Be an activist, not an actor

You are six or seven years old.

Your sweet Poppy is a giant to you, so tall that when he sits in his large corduroy Barcalounger, his legs from hip to knee provide a big table on which you can sit for hours and watch reruns of M*A*S*H, one of his favorite shows–and now yours, too.

You both laugh, at different places in the story. You turn to look at him quizzically when he laughs and you don’t know why. Then you turn back around and watch, contented. You look forward to those evenings of episode after episode. Announcements of M*A*S*H marathons are cause for quiet celebration. You sit for hours watching a show about a war on the lap of a man whose five Bronze stars in WWII remained a secret until they were found after his death. It is fitting to remember him this Memorial Day weekend.

And in such a way, Emma came to her love of M*A*S*H honestly, all these years later, Poppy now gone but those evenings long remembered. A signed black and white photograph of Alan Alda hangs above her mantle, like an altar. M*A*S*H t-shirts. Hat. Books. Box of M*A*S*H trivia cards.

"Guess who’s coming to Malaprop’s to do a reading?" I asked over the Sunday paper. "Who," she answered, not looking up from the comics, her statement not even warranting the extra energy it would take to add a question mark at the end of it.

"Mike Farrell--BJ Hunnicut from M*A*S*H!"

"WHAT?!" she screamed. "WHEN?!" She lunged for the paper. This from a teenager for whom the appropriate response to The End of the World As We Know It is a minor shrug and a slight eyeball roll.

"Thursday night. Wanna go?" A question straight from the Land of Redundancy.

And so, Mr Brilliant and Emma went to Malaprop’s Bookstore on Thursday night to meet Mike Farrell. He was sharing stories from his life and talking about his work as an activist against the death penalty. Emma was nervous in her tiny pigtails. She took her prized set of M*A*S*H trivia cards in case she could muster the nerve to ask him to sign it. Mr Brilliant had pre-ordered his memoir, Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist, so she’d be sure to get one. They got there at 6pm for a 7pm reading. "I want her to get a seat up front," he explained.

Mr Brilliant came home impressed. That’s not easy to do, his having met a lot of celebrities in different fields and being underwhelmed by many. "He stood up for everyone who came over afterwards to speak with him. He was genuine and friendly, even though you know he’s done this a million times. He really talked to people who approached him."

"What did he do when Emma asked him if he would sign her M*A*S*H trivia card game? "He laughed that B.J. Hunicutt laugh," Mr Brilliant said. "Really, he was extraordinary."

"He fully appreciates where his celebrity comes from, not like other stars who try to move beyond the role that made them famous. He answered every question with such respect, even though I know he’s been asked the same questions over and over again." Mr Brilliant was truly impressed.

Mike Farrell is driving himself across the United States to do this tour, hosted by bookshops and local activist groups in each town. In Asheville, he was so touched to find that a man wrongly on death row and now freed was in the audience. So if you have a chance to see Mike Farrell during this book tour, go.

In a world of guarded teenage emotion, that is one honest big smile on Emma’s face. She was very very happy. She left for school on Friday morning with his book in her hand. I wonder if he could possibly know how much that evening meant to her. And how much seeing a genuine, sincere, engaged celebrity meant to Mr Brilliant.

37days Do it Now Challenge

This is the look Emma gave Mr Brilliant just before he took the picture of her with Mike Farrell. Some of you might recognize this look. It is the "DO NOT do anything to embarrass me" look. Where that would mean DO NOT do anything more involved or noticeable than breathing.

I guess it would be easy enough to stay BJ Hunnicut the rest of your life, riding on the coattails of a good role on a show that would turn out to be an American classic. But Mike Farrell didn’t. Sometimes I feel like I’m playing a role, though I have that feeling (thankfully) much less now than I used to. What if we set down all those roles, stopped being actors in our own lives, and became honest, true, human activists instead? What do you care about enough to drive coast to coast for, to sit each night in a different bookshop, and meet young girls with M*A*S*H trivia cards for you to sign?

(P.S. My time for nervous audience sitting will come soon)