A Pilgrim’s Digression

Seeing O.J. Simpson arrested and arraigned has not only brought on a disorienting case of deja vu, but it makes me feel very old, all of a sudden.  It was a little more than ten years ago that he went on trial the first time.  I still remember the day the verdict was handed down; I was still in college at the time.  Good Lord, was it that long ago?

This time around, it does not seem like his trial is going to be the 24/7 event it was back then.  My French teacher actually let us out of class early so we could go to the student union and watch the verdict delivered on the TV there.

The current affair just doesn’t seem as huge or culture-shaking as that.  Or it could be that the first trial so drastically changed the way our media reports news that today’s coverage, which would have seemed over-the-top in 1988, is just par for the course.

In which case, ironically, it will take a bigger event than O.J. getting arrested to shake us out of our torpor.