I was about eight or nine when the Sam Shepard murder trial was in all the newspapers. It fascinated me. I would get up every morning and hurry to get dressed for school. Then I would spread the Chicago Tribune out on the living room floor and on my hands and knees read every word of the story in the right hand column of the front page. I remember my mother, on more than one occasion, having to tell me, repeatedly, that I had better leave for school or I'd be late, and I could finish the article when I came home. If I didn't have time to finish the long articles that were continued somewhere in the first section of the newspaper, all I would think about at school was getting home to finish reading.
I was fascinated, not because of the bushy-haired man Shepard said was in his house, but because I could not believe anyone could make up stories the way they were and print them in the newspaper as fact. It fascinated me then. What has happened in the Travon Martin case disgusts me now.
When I cancelled the cable, it was because there is nothing worth watching on television. I couldn't see paying to watch informercials, reruns and screaming housewives. I didn't realize until this morning that the straw that broke the camels back was FOX's Bill O'Reilly and his "reporting" on the Martin case. Granted, O'Reilly is not a journalist. Like Sean Hannity he is simply stating his opinion. Well, here's mine.
Georege Zimmerman just got away with murder. Unlike O. J. Simpson or Robert Blake or any of the thousands of people whose names we'll never know who are acquitted of a crime there was no expression of relief on Zimmerman's face. He wasn't even cocky. He had a self-righteous smile.
In one of snippets of "news" I get from the newspaper, on the internet and YouTube I heard one of the jurors say she "felt sorry" for George. What? Why? Zimmerman was a guy who got out of his car, tracked down the seventeen year old and, when Martin Stood His Ground, shot the kid dead just feet from his own back door. What is there to feel sorry for about Zimmerman? Why would you have sympathy for a guy because he got his head cracked open for approaching someone and pointing a gun at him? If I were fighting for my own life, I hope I'd be able to crack the guy's head wide open too. People like Zimmerman terrify me, but Gramps disagreed with me.
Gramps is eighty. He thought the verdict was right until I personalized it for him.
Gramps had a good life and made a good living selling Rolls Royces and Mercedes to rich people. The other day we went through his closet to give his old clothes, many things with the tags still on, them to the Salvation Army. What is left is about twenty pair of shoes, still in the boxes either unworn or that will never be worn again. He has about twenty new shirts left, and he kept one sports jacket and a three piece suit. He needs none of it because he won't wear any of it.
Gamps days are now spent sitting on the patio, smoking and watching sports. He seldom goes anywhere, but he also does not sleep at night. He naps during the day. At three in the morning he is a familiar sight in the neighborhood, walking in circles, sometimes in the middle of the street, smoking. He's a one man neighborhood watch. He knows everything that goes on after midnight. All of that would be fine, except that he doen't wear his good duds. He was worn the same dirty, torn levis for a least a month. His Hawaiian shirt is stiff with sweat from the hot Las Vegas days. The soles of his twenty dollar, discount store running shoes are taped to the tops with duct tape, and his fingernails are long, dirty and jagged. Don't misunderstand. He is not senile. He's as sharp as any forty year old. He walks like he's forty and looks twenty years younger than he is. When the palm fronds fly in a wind storm, he can't wait to climb on the roof and work in the yard cleaning them up. So how could I personalize the not guilty verdict to him? It was easy. He looks like he's homeless. His big excursion of the day - or middle of the night - is to walk to the 7-11 to get cigarettes and a coke.
Our neighborhood has Neighborhood Watch. We're two blocks from the Strip and strange people, frequently drunk, wander through the streets at all hours. But no one from the neighborhood patrols the streets carrying a gun. We do exactly what the name says. We watch, and when necessary, we call the cops.
Had there been a George Zimmerman in our neighborhood Gramps could have been the one murdered.
I told Gramps to imagine this. It's two in the morning. He decides to walk the four blocks to the 7-11. While on his way home, Zimmerman is doing his armed patrol of the neighborhood. Unlike our immediate neighbors, Zimmerman does not know who Gramps is and decides he looks suspicious. He calls the cops. The cops tell him to stay in his car. They're on their way. But Zimmerman doesn't heed the authority of the police. He decides he knows more than they do and tracks Gramps.
When Gramps ducks behind a bush to get out of the wind to light his cigarette and try to get a look at the suscicious guy in the truck casing the neighborhood, Zimmerman disobeys his instructions from the police, gets out of his vehicle and confronts Gramps.
I know Gramps. He's not taking any crap from anyone. When Zimmerman demands to know what Gramps is doing. Gramps demands to know what Zimmerman wants. If Zimmerman had taken one step toward him, Gramps would have swung. And Gramps, at eighty, would have died at the hands of a wannabe cop packing a gun.
Gramps didn't say anything when I got through putting him in Trayvon Martin's shoes. He quiety lit a cigarette and banged at the computer keyboard griping, "I can't watch my games on this thing. All I can get is the scores." But I noticed that when he went to the 7-11 the next time, he changed his clothes and put on his khakis and a clean shirt. He looked nice, except for the duct taped running shoes.
