,” Cavness said. “I thought you were stamped for life. It was kind of like you had ‘666’ stamped on your head.”

When Cavness noticed that a pre-law major emphasized English, history and government classes, he decided to change his career focus.

An accident at Thanksgiving of his freshman year also altered his plans. Cavness was hospitalized for two months to recuperate from burns that have left permanent marks. When he recovered, Cavness enrolled for the spring semester at the University of Texas, where he completed his undergraduate and law school education.

After graduating from the University of Texas School of Law in 1966, Cavness moved to Lampasas, where he was born. That year, he was elected Lampasas County attorney -- a position he held for four years.

After his term as county attorney ended, Cavness worked for J.V. Hammett’s law firm from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Cavness said he learned much from Hammett and from his other colleagues, Jim Builta and Jimmy Hammett.

“J.V. Hammett was a very good person to learn to practice law under,” Cavness said. “He was quite thorough, very meticulous, and I cannot imagine anybody better to practice law under.”

Cavness also developed his skills under the guidance of several mentors, including former county judges J.C. Abney, Sylvester Lewis and Gordon Cass, as well as attorney Dick Johnson. Over coffee, the men discussed a variety of legal matters with Cavness -- whom Abney called “the kid.”

“All the old lawyers took me under their wing,” Cavness said. “I picked up a lot of pointers while I was just listening to them talk shop. If a kid lawyer listens more than he talks, he’s probably going to learn something.”

Cavness opened his law office at 414 S. Live Oak St. in 1977. He also owned County Land Titles for about 10 years before selling to Todd Cooper.

During his four decades of legal work, Cavness was appointed often to represent youth in Child Protective Services cases.

“Child Protective Services cases are some of the hardest cases of all because of the serious abuse and neglect,” he said. “It was extremely hard to see what parents would do to their children.”

In recent years, Cavness specialized in real estate law.

“It’s always given me satisfaction to see that I could bring two parties together,” he said.

For all his legal work, though, for all the times he defined himself as a provider for his five children, Cavness said his first moment of true self-realization came while traversing the hills of his rural land. As he ran, the words for his blue mule poem flooded his thoughts.

“Even though I accomplished much in my early life, I was never truly comfortable with myself until I published that poem,” Cavness said.

A writer for about 40 years, Cavness has composed roughly 50 poems -- the last, fittingly enough, titled “Epilogue.”

“It’s pretty traditional poetry,” he said. “It rhymes, it has beat, it has meter. I have difficulty understanding the non-rhyming poetry.”

While he continues his search for a publisher, Cavness plans to keep seeking his inner muse.

“It’s my means of self-expres- sion,” Cavness said of his poetry.

The attorney noted that writing has helped sustain him through particularly difficult periods in his life.

Poetry helped shape not only Cavness’ private experiences but also his time in court. In one case during Cavness’ tenure as county attorney, the defendant’s counsel, Jerome Byrne, turned Cavness’ attention from legal arguments to literature.

“I was still pretty green,” Cavness said, recalling the moment early in his career. “All of a sudden he started spouting poetry.”

The work was William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” a reflection about death. With furrowed brow and crisp tones, Cavness can quote its lines exactly.

He also distinctly recalled a courtroom moment more reminiscent of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath than of Bryant’s nature musings.

“The bicycle lady,” as Cavness and his colleagues dubbed one traffic accident victim, kept trying to show her bruises in former county judge Rucker Northington’s court. Finally, the bicyclist raised her skirt above her head to show where she had been struck by a motor vehicle.

“It was quite an event,” Cavness said.

As he enters retirement, Cavness plans to seek most of his excitement at home and in his travels.

He owns low-line Angus cattle, a miniature mare and a donkey on his Mesquite Creek property east of town. He enjoys walking the land, clearing cedars and burning brush.

“That just seems to be good for me,” Cavness said.

An avid traveler, the Lampasan once considered emigrating to New Zealand. With a grin, Cavness said he was denied because he had too many children.

Cavness has visited Scotland, Ireland and Italy, and he recently returned with his daughter Lorri Haden and son Joel Cavness from a trip to France. The family took several one-day excursions and also visited the town of Buisson, north of Avignon in southeast France. Cavness’ ancestor Henri Cabanis, a Huguenot, left Catholic France in 1698 to settle in America.

Cavness plans to travel to Costa Rica this summer.

His building on Live Oak Street will remain active, as Lampasas native T.J. Roberts and Paul Harrell will practice law there. Roberts and Harrell will specialize in criminal, family, divorce, probate and real estate law.

Cavness said he will miss interacting with his clients, as his small-town practice allowed him to develop close ties with those who sought his legal services.

“In 90 percent of the cases when I represent someone, these people are friends, and I feel a special obligation to represent them well because we are friends,” he said.

For the lawyer-poet, parting is such sweet sorrow.