So OJ Simpson will be back on the streets Oct. 1. He received parole from the Nevada prison where he has been incarcerated for the past nine years. This reminds me of the time I had dinner with OJ.
Well, it wasn’t really dinner, but we sat at the same table at a bar/restaurant in Miami many years ago. It was a neighborhood place and very crowded. There was a big football playoff game on, and I guess that is what drew the crowd.
There were the usual tables around the place and the bar and at the back, there was one very large table, which consisted of a bunch of tables pushed together. There’s were we sat together. I was with a friend or two and we ate and drank and sort of across from me, maybe one person over, was OJ.
He just acted as if everything was normal. This was of course, after the murders, so I’m not sure how he would show himself in public, but there he was, cheering his team on. I wanted to talk with him. I never spoke to an alleged murderer before.
At one point, they turned to the weather channel, so I asked OJ why they changed to that from the game. He said, “We want to see what the weather is in Philadelphia ― that’s where the next game is.” Then he explained some things about the current game that was going on.
That’s the extent of our conversation. At one point he got up, I guess to go to the bathroom, and all these fools in the restaurant were falling all over themselves to get to him. He shook hands as he slowly walked to the bathroom, with his head up. No guilt, no shame. Just another OJ day.
The next day, my friend Victor who was with me said, “That was smart of you to agree with what OJ was saying. He knows what he’s talking about.” I looked at Victor and said, “Did you think I was going to disagree with him?”
I had seen him off and on a few more times when he lived in Miami. I saw him driving out of a school once, his kids went there, and another time I saw him at the post office. After he left, the clerk at the counter said, “People are so excited. I guess they like seeing a murderer!”