Metaphor

Four or five years ago I took a roadtrip with friend Julie to Chicago, making a point of checking out Cook County Hospital. It had closed within that year, and there was no doubt as to why upon seeing it. For one, the ER dock was about the size of the driveway of my childhood home. I stopped by the hospital because that's the hospital that ER was based upon.

I remember watching the series premiere of ER on September 19, 1994. I was in the office of the Race and Sports Book at Caesars Tahoe in Stateline, Nevada. Friend Russ Deem and I closed the book down after the last post at New Jersey's Medowlands Race Track, and stayed late to see what the next incarnation of NBC's Thursday night slot would bring. First Hill Street Blues, then LA Law, now ER. Us both having been diehard viewers of NBC's medical drama St. Elsewhere during the 80s (Wednesday nights), Russ and I eagerly anticipated ER. I craved the medical angle, tonight's "highlight" along that line an inverted uterus during childbirth that churned my stomach and fostered a genuine jolt of empathy over a TV scene and character--rare for me, my inner repsonses typically reserved to the line of thought that a scene generates, deeper than what I'm seeing on the screen. Fifteen years later, April 2, 2009, the plug was pulled on the series, and the last episode was everything the series ever was. They bookended the show with the since-dropped opening theme song and speckled the body with rich subplots, as always. Michael Crichton would be proud.

A friend/Caesars co-worker named Gray--I don't recall his last name--abruptly left his job at Casears because he had to go to LA for a casting audition. It was an ER character, the role being that of laying on a gurney, as a patient. I don't know if Gray got the role, but I hope he did.

In the one-hour retrospective that preceeded tonight's two-hour series finale, Sherry Stringfield (Dr. Susan Lewis) said that what she always loved about the show was the humanity angle. My words now, ER simply had the ability to bring forth emotional thoughts and responses that I for one don't visit often. It left my guts on the floor more times than not, a relationship unto itself, anguish and raw decrees from within oft illicited. A pretty package of love and disdain for all-things humanity.

As I've mentioned, I adopted Bernie on September 25, 1994, six days after ER's birth. I spent a lot of time tonight during the two-hour finale thinking of her, or better put, being reminded of her. The cameos by every ER actor revisiting times past in an utterly natural way reminded you of life in and of itself. Times and relationships come, they go. They sometimes almost break you and are what shapes you. There is no sadder ending than that from a scene where you didn't pay attention to the beginning or enough in between. There within lie the memories, the feelings desired and sometimes despised, the bulking of your soul.

Fifteen years brings a lot and takes some away. Somewhere there is a boy who caught the last episode of ER with his parents and in their bedroom, wondering what all the fuss is about. Twenty-five years from now, that boy will remember that moment, a mimic of how I recall Hill Street Blues. Alas, tune in next Thursday at nine o'clock Central for the next must-see NBC drama, the series premiere of Southland.

I had dinner with Julie last night, first time I'd seen her in a couple years. Meantime sadnesses and joys revealed, that moment in time a drop into a pool of water gernerating a ring of memories for the minds present.

Goodight Bernie.