4

Almost from their initial moment of meeting, Mel Bakersfeld had formed an instinctive dislike of the lawyer, Elliott Freemantle, who was leading the delegation of Meadowood residents. Now, ten minutes or so after the delegation filed into Mel's office, the dislike was sharpening to downright loathing.
It seemed as if the lawyer was deliberately being as obnoxious as possible. Even before the discussion opened, there had been Freemantle's unpleasant remark about not wanting "a lot of doubletalk," which Mel parried mildly, though resenting it. Since then, every rejoinder of Mel's had been greeted with equal rudeness and skepticism. Mel's instinct cautioned him that Freemantle was deliberately baiting him, hoping that Mel would lose his temper and make intemperate statements, with the press recording them. If it was the lawyer's strategy, Mel had no intention of abetting it. With some difficulty, he continued to keep his own manner reasonable and polite.
Freemantle had protested what he termed, "the callous indifference of this airport's management to the health and well-being

of my clients, the good citizen families of Meadowood."
Mel replied quietly that neither the airport nor the airlines using it had been callous or indifferent. "On the contrary, we have recognized that a genuine problem about noise exists, and have done our best to deal with it."
" Then your best, sir, is a miserable, weak effort! And you've done what?" Lawyer Freemantle declared, "So far as my clients and I can see-and hear-you've done no more than make empty promises which amount to nothing. It's perfectly evident-and the reason we intend to proceed to law-is that no one around here really gives a damn."
The accusation was untrue, Mel countered. There had been a planned program of avoiding takeoffs on runway two five-which pointed directly at Meadowood -whenever an alternate runway could be used. Thus, two five was used mostly for landings only, creating little noise for Meadowood, even though entailing a loss in operating efficiency for the airport. In