All his life, Regis C. Nairn, a former district judge in Sheraden, was a man of few words. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and he had little patience for people who lacked a sense of purpose or flouted the rule of law.

His son, Michael, recalled that "he didn't say much, but he meant what he said, and he never backed down" -- not even when two small bombs, one of which exploded in his car, were planted to intimidate him and his family, because of his duties as a judge, during one week in August 1986.

"They were two homemade rocket bombs. One [which didn't explode] was placed in his car's tailpipe, and the other one was placed under the wheel well of the car," said Michael Nairn.

The bomb that blew up his Cadillac "shook him up a bit and started him thinking that maybe it was time to retire," his son said. Still, Mr. Nairn, who started serving as a district judge in 1968, didn't officially retire until three years later, in 1989.

A navigator in the Army Air Corps during World War II who participated in the bombing of Dresden toward the end of the war, Mr. Nairn worked as an Allegheny County Police detective and in the city Law Department before becoming a district judge.

He died at his Sheraden home Tuesday from complications of chronic lung and heart disease. He was 90.

"He didn't like idle chit-chat," his daughter, Nancie Schneider, said. "He always said he just wanted the facts." The son of Irish immigrants, he was imbued with a sense of social justice at an early age, Ms. Schneider recalled.

"He was taught that he had to give of himself to his community. That is why he decided to become a judge," she said.

Born to a coal mine supervisor in Canonsburg, Mr. Nairn grew up in Sheraden, where he attended Holy Innocents School and Langley High School. He studied English literature and history at St. Francis University in Loretto, Cambria County, and married the former Lavon Ball on July 21, 1941.

Shortly after that he was commissioned into the Army Air Corps, and was stationed with a B-17 bomber squad in Suffolk, England, during much of the war. He returned to Sheraden in 1946 and started working as a county police detective while attending law school at night at Duquesne University.

After brief stints in the county district attorney's office and as an assistant city solicitor, he ran a private practice before seeking the district judgeship in 1967.

After his retirement, he was appointed a senior district judge in Night Court until he retired again in 2000. He continued, however, to handle cases on a part-time basis until 2003, when the state Supreme Court issued a ruling that barred district judges older than 80 from hearing cases.

In addition to his wife, son and daughter, he is survived by another son, Patrick; sisters Catherine Sweency, Dorothy Witt, Phyllis Quinn, Marilyn Koski, Patricia Sweeney and Anne Ferrick; brothers Edward and Joseph; five grandsons; and five great-grandchilren.

Visitation will be from 2 to 8 p.m. today in the William F Conroy Funeral Home, 2944 Chartiers Ave., Sheraden. A Mass will be celebrated at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow at Holy Innocents Church.