#columbo pilot episode

[dumbassalex]

Watching the Columbo pilot (somebody compared John Constantine to Columbo, got me inspired especialy after a video talking about the show) and my god that man has ADHD.

[pinbones]

Columbo Pilot 1 "Prescription: Murder" Smoke Stats

Smoked onscreen: 11

Smoked onscreen by Columbo: 7 (64%)

Lit onscreen: 7

Lit onscreen by Columbo: 5 (71%)

Lit twice in one scene: 2

Lit twice in one scene by Columbo: 2 (100%)

Scenes where Columbo does not smoke or have a cigar at all: 0

Pens lost by Columbo: 2

__________

Cigarettes count, not only cigars. Usage of a pipe would also count.

'Smoked onscreen' defined as smoked in actuality or suggested to be smoked in-universe, including ambiguous Columbo cigar scenes where he may only be chewing it unless stated/demonstrated to be factually unlit in-universe.

Unnamed characters or characters out of focus would count unless they both would be considered strongly to be part of the background, e.g. a member of a crowd, and were never in focus during any shot.

'Lit twice' defined as two consecutive lightings of the same cigar(/etc) successfully. (Are cigars sometimes lit twice in real life or is that just a Columbo thing?)

[bredforloyalty]

you keep posting about columbo. do i need to watch it would u recommend?

first of all sorry for answering more than a week later... i had a feeling if i just keep on columboposting all alone eventually someone will be like what's going on.. my brain's been like THE KLUMBO!! every day most days for a while now so bear with me for a moment

my answer to "do you recommend x" is always that i can tell you about it, say what i like about it and what's possibly not to like so you can better evaluate whether it's something you would enjoy, yeah? 😳 like in the end it's either for you or it isn't and only you can find out. you know what i mean

um so columbo, the episodes are feature-length self-contained murder mysteries, if you wanted to you could start anywhere. and they aren't exactly mysteries because the concept is that you watch the murder happen and then the clues that lead to the arrest are uncovered gradually and the lieutenant and the killer dance around each other until the latter incriminates themself. usually because they underestimated columbo because he's a shabby little guy and appears to be sort of a bumbling idiot but is actually incredibly perceptive and sharp-witted, and he knows how the (usually rich) self-important murderers see him and uses that against them, as well as his compassion and intuition. that's pretty much it, it's a reverse whodunnit

i think (and it may be obvious) that the appeal of the show other than the crime/mystery is columbo, if you like him that could possibly be the thing that makes you continue watching. so i'll tell you that he doesn't carry a gun, can't stand the sight of blood, or high places, loves his wife. and his dog. simple guy, shrewd though. same rumpled coat and shitty little peugeot convertible all the time. he's very socratic in his methods, non-violent, and i think that's what really attracted me to this show. i enjoy the masculinity without the usual baggage, without the arrogance and the domineering and the posturing, if that makes sense lol.. plus i think peter falk's performance is wonderfully human, stephen fry said this once in an interview if i remember correctly: there's a certain warmth to it. columbo's a humble, virtuous character, yeah he's disheveled, a little all over the place but he understands people and is endlessly curious and dedicated and that's how he wins. and i like that and i think he's a bit of an unusual character because we're far from the macho tough guy cops who intimidate and coerce and threaten And from the trope of the egotistical superhuman genius detective.. he's a little guy c'maahn he's just a little guyy (it's not about him though viewers aren't even supposed to know his first name and it's hard to tell when he's bluffing and his private life is never the focus. so, a mysterious little guy)

TLDR: yes i recommend it if you like mysteries and would enjoy a crime drama with moments of silliness or would appreciate the unconventional masculinity (for his time definitely) i see in this character, and no i don't recommend it if you'd rather watch things that are short and snappy or if you strongly prefer an overarching plot or if you hate the look and feel of the 70s or if you don't like peter falk's whole deal and especially not if your pet peeve is talking in circles. oh and there are some moments and aspects of episodes that didn't age well but they're very few and far between imo. just wanted to mention that, i know nothing is perfect ofc<3

so yeah i do recommend it because i love it, thank you for asking !! :)

[columboscreens]

columbo is so gender to me but i dont think i could ever look like him</3

i think it's totally possible for anyone to embody his essence. you can even manage to rock something directly inspired by columbo without looking like you're cosplaying.

hair

if you have columbo's hair type, it's actually pretty easy to emulate his styles. i even know people who show pictures of columbo to hair stylists to get his look. my partner's hair in its natural state is very similar to columbo's--dark, wavy, tending to grow in spite of gravity rather than with it. whenever he gets his hair cut, he shows the stylist photos of late 60s/pilot episode peter falk, whose look is actually pretty on-trend for the current era. it works out pretty well.

your swag may have aged well pilot columbo but you can't beat floof

failing that, getting any haircut that is natural, low-maintenance, and not too attention-grabbing captures the visual language all the same. for reference, natasha lyonne in poker face has her hair in natural-looking, messy waves that to me just exude columbo.

clothing

how you present yourself to the world is up to you, but if you want to invoke columbo, there's a lot more you can do than buy a tan raincoat.

in an era of sharply-cut, wide-lapelled constructions, fat tie tuesdays, and gucci loafers, columbo stands out as classic comfort personified.

his collar, tie, and lapels are slim, proportional, and unassuming; they'd look good in almost any era. his pants fit closely to his leg but not too wide or slim, and sit at or near the natural waist. though his suits, shirts, ties, shoes, socks, and even coats rotate, there is a consistent color palette keeping him "on model". he embraces earth tones: creams, forest greens, light browns, dark browns, stony grays, rusts, and roses. his clothing seems like an afterthought, but it's an extension of his personality--rumpled and unassuming at first, yet sharp and deliberate upon further inspection.

amid the 1970s explosion of synthetic popularity, it says something that every stitch of textile on columbo's person is natural (aside from the raincoat, which is probably nylon or poly--he wears it without a lining and uses it as essentially an oversized windbreaker). his boots are leather with crepe latex soles; his tie is silk. his shirt is cotton, a bit boxy but comfortable and properly fitted. because the construction of his suits is roomy and unstructured, and because they're made of linen, they wrinkle easily.

this is easily confused for appearing slovenly. actually, all things considered, his clothes fit him pretty damn well, it's just hard to avoid wrinkling natural fibers like linen and cotton, especially in hot weather. he's running around los angeles sweating up a storm, the man needs loose, breathable fabric.

point is, columbo dresses very thoughtfully. since these clothes are workwear for him and he works a hell of a lot, it's imperative that he factors in the weather, his comfort, and proper fit when picking clothes. he wants to like and be comfortable in them while looking unassuming. so even though he sometimes ends up looking like an unmade bed, his choices are deliberate.

you could invoke these principles in your own appearance by picking earthy colors/jewel tones and comfortable, natural fabrics that you enjoy wearing, which has the added benefit of being better for you and the environment. consider also taking a few garments in to be altered. it's usually not that expensive, supports your local needlefolk, and makes even cheap clothes fit great.

as a last little aside, i think having a "signature" clothing item akin to columbo's raincoat would be a nice touch. a jacket, a pair of shoes, even a watch or necklace. something you always wear. if you really do want a raincoat like his, just make sure you're not buying a trench coat, because, repeat after me: columbo does not wear a trench coat.

[birbwell]

all the season 1 columbo villains (excluding the pilot episodes!)

kind of want to make a series out of this hrmmm

[delphinidin4]

By the way, in case you’ve never watched Columbo, here it is for free and legal on the Internet Archive. First episode is the pilot, so it’s slightly different than the rest. Season 8 and 9 are a reboot with the same actor. They’re fascinating and suspenseful murder mysteries with an endearing detective and a surprisingly sympathetic view of the murderer (usually). Funny and well written.

[andhumanslovedstories]

I realized that I’d missed the second pilot for Columbo, “Ransom for a Dead Man” so I took a break from the elevated hijinks of season three to go watch it. I didn’t really like it. Some weird choices, some grating characters. But I do think I love it?

The movie is so weirdly sexist. Like I mean that the way it is sexist is weird. The murderer is like if you reached into a bag of every evil female archetype/cliche, and you just grabbed a random fistful. She’s a gold digger evil stepmother career woman femme fatale stone cold bitch. She’s Barbra Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, and she’s the evil queen from Snow White. All the people around her keep saying stuff like “it must be hard for you, a man, to work for a woman,” and “she always wanted to be a big time fancy lady lawyer!” Her fatal flaw is that she’s too evil.

And Columbo ends up respecting her so much. And she ends up respecting him the same. There’s an alternate universe version of Columbo where there were any recurring characters except Columbo, where she’s the best character in all detective universes: recurring evil person the detective has a weird amount of sexual chemistry with. Something about Columbo’s characterization in this episode put me off, but from the point where they both know that Columbo believes she committed murder, it’s fuckin primo shit dude. They’re tangoing with each other. There’s a point where it seems like she’s having so much fun. You get the sense that she’s never had a real nemesis before and that it delights her.

She was also far and away the best character in the entire movie. Every time she wasn’t there, I wondering when’s my queen was gonna come back. There was a scene where Columbo’s getting lunch, and I was like “get the fuck outta here dude, I know my beautiful murderess is not joining your lame ass at this diner eating chili”

[chapstick-child]

god is it bad to admit out loud that i had no idea acapulco was a real place, like, i thought it was a fictional place made up for bittersweet candy bowl

and i only realized YEARS later that it was real after watching the pilot episode of columbo...

[autismsupersoldier]

Hi! I just want you to know that I did not know what Columbo was before I started following you, and tonight, I finally broke and watched the first episode. I can say that is isn't really my type of show, but, Columbo is a slut and I need him to stop blinking like that because it's making him pretty to me and I'm uncomfortable about that. Anyways! Thank for contributing to the last hour and a half of my life and some rapid self discovery this evening. I hope you're having a good day!

SNICKERING AT THIS!

i am curious if you watched the pilot [Prescription: Murder] (where columbo is a youngin, as pictured above) or the first-first episode [Murder by the Book]... his pilot self is VERY different from how he ends up being in the actual show

[vintagetvstars]

i hope you enjoy columbo! a big part of the fun of it imo is all the actors from other vintage tv shows and movies who guest star on it!

I won’t talk about it too much since I know Peter Falk has already been nominated for the men’s bracket and I don’t want to sway anyone’s opinion on accident.

But as far as the show as a whole goes, I was hooked on minute one and kept exclaiming how much I enjoyed it and how well done it was the entire time I was watching the first episode (or I believe the first pilot). Mod Violet can attest as I was actively screaming about how good it is in their DM’s last night 😅. Needless to say I am a fan and I’m excited to watch the rest!

Also excited to know there are a lot of vintage tv guest stars so I’ll get to play my favorite game of guess where you’ve seen and/or heard this actor before 😊

- mod vintage

[ashensamurai]

okay, so I'm watching the pilot episode of columbo, and this is amazing. columbo only shows up like 25 minutes into the episode and I swear he already knows exactly what happened. and he just talks to the murderer about random stuff and follows him around and everything. this is great so far. how have i never watched this masterpiece

[unnervinglyferal]

My new obsession right now is Columbo

My mom finds this very odd

I don’t understand why

I have a curio cabinet with dead things in it but she’s weirded out by my current obsession with a 70’s tv show

Although is it really a 70’s show when the first pilot episode was aired in 1968 and the last episode was aired in 2003?

That spans from the late sixties all the way to the early two thousands

If you want to include the first time the character of Columbo was seen that was the early sixties but I don’t really count that one because it was for a completely different show and he was played by a completely different actor and now Columbo is just very intwined with Peter Falk

Anyways Mom finds my obsession super weird

I can’t tell if it’s because the show was started before she was born or because both my parents have said that it was the type of show kids only watched if their grandparents were watching it

I mean like last month we had a conversation about making me a decomposition box for road kill but she’s weirded out by the 70’s show obsession

I literally walked into a water filled ditch to grab a frog today, I had to hose off the bottom of my pants after that

But somehow the fact that I know how many years it was until people knew if Columbo had a glass eye like Falk did is odd

(25, and yes the character does have a glass eye like Falk did)

This is the lady who admitted to spending hours try to figure out what type of wetland the Frog Pond is

Oh also I realized I have a screen recorder on my computer so I don’t have to fuss around on like fifty different sites trying to find good quality video files of the episodes and then fuss around for like thirty minutes trying to find good subtitles online

I can just record them from my screen

tbh weirdness is relative. There's people who would think that keeping chickens and grabbing random snakes recreationally is weird, but if something's normal in your region, it is. Nobody in my girlfriend's family considers it odd or unusual that she had a baby at 16 (despite of the average age to do that around here being almost twice that), the part they consider weird is that I'm still in the picture and actually changing diapers.

There's no such thing as normal, so don't worry about that. Also I've never seen a single episode of Columbo and have only learned about it through people making "I've been watching Columbo for some reason" posts a lot online. Which on its own is fascinating.

[elder-sister]

what is columbo like? I’ve seen you post about it a lot and I might watch it sometime (Im focusing on a different show rn so it might be a bit)

ASFSHDIFUFTBXABSGFB OKAY UHHHHHHH

So basically it's a noir detective show where each episode has a unique murder that our favorite autistic cop solves and uhhhh

I recommend starting on Murder by the Book because the pilots aren't really the greatest

I'M BAD AT EXPLAINING THINGS BUT ANYWAY IT'S ON INTERNET ARCHIVE

[filmnoirfoundation]

For the Columbo lovers we found in the comments of the ASK EDDIE streams: check out the Just One More Thing: The Columbo Experience Facebook Group https://bit.ly/3TryRby . We'll be watching every Columbo episode , Sunday nights at 6pm PT starting  Jan 7

We're going to watch every episode of Columbo including the original TV movie "Prescription Murder", the pilot, the original series, the revival series and the specials. And we are going to do it together! Join us via Zoom on Sunday nights, 6:00 PM PT starting on January 7, 2024. We will not be screening the episodes via Zoom, that's just for us to interact in real time, so you will need to access the episodes commercial free.   The entire series is available on DVD and the original series run (seasons 1-7) will be  available on Blu-ray starting December 19, 2023 through Kino Lorber.

[columboscreens]

During my last d&d session a couple of my friends said they had been watching a columbo they enjoyed and when I asked what episode they said the one where peter falk's eyebrows were crazy, which I have to admit did not narrow it down for me. Do you know of any eyebrow crazy Columbos?

depends on the season. columbo gradually grows more unruly with age as a whole, so as the series progresses you see them grow longer and bushier. compare the pilot with a still from season four:

more eyebrow appreciation here:

[hballegro]

alright here's the essay under the cut.

entirely just my experience w/ MASH, almost no editing [just spelling mistakes and a few apostrophe misuses]. fair warning, my father was [is] an alcoholic and a horrible person, and i mention that a bit, so if thats something you're sensitive to, bewarned.

         My story with M*A*S*H begins a hundred years ago when I was somewhere between 5 and 8, old enough to watch television but not old enough to remember how old I was when I was doing it. The childhood I had was overall unremarkable, marred only by my pitiful excuse for a father that parented by either drinking or being hungover on the couch in between screaming at his children or beating his wife. Unfortunately, he is part of this story, but only accidentally. See, he used to do all that stuff in our unfinished basement, on an old ugly couch, hiding from his family all day. Then, eventually, he decided he liked the couch and television upstairs better, and plagued the family room for many years instead, putting whatever he wanted to watch on instead of letting his children watch cartoons. I ended up liking The Three Stooges quite a lot, less out of actually thinking it was fun and more out of it being the only thing he’d put on that I found remotely entertaining, so I was taking what I could get. We kept the old burned CDs he’d made of them after he moved out.

         Anyway. My mother had (and still has) a television in her room (it used to be their room, but she kicked him out) that she could avoid him with. Not wanting to be around the violent cesspool of a person on my couch, I’d sometimes crawl to her room, so as not to let him see me and have him make me come over and listen to some music or whatever he wanted. Old guitarist reliving his glory days or something, I couldn’t tell you. But anyway, I’d enter her room and sit down on her bed with her or on the floor, and we’d watch TV. More often than not, she’d put on MeTV, because she watched those old shows with her own father, and it was a bright spot in her memory that gave her some escapism too. There were a lot of shows on there, but I only really ever remembered things like Gilligan’s Island, ALF, Columbo, Bewitched, The Twilight Zone, and, of course, M*A*S*H.

         I liked the other shows, of course. I remember them fondly, especially Gilligan’s Island, maybe it was the catchy theme song with words I could learn. I didn’t like how brown and gross Columbo was, but my mom explained that that’s just how it looked back then. I thought the puppet on ALF was funny, and The Twilight Zone scared me, but I was still interested. I remember enough of Bewitched to remember the nose wiggle and constantly mix it up with I Dream of Jeannie for some reason. Really, anything was better than watching the same episode of Farscape again, which I’ve heard is actually a very good show, but my father kept forgetting that he’d already made me start watching it, and so every viewing session was just the pilot. That’s also the reason I never learned Spanish.

         But then I got to M*A*S*H. I won’t lie to you and say that, as a wizened 5-to-8-year-old, I could ‘tell something was special’ about this show. It was a show. It was a show that I remember looking at my mom during, and seeing her really happy. Later she told me, after watching it with me in present day, that she would watch it with her own father, before her parents got divorced. Her father more or less was not present in her life after the split, and that happened when she was 14-ish. The show started airing when she was the age I was when I watched it with her, and she and her father made a weekly thing of it. Neither of us at that age should have watched it, but for both of us, it was forming a little bright spot in our minds, a good dream with a parent when times were tough.

         I remember laughing, even if I didn’t get all the jokes. I remember thinking I liked the shade of red one of the characters wore, and also the shade of dark blue the same character wore sometimes. I remember one or both of my siblings being there sometimes, laughing along. One of my siblings told me recently that B.J. Hunnicutt and John ‘Trapper’ McIntyre, both filling roles as doubles partners for Benjamin Franklin ‘Hawkeye’ Pierce, had merged into the same person in their memory. I thought that was hilarious; how could they ever think those were the same person! B.J. Hunnicutt had a mustache! Imagine my surprise re-watching season 4’s opener, ‘Welcome to Korea’, featuring a clean-cut fresh-faced Mike Farrell, lacking the horse brush I had so clearly remembered him housing under his nose.

         But the rewatching, yes, the rewatching. It started innocently enough. Between breaks at college, far beyond my young-youth, the real youth people mean when they use that word, my mother opened it up on the tv and put it on. No matter what era you go to in our household, the TV was always going. Most of the time no one was watching it, sometimes blatantly, loudly, explosively chattering and guffawing and gasping with our own business and ignoring it entirely. It was background noise, we all needed it, so we always had it. But something a little strange happened; my mother was watching it, as she often did when she put something on in the evenings to massage her brain to bed after a long day at work. I was typing away at something on my laptop, like I am now, sitting on the couch with her, which I am also doing now (although she’s long gone to bed), and I looked up.

         I saw Hawkeye.

         It didn’t feel like a rush of emotion, it didn’t feel like something important was happening. That was just my old friend. Looking absolutely horrible with the haircut he was rocking in the pilot, but I remembered him. The pilot doesn’t open with the theme, as I recognized that as soon as it played, it opens with golf, a little vignette of the camp before the choppers come in with wounded. I saw Hawkeye, I saw his shirt, and it really was like when you see an old friend, one you can’t really remember what all you did with, or where you met, or even each other’s names anymore, but you know they mean something to you. You knew this person, and you liked them, you liked them enough that even though you forgot everything else, you remember the love that was there.

         And it was a very small thing that happened, and it didn’t happen with every episode, but I would pause my music. My own background noise to drown out everyone else’s background noise, blasting into my headphones. I’d pause my music, read the subtitles, hear them faintly through muffled ears, and laugh along. Smile when I’d see a smile, and a little more than half pay attention.

         I went back to college, life went on, we only got maybe to the beginning of season two, but my mom didn’t continue without me. She waited, and eventually, I came home for the summer, summer of 2024.

         She put it on again, and the same thing happened. But this time, I way more than half paid attention. I really paid attention. By the time we got to Abyssinia, Henry, I completely paused whatever I was doing when it was on and sat, laptop open, head at a 45 degree angle to watch the TV. I’d still futz around during commercial breaks, but I waited for the commercial breaks to do anything now. More and more it warmed my heart, to see all these old friends I’d forgot about, drag them all out of the closet, finally see B.J. Hunnicutt with that stupid mustache again for the first time in over 15 years at least—it was all so amazing. I was laughing at this show that came out over 20 years before I was even born. My parents hadn’t even met yet when this thing ended. Then, of course, because of the way my brain unfortunately works, it is now all I can think about it, to the point I’ve convinced several people to watch it just by virtue of never-shutting-the-hell-up.

         And then? I finally got to see all my friends go home.

         I remember the night I watched the finale with my mother. We’d gotten to the penultimate episode, and we’d paused. It was near 8ish, near my mother’s bedtime, and she and I both agreed we could not handle the finale that night, it was too much. And so we put on something, My Name is Earl, anything to make noise, something funny, something light. That’s how the next several days went; do we feel like we can handle the end? No. Tonight? Maybe tomorrow. Maybe after dinner? It was a long day.

         But then, after dishes had been cleared and we were both sitting quietly, the sun had already gone down, and she proposes we watch it.

         So we did.

         I don’t cry at things anymore. I used to cry all the time as a kid, scraped knee, called an idiot by a sibling, way too much crying even for a kid. I got it out of my system, apparently, because now I’m an adult and I have trouble with making tears, and when they do come, they sneak up on me. The last time I remember crying was at my grandmother’s funeral, months ago, and before that, I have no idea. I get misty-eyed, sure, but nothing makes me boohoo.

         The same held for the finale. Contrasted heavily by my mother, the woman that regularly cries at especially-touching commercials, shedding a few for every other scene (the bus revelation, the final meal, Charles’s music adventure finale, the wedding dress, every single goodbye, and of course the big one at the end), I was mostly quiet. I remember it ending, and thinking, well, that was about the best finale I’d ever seen. I also thought about how I’d seen strikingly few finales, and that I ought to see more series through til the end. I spoke with my mother a bit about it, we had some good moments from the program tossed back and forth, and she went to bed.

         Then I took a shower, and after I got out, the floodgates busted. I was boohooing alright, blubbering too, but I couldn’t point to why. Sure, there were moments in the episode worthy of tears, but this was full sobbing, aching and pitiful and messy. I just left it as something not to worry about, and went on. Since then, on my own, I’ve rewatched select episodes, watched the finale (again) with the sibling that confused Trapper and B.J., done three paintings of stills from the show, made a miniature version of the signpost for my mom, and started writing again for the express purpose of doing things with these characters, and I’ve only now put a fine point on it. It’s a threefold answer of why I fell apart leaving the shower after watching an episode of television that aired 40 years ago.

         The first is simple; I have got it in my head that I need to be alright for everyone. If I’m happy, then everything is okay. I think it’s a relic from what made me stop crying, this need to tell everyone, “Hey, I’m the crybaby, so if I’m okay, then really, everything is okay!” My tears are (were) meant to be shed in private. They were my own cross to bear, especially for places like the bathroom where I could get privacy, as I shared a room with a sibling growing up. This is something I’m getting better about.

         The second answer is very warm; I finished M*A*S*H with my mom. I remember my grandfather, though he wasn’t too present in my life, and I loved him. He passed when I was young, but I was old enough to remember him, and his death date is near my birthday. My birthday is actually near a lot of either death-dates or birthdays of people that are now dead that my mom loved very much, so I am constantly reminded that my birth is the only good thing that happens to her that month. Finishing the show with her was special. We did it. It’s a tradition now. I don’t plan to have kids, but the future may be strange. At the very least, I know at least one sibling does, so I’ll just have to make sure their kids watch it, too. I don’t have anything of my grandfather’s, his family wasn’t kind to mine  and took pretty much everything when he died, but now I have this show. And I have this with my mother. It keeps my heart warm.

         And lastly, the thing responsible for the most boohooing, is that, like I said; I got to see my friends go home.

         I didn’t really think about it hard, but these were my little friends. I couldn’t remember them, but I remembered that I loved them. That they were something that made me happy, and made my very sad mother happy when I was little. They were funny, they were going through a very bad time and they were still being nice to each other and doing their best. They laughed, cried, cried some more, laughed some more. They drank, but in a safer way than what I knew of it at home, so it felt okay. They hugged, they fought, they loved each other. Then they were locked away in a little memory in my heart, and they sat there for over a decade, nearly two. And then those lovely people that made my life a little bit better finally, finally,

         Got to go home.

         A catharsis.

         Everything isn’t perfect, but all of us are somewhere better now. We have new problems. We have old scars. But the big bad is over. A little part of me healed. It was okay, finally. They got home. It’s okay.

         And if I can pick up a show from the 70’s about the 50’s that’s also still about the 70’s and the Vietnam war about all war that’s also about love and family and surgery with a cast that’s almost all gone now that so painfully soldered its place in my heart that watching the end of it all put me in a puddle on the floor of my bathroom at 11 at night, if I can wait 15 years and still manage to rouse these old soldiers and send them home, a little cracked but finally safe,

         I think B.J. Hunnicutt can drive those 3,000 miles to a little place in Maine to see his best friend.