Old No. 3 Goes Home

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While his judicial philosophy changed over the years, his personality did not. Amid the pomp and majesty of the court, he remained a modest and unassuming man. He lived with his wife of 53 years, Dottie, in a modest apartment in the unfashionable high-rise canyon of Rosslyn, Virginia, and drove an old blue Volkswagen to work most of his days. His only eccentricity has been his absolute devotion to routine. One egg, toast and coffee every morning at 8 a.m. in the court cafeteria with his clerks; a four-block walk around the building at lunchtime, along with a visit to the decrepit exercise room in the court's basement. On Saturday nights he and his wife listened to A Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor, who dubbed his fellow Minnesotan "the shy person's jurist."

At a celebration with 100 friends on his 85th birthday last November, he took Dottie out on the dance floor of the Bavarian Beer Garden near Baltimore and vowed to spend more time with her. On Wednesday he made good on that promise, a much different man than Nixon appointed. And much better.