Football and trials, alas
The news came last week that Orenthal James (better known as O.J.) Simpson had died. It brought back a lot of memories to me – some good, some not so good.
People of a certain age, like me, will remember his football exploits in the 1960s and 70s. They and slightly younger folks will remember the 1995 murder trial, which sadly is what he is most remembered for. It was, to put it mildly, a mess.
His arrest made huge headlines, because he had been a famous football player. And because he was black, and the people he was alleged to have murdered were white, it took less than a microsecond for race to rear its ugly head.
It was a show trial, from beginning to end, watched religiously by millions. Some say it was the trial that invented Court TV.
Because of the racial factor, it was, of course, divisive. I remember mentally putting folks in one of three groups. At one extreme we had one group, those who wanted him acquitted, whether he did it or not. At the other extreme was the second group, which wanted him convicted, whether he did it or not.
The rest of us, in that larger third group, were in the middle, scratching our heads.
I can’t say I was surprised when O.J. was acquitted. I know there are still arguments on both sides, but that’s not here nor there, the verdict was not guilty.
O.J. was free, but he didn’t do much to endear himself after that. He was something of a marked man subsequently. And in 2008, he was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping.
Was he guilty of murder? Does it matter now? The man is dead. Personally, I choose to remember him as one of the greatest running backs of all time. Heisman winner at Southern Cal in 1968, with a record setting 1,880 yards in one season. The first National Football League running back to rush for 2,000 yards in a single season, in 1973 for Buffalo. When “The Juice” got the ball, you never knew what was going to happen.
Those days are over, too. But those are the ones I would rather remember.
•••••
I’ve been watching the news lately, and I’ve begun to wonder: Could it be that the so-called Tornado Alley is expanding? Or is Tornado Alley losing a little of its cachet?
It seems that tornadoes keep touching down in places not normally associated with tornadoes. I’m not sure that’s the kind of “wealth” we want to spread, but extremes in weather seem to be everywhere these days.
I’m not enough of an expert to say whether global warming has anything to do with this. However, it does seem that the climate could be changing. It does that. It has since the planet was formed. We’ve just been living in a nice, temperate era for the past few thousand years.
Rather than looking for someone to blame, or how to reverse the irreversible, maybe we should be working out ways to adjust to the new climate. It could be important to the next couple of generations. •••••
I was surprised to read that the local Housing Authority discussed the possibility of firing employees who lose their FCHA keys. I don’t believe anything was decided.
Getting fired for losing a key could be tough. I seem to recall, back in the ancient days when I still toiled for this publication, when a certain unnamed co-worker left a rather expensive camera sitting in an unlocked car in the paper’s parking lot.
Well, a person with a – shall we say – an opportunistic personality happened to stroll by, and before you could say, woops, the camera was gone.
Actually, before anyone even knew it was gone, we got a phone call from a nearby garage. The opportunistic person had tried to sell the camera there. Which shows that opportunistic and smart are not always the same thing. The co-worker got a lecture about leaving cameras in view in a car, locked or not, and life went on. No one was fired.
That camera cost more than a key, I’m a-thinkin’. And I think the FCHA board is going to work it out.
•••••
Okay, I’m going to show my ignorance. Some may call it “iggerence,” and they may be right.
Anyway, I read about possible legislation affecting crypto currency mining. I read it, and didn’t understand it.
So I looked it up on the internet. I read what was there. I still don’t understand it. It involves two things I’ve never understood – technology and money, or sort of money. Whatever.
As a result, I’m just going to stay away from it if I can. Let others get rich, if that’s what happens, or lose their shirts, which I guess could also happen.
I’m just going to breeze along in my blissful iggerence.