555 - and it's all downhill from there.

A well-intended piece of legislation or bureaucratic decision-making several years ago made it mandatory that any phone number quoted aloud in a movie or TV show would always have the prefix 555. This was to protect people from being harassed by folks they didn't know if their own phone number just happened to be the same as that of one quoted on the screen. So you know that any phone number you hear which starts with 555 is just a fake number created to fill in the conversation, usually on a crime-fighting drama. In other words, to hear a number which begins with 555 is to be reminded that what you are watching is merely a show and not to be taken very seriously.

I hate this.

When I was young and stupid (er) I decided to major in Drama or, as it was sometimes called, Theater Arts. Bro. Lynn Benson, who passed away just last year, didn't often have us do reading assignments from our acting class text book, but what we did read made a lot of sense. The text was called An Actor Prepares and was written by a fellow with the imposing name of Constantin Stanislavsky. The chief concept we were to take away from our readings in this book was that "the purpose of the theater is to give people a vicarious experience." In other words, the audience should gain some feeling for the experiences of others by the simple expediency of watching the play or film. To do this, we had to get the people to "suspend their disbelief" for a while. They had to believe it, even though they knew better.

We all can think of many examples of how this desirable goal has been reached to our own personal benefit. Let me cite only a few. You have your own and we may overlap in a few of these favorite scenes. But remember that they are among our favorites specifically because they helped us walk in someone else's shoes and feel what they felt. This has added richness and important thoughts to our lives.

Atticus Finch summarizes the truth which everyone knows but which very few of the white majority want to face at the end of Tom's trial in To Kill a Mockingbird. It is a beautiful speech with an unforgettable ending. He desperately tries to get some essentially good men to overcome the fear and prejudice with which they've been raised since the cradle. "Do your duty." He says it again and again. But they are not able to overcome their fear of each other and of the community. It is easier for them to lie to themselves and the world by returning a verdict of guilty for a man whom they know to be pure and innocent. The heartache we feel in that moment and again when Atticus must tell Tom's wife of his death are vicarious experiences. We haven't actually been there or experienced these things, but we have benefited as much from the vicarious experience as we would have if it were real.

In that same film, I'm always touched when Heck the sheriff, hands the Krag-Jorgensen army surplus rifle to Atticus for the killing of an unfortunate dog which has contracted rabies. Looking at the attorney's children, Heck says, "Didn't you know your daddy was the best shot in this county?" Atticus is annoyed and embarrassed, but his children gaze unblinkingly at him in wide-eyed adoration as he dispatches the poor animal.

Perhaps just one more example. (How to choose from so many?) Sometimes it helps to have experienced part of what the characters are experiencing. This gives us a starting point from which to reach more deeply into their thoughts and feelings. For our first or second anniversary, Dante's mother asked what I'd like as a present. I happened to be sitting up in bed at the time looking through a catalogue. Thinking that she would laugh at the notion of actually spending $399 plus shipping and handling on the Italian replica of the 1853 Enfield rifle-musket in .58 caliber, I pointed it out to her and said, "I'd dearly love to have one of those." I then went on to explain how the Confederate government had bought thousands of them from the Enfield arsenal in England. But she wasn't listening. She had grabbed the catalogue, rolled to the edge of the bed, and picked up the phone. In less than two minutes she had put the thing on her credit card. It arrived in about five days.

Thus, when the film Gettysburg came out, I was able to feel the weight and recoil of such a firearm, because I owned one and I had fired it. I was able to smell the rotten egg smell of burning black powder, because I'd burned it many times, not only in that firearm but in several others. I had seen its effect on milk jugs, lava rocks, wooden posts, and many other things. I had a clear idea of the energy - the killing energy - that it developed.

So, on the third day of the battle, Friday, 3 July 1863, when Richard Jordan's character BG Lewis "Lo" Armistead leads his brigade in "Pickett's Charge," I have an idea of what horrible things are happening to thousands of young men. The film adds to the intensity of my feelings and understanding. It portrays the thick smoke and dust of tens of thousands of men trying to kill each other, the crowded conditions, uncertain footing, and myriad ways of dying which are found in such a circumstance. The unbelievable horror of killing 40 men with a single shot from a smoothbore cannon which is loaded with "cannister shot," thus rendering it, in effect, a gigantic shotgun. The reverent devotion which men of that generation felt to their causes comes across beautifully. Half of them have been killed or wounded, but still some of them beg R.E. Lee to let them regroup "and hit them again. I know we can do it this time!"

Then I watch a good crime drama. Criminal Minds, NCIS, Numbers, The Mentalist, Castle, or any of the others which are so superior today to whatever was produced years ago. They are better, because the writing is better, the adherence to actual police procedures is closer, the special effects are truly special, and the acting is better than anything available on TV when I was a kid. But I lose the vicarious experience when they quote a phone number, because every one of them includes the prefix 555! It's like shouting in my ear, "No, no, Mr. Haeberle! You aren't really watching a brilliant FBI operation to rescue a kidnapped 12 year old girl. It's just a show. Don't take it seriously. Don't imagine yourself in the place of the victim or of the protagonists who must save her life. It isn't real, you now? You can tell that by the fact that the phone numbers all start with 555."

Yeah. Right. Thanks.