Monday, March 15, 2010
Museum offer triggers memories of Simpson trial
Ben Beagle
The aging, semi-hysterical retired reporter rides shotgun with the greatest station wagon driver of them all down the rocky road of life. Mondays in the paper's Extra section, steady as she goes.
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Even though you may be optimistic about the future of this nation, let's look at some oddball offering O.J. Simpson's trial suit to the Smithsonian Institution.
The suit is beige and you can tell it's not off the rack because O.J. knew how to move and do various other things that were, well, not very nice.
It is the suit he was wearing when the jury set him free on a double-murder charge.
I guess it's been dry-cleaned since then. Anyway, O.J. said, from the Nevada prison where he is doing time for burglary and kidnapping, that the gift would be OK with him.
That O.J. always did have a heart of gold.
Incidentally, some other oddball tried unsuccessfully to give Monica Lewinsky's famous blue dress to the Smithsonian, a topic with which we will not deal much further, as we occasionally said in Radford.
A trip down O.J. trial lane
Aside from the above being examples of the idiocy that have seized this great nation of ours, the Simpson suit brought to mind the aimless hours many aimless people -- including Old No. 36 here -- spent in 1995 watching the Simpson trial on TV.
My good buddy "Buster" Carico and I spent a lot of time on the phone discussing prosecution and defense moves in the case.
I don't recall that we later talked at all about old Monica's blue dress.
And we will never forget the trial because of its characters -- most of them forgotten, even by trial fanatics like old Yours Truly here.
Remember these details?
But there was Simpson house guest Kato Kaelin. I guess by now that he has gone back into outer space.
And how about Judge Lance Ito? His memory has been reduced to an occasional three-letter word in your average crossword puzzle.
And who remembers what kind of dog was heard barking on the night of the murders?
And there was the late Johnnie Cochran, one of Simpson's attorneys, who became more poetic than most lawyers in his summation to the jury.
Commenting on a bloody glove found at the Simpson's house that didn't fit the defendant, Cochran said: "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."
Not exactly Clarence Darrow, but effective.
And there were others -- including Detective Mark Fuhrman -- who ought to be forgotten.
But their memories linger, including that of long-legged Marcia Clark, the prosecutor, who lost the case for the state of California.
Now, a very cautious question about Monica's blue dress: Where is old Monica now? Last I heard, she was in the purse business.
Ben Beagle's column runs in Monday's Extra.
