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I
am writing this letter to you posthumously. I was, without a doubt, your
greatest fan. How can it be that 43 years has transpired since I
cast eyes upon you and fell moonstruck at the mention of your name.
Surely I was smitten from the top of my pigtailed head to the bottom of
my brown and white saddle shoes with an entire quiver full of Cupid’s arrows
that fateful night the Perry Mason theme song played on the table model
television in Benicia, California. Your pensive eyes and smirking
lips flashed across the oval screen as you glanced up from the law book
in your hands, and the obsession began. I read everything I could
get my hands on about you. I had a scrapbook devoted entirely to
you. I wrote to television city in Hollywood, California and got
signed pictures of the cast. I traced your picture and put it on
the back of my blouse in colored marker pen. I asked for a Perry
Mason board game for Christmas and got it. I wrote about you in my
diary. I began to read Earle Stanley Gardner books by the droves.
I saw you as the character and was with you. When I couldn’t get
titles in the local drugstores for 35 cents a copy, I sent off to the paperback
book company and got their catalogue and began to receive titles in the
mail. I got law dictionaries and studied definitions of terms like
habeus corpus. The flame of the torch that I carried for you grew
as I did into my teens. While other schoolgirls mooned over Elvis
Presley, I saw nothing in his immature behavior. You were the tower
of strength, the one who walked tall, the gourmet, the animal lover with
his own private zoo by the ocean. I even envied your duck Louie for
being there with you. Yes Raymond, I even learned the name of your
duck in my fervent research to know more about you. I hope you never served
Louie with orange sauce. I just got a feeling you didn’t. How
could you. For you, Raymond, were the hero and drop dead gorgeous,
even with a few extra pounds, and a few more after that.
During
my Junior High School years I moved to Vallejo. It was there I learned
the local history on how you had lived in Vallejo as a young teen and your
mom had played the magnificent pipe organ at the local Methodist Church.
When I gave my 15 minute speech in my Junior High Oral Expression class,
it was on you. When I took a career class and had to interview
a professional person, I chose a lawyer. I’d be like the character
you portrayed so well.
One
day it happened Raymond…across a very crowded room…the Archo Arena to be
exact, I was to finally lay eyes on you. I was attending a law school
graduation. You were there. Maybe it took 27 years in coming,
but it finally did…just when I didn’t expect it.
A
couple years back I spoke to a coworker about you as my childhood crush.
Her face grew pale and her pupils got big. She said, “Oh my God!
I love Raymond Burr. I even named my teddybear after him when I was
a kid and would hug it and pretend it was him.” I told her I had
two ducks and named one Perry and the other Mason. We laughed. She
knew your birthday too, and confessed to going home from work at lunchtime
specifically to watch reruns of your old shows.
After
your passing, there was an eloquent presentation on television about your
life entitled, The Defense Rests. How profound. Tears flowed down my cheeks,
to my own surprise, as a corner of my inner child’s heart broke with the
realization and impact of your loss. Alas and alack…dear sweet Raymond…I
loved you well.
jennifer grant