3,000,000 Mile/Hours Talking About Homicide + Andre Braugher

________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Once upon a time,

contact with other people

required speaking

into a thing

that required you

to sit or stand

directly in front of it

[unless you trusted the post office]

[or remember the art of eye-to-eye contact]

 

If you were lucky,

this thing was attached

to an insulated cord 

longer than than any room

in your home—

and you talked into it

while comfortably relaxing

on a couch or a cozy chair

The longer you talked

into that thing,

the greater the profits 

for a company called

American Telephone and Telegraph

  ***

Moving 3,000 miles

from east coast

to west coast

in 1981,

 writing letters

to friends and family

back home

was my preference

to telephoning

 

I couldn't afford to make  

American Telephone &Telegraph

wealthier than words can describe

 

 I didn't trust the Post Office

but I trusted

the Xerox Company

 

Each letter was photocopied

and addressed

to as many as 

twenty people

 

I am grateful

only three legal actions 

were taken against me

as a result of those letters

 

However,

I am more grateful

 that this prelude

to another Braugher page

 has ended

***

Forty-two years

of being a transplanted

New Yorker,

I still have a dozen

 friends and family members

with whom I regularly 

correspond via text,

e-mail, blog page

or phone call

 

But with 

one and only one friend

was all of the correspondence

about

one and only one subject

 

That friend is 

Robert Louthan

and the one subject was

Homicide: A Life On The Streets

 

Somewhere around the turn

of the century,

I became the proud owner

of a twenty-five dollar book

itemizing and detailing

every episode

of HOMICIDE

from 1993 through 1999

Andre Brougher

was an original cast member

of Homicide,

along with twenty other

extraordinarily talented

actors

But he was the only one

who sounded like

William Shakespeare

was his kith and kin

 

Braugher's detective character

was named

Frank Pembleton 

I don't recall

which episode

from which season

but it resulted in a 

three-hour 

phone call

with me quoting extensively

from my $25 guide book

Louthan quoted 

Tom Shales

and John Donne

 

Mr. Shales

was a well-respected

Washington Post 

columnist

 

Mr. Donne

was a British poet

good enough

to have given

Shakespeare

"a run for the money"

 

A scholarly text

about John Donne

was written by

the father

of Mr. Louthan 

 

Oh crap:

ninety minutes was

—more times than not—

the minimum length

of chatter and analysis

between

Louthan and Oliverio

 

 The latter of whom

—of course—

gets the last words

on this page:

This Andre Braugher

obituary page

is dedicated to

his widow,

AMI BRABSON

 

The next Braugher page

is  here 

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________