ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 8, 1996 TAG: 9604090047
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I think that every American who endured the television coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial ought to be authorized to write a book about it.
It appears everybody in Los Angeles has written a book and we deserve a chance. We hung in there when the going was tough - DNA evidence and F. Lee Bailey saying things like "marine to marine," for example.
Judge Ito is so famous now his name is used as a three-letter clue in crossword puzzles.
Just because we were not there in body is no reason to deny us a little celebrity status. Sure, we didn't know a lot of inside stuff - like the recent claim that Marcia Clark was a flirt in lawyer's clothing.
Anyway, my book begins with the preliminary hearing and I will describe how that plain brown package that scared everybody, including the judge, caused me pain. When I tried to tell family members about it, they rolled their eyes and twirled their forefingers around their ears.
I'll reveal that I gained five pounds during the trial and once drank a Miller Lite when they took the jury out, and clipped my toenails during arguments. There for a while I had as good a pedicure as you can get at any beauty shop.
I realized, however, that if I continued to drink a beer every time they took the jury out, I would be snockered most of the summer and fall.
Watching the trial was a lonely business and it called for guts when people said that doing that showed a lack of taste.
Except for the fact that I kept saying things like "exculpatory" and "probative" for no reason at all, I didn't let the trial change my usual way of life.
Readers will know for the first time that I once wanted to bust CNN legal analyst Greta Van Susteren in the head with a shovel; but as time went on I grew terribly fond of her and the way she dressed.
I'll admit that if Greta had come by some afternoon when they were filing briefs, I might have given her my best line and offered her a Miller Lite - although she hardly seems the type to flirt. But, then, neither did Marcia.
I'm glad she got her own show on CNN, which probably means she won't be writing a book.
I'll describe the withdrawal symptons I had when the trial was over and how staying home all that time reinforced my fear of the marketplace.
If it please the court, I have to leave now and write a mash note to Greta.
LENGTH: Medium: 51 linesby CNB