Real Deal

Many years ago, I was an habitual viewer of the TV show "Hill Street Blues." I enjoyed its humor along with the weekly justice and pathos. It was my gritty urban soap opera. I remember the admonition of every roll call: "Hey, let's be careful out there." I had been watching for several seasons before it occurred to me to ask my older brother, a cop, if he liked the show.
"Why would I want to watch that?" he asked. "I go to work every day - I don't need to watch it when I come home."
Fair enough.
A few years later I got hooked on another weekly drama set in a Chicago Emergency Room. I was flattered when my wife told me that I reminded her of Doctor Green, the head of the "ER." I expect it had as much to do with the hair line as it did the content of his character, but I took it as a compliment. A friend of mine who is an ER nurse confessed to being addicted to the show herself - not for the medical drama, but for all the romantic entanglements. "One episode of that show has the number of major traumas we see in a year," she said. Apparently, in the real world, life and death struggles are a little less common. Often things were downright boring - lots of time to clean bed pans.
It's not surprising then that I have mixed feelings about the show "Boston Public." Who knew running a high school could be this torrid? I avoided it like the plague when it was first on, but now I find myself looking in on reruns. I wince at the cast of young models who make up the faculty of Winslow High. I sneer at the cartoon antics of the vice-principal. I wonder how many of the "students" are under the age of twenty. Then I relax, and I find myself enjoying the moral certitude - the righteous indignation that these educators get to pontificate about. It's enough to make me want to renew my credential. When the hour is over, I feel a little dirty, but satisfied at how well things worked out. Some justice was meted out. Teachers really are powerful.
But now it's time to get back to grading papers.