Tag / Kelley

by admin

You Must Acquit

oj20 years ago today, I was at the Hilltop Apartment of my friend Tina, along with our other friend Kelley, waiting for the verdict to be read in the OJ Simpson trial before heading off with Kelley to a Business Law exam.  I imagine all of us were surprised that Simpson was found not guilty, more than 8 months after the trial began.

On June 13, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found murdered in Brentwood, California.  Immediate suspicion fell upon OJ Simpson, the ex-husband of Nicole Brown Simpson and NFL Hall of Famer.  He was arrested four days later, after leading police on a slow speed chase around Los Angeles from the back of a white Ford Bronco driven by his long-time friend Al Cowlings.

The trial, which made stars out of nearly everyone involved, from the witnesses to the police to the lawyers and the judge, was the news story of 1995.  While most people assumed Simpson did it, his defense hinged on racist cops who were out to frame the celebrity for having married a white woman.

I don’t remember much about that particular Business Law exam, or class, to be honest.  But the events of this day have stayed with me for the past 20 years.  The day a man (likely) got away with murder due to the color of his skin.

by admin

Concert Flashback: Veruca Salt

95verucasaltIn the spring of 1995, I made plans, along with my friends Tina and Kelley, to travel from West Lafayette over to Champaign to see Veruca Salt, who was playing one of the bars at the University of Illinois.  The task of acquiring tickets was left up to my sister, who joined us at the show.

Neither opening act, Hazel and Squash Blossom, were well known at the time, or have been heard from since.  The headliners were just starting to make a name for themselves as part of the burgeoning Chicago alternative music scene.  Their first hit, Seether, would have dropped the previous fall and they were just about to wrap up their first headlining tour.

The show itself is a bit of a blur all these years later, but I do remember that either Tina or Kelley went home with a guitar pick and we all ended up with some of the tape that kept the extra picks attached to the mike stand.  Exciting, I know.

After the show, the girls headed off to stay with a friend while I crashed in my sister’s dorm room.  The next day, we headed back to good old Purdue, with a stop off in Danville for what I fondly remember as the greasiest pizza I’ve ever seen.  If you can’t trust the Danville Pizza Hut, who can you trust.