Our Richard Belzer moment

Law & Order often films in our neighborhood. Many episodes of the original Law & Order and even more episodes of Law & Order SVU were filmed in our building.

More than 20 years ago I picked up my youngest at day care. While walking home we stopped at the coffee shop and bakery a block a way and picked up a baguette to munch on during the walk home. When one is three or four and has short legs the three block walk home sometimes needs a break for a little pick-me-up.

When we got to our building filming was taking place for one of the Law & Orders. We walked over the lighting cables in our front courtyard, passed the director's chairs and went upstairs. After we got home I suggested to my son that he might want to go back downstairs to see if we could watch the filming or at least some of the action around the filming. My son agreed and we returned downstairs with my son continuing to break off pieces of the baguette and eating them.

When we returned to the courtyard in front of our building lobby Richard Belzer was sitting in one of the director's chairs. He began interacting with my son who was wearing a T-shirt with Hebrew writing on it. Belzer read the shirt aloud and began asking my son about it. Belzer then asked my son about the what he was eating.

My son replied that he was eating a baguette. Belzer asked if he could have some. My son then carefully picked off maybe three crumbs of baguette and handed them to Belzer. I turned to my son and said " C'mon don't be such a cheapskate, give him a real piece of baguette!." My son then gave Richard Belzer a bit of crust the size of his pinky nail.

Really? I realized that at that moment there was no negotiating with my kid. Richard Belzer found the whole thing amusing. Over the years we used to gently razz my youngest about the incident. When I saw that Belzer had died I sent my son a text musing that he might have lived a bit longer if my son had given Richard Belzer a slightly larger piece of baguette.

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