Remembering—and Revising—History
O.J. Simpson died yesterday, of cancer, at the age of 76. Immediately, television screens were filled with images from 30 years ago…those were the same, but I was struck by contemporary commentators whose spin was quite different from what I recall in real time.
So many of us went back to the “where were you when” points…when you saw the “slow speed chase” of a white Ford Bronco…or when you heard the “not guilty” verdict read. The trial was televised wall-to-wall on multiple news and sports channels, leading to a diagnosed health condition being identified, tied to withdrawal when the trial ended.
But I also recall the football star, the first pro to gain more than 2,000 yards in a single season…it was in 1973 for a Buffalo team that was a generation away from multiple Super Bowl appearances.
And the star of TV commercials…Hertz Rent-A-Car chief among them. A modestly-successful actor, and a sports announcer on Monday Night Football, then the marquee game of the week.
If ever there was a story of highs and lows, of accomplishment and tragedy, and examination of what “justice” was…it was the life of O.J. Simpson.
Of course, nothing could overcome the allegations of murder…found not guilty in a criminal trial, but legally responsible for two deaths in a later civil trial.
I suppose, then, all the revisionist history of today shows us that then and now, nothing is simple or straight-forward…and how impossible it is to consider balance when reviewing one’s life when a heinous double murder is part of the story.
