Sometimes, a seemingly unimportant decision changes everything about a person’s life. For U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of the Western District of Texas, his choice to take a noontime nap on Aug. 1, 1966, likely is the reason he is alive today.
Yeakel — then an undergraduate at the University of Texas in Austin — was leaving a business economics class that day when he decided against walking across the campus’ main mall to the Harry Ransom Library to work on a research paper. The previous night, Yeakel had been up late at an engagement party held in his and his fiancee’s honor.
