Everything Old is New Again

War in Iraq. Hillary Clinton and health care. O.J. in jail. Did I miss the memo on the time warp? With all of this planning for the future I somehow have wound up in 1994.

At some point in building a relationship for members of my parents' generation, you couldn't say you really knew a person until you'd discussed where you were when Kennedy was shot. I've heard on more than one occasion of the events of that day from both my mother's and my father's perspectives.

For my generation there will actually be two historical events. The first is, of course, September 11th. I can not only relive that entire day in my head, but that entire week. The second is of course when the verdict for the O.J. trial.

At that time I was an administrative assistant in a nursery school. (Yes, I know. I've done everything.) The kids had been dismissed for the day. The teachers were in their break room eating graham crackers, and the covert television was on. The TV was covert because officially the nursery school did not sanction television. Those kids were going to read books and listen to public radio. Still, like jonesing crack whores, the teachers would sneak into the break room to get updates on their soaps.

Of course, that day the verdict was expected, so on virtually every channel it was all O.J. all the time. Someone came into my office and announced that the verdict was coming in, so those of us who actually had to work got up and went into the break room.

Now, understand, I was certain, and am still convinced that O.J. did it. I went into that break room certain I was going to see O.J. being dragged out, sobbing like a little girl.

And then the acquitted him.

I don't think I cried, but I do remember feeling like I'd been punched in the stomach. It seemed so clear that he'd done it, and the natural course of events dictate that he should rot in prison. Of course, one could take the philosophical approach and say that he's been imprisoned in a glass cell, a pariah in society. My ass. He's playing golf. He's getting laid. By a woman. He's seeing his kids. What more does he need?

At this point I'm willing to concede that I may not know everything regarding the murder of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, and it's conceivable that O.J. is in fact innocent. I think his lawyers brilliantly conflated the concepts of racial bias guilt and reasonable doubt.

But, even wading through all that, I would still bet on O.J.'s guilt. Up until that point, however, I believed that in truly important matters, good would triumph over evil. At the moment that verdict was read I made the realization that was not necessarily true.

I think that's why those events, Kennedy's assassination, et. al., seer themselves into people's personal history. They appear to be victories of evil. And if in fact they are actual skirmishes of good and evil, it would appear that evil has triumphed. But in point of fact, I believe those are momentary triumphs. O.J. is on his way to meeting his maker. If they don't get him on this one, they'll get him on the next one. Make no mistake: O.J. will go to prison.

But I'm left to wonder if I'm just chemically incapable of being a realist and simply live in a fairy-tale world. In the core of my being, in the essence of my soul, I believe that good will triumph over evil. I believe it. But there is evidence to suggest otherwise and I have to ask myself if I'm simply not deluding myself because it's too unpleasant to believe that good things happen to bad people.

I don't have any particular memory of it, but I'm told I was laying on a blanket in front of a television when Kennedy's assassination was announced. I was in front of a television when O.J. was acquitted. I was in front of a television when the towers came down. Television has played a very important part of my life. It's got me thinking about good and evil, and there can be no greater intellectual pursuit.