My Open Letter to Mr. T

Dear Mr. T,

First off, I’d like to apologize for crying obnoxiously when I last met you.  You see, I had just seen you running around a church waving a gun and I was, after all, a baby.

I’ve been wanting to contact you for some time now.  I think a thank-you is long overdue after a simple gesture you did for me back in 1988.

That year, as a freshly born baby, my mum took me to a church in Toronto where you were filming.  She thought it might be fun to spend the day as an extra.  She tells me she thinks it was the A-Team but I can’t be sure as I have never been able to find the footage.  (UPDATE: I have been corrected.  It was T and T.) We were sitting in the pews all day while you and a bunch of “bad guys” ran around the church yelling and waving guns.  It sounds like it was quite interesting but I can’t remember it myself.

After a few hours of this, I was getting cranky so Mum took me outside for a break.  You were also taking a break outside with your crew.  You saw me and said to my mother, (and I quote):

“That’s such a cute baby!  Can I hold her?”

My mother passed me off to you and you called your buddy over to take a Polaroid picture (it was the 80s, after all).  He obliged and as soon as it developed, you gave it to my mother on the spot.  I promptly burst into tears in your arms as I was scared and still cranky.

The infamous photo

Mum carefully placed the Polaroid in our family photo album.

As I grew up with this picture always existing in the album, it seemed normal to me at first.  I didn’t realize how incredibly cool it was until I was about 17 years old.  When I was 20, I posted the picture on Facebook and it received quite the response from my friends.  They thought it was awesome and some were even jealous of me.

As I have some Asian features, I often get asked about my ethnicity.  It happens surprisingly often – even strangers on the street will approach me to ask.  They always seem disappointed when I reveal that I am not, in fact, Asian at all, as far as I know.  Some will even try to change my mind, telling me that perhaps I haven’t looked far enough into my ancestry.  In my late teens, I got tired of explaining that no, sadly, I’m not part Chinese, or Japanese, or Vietnamese. I’m just boring old white bread. (Dad is straight from Scotland and Mum is Irish-Canadian.)  So, I started changing my response. And that’s where you come in, Mr. T.

When people would ask if I was Asian, I started telling them, “No, actually, my father is Mr. T. It just doesn’t show very much.”

This would really throw them for a loop.

I would tell them that we keep it hush-hush as Mr. T has always been really good with child support payments and that we didn’t want to draw all the attention to our family or affect Mr. T’s career.  When they would call bull****, I would produce the Polaroid, thereby confirming my story.  They would go wide-eyed, impressed.  I would even ask them if they could see any family resemblance. They would try to find some.  I got a big kick out of it.

Don’t worry though; I almost always ended up telling them the truth eventually.  Almost always.

In 2010, I was messing around on Faceinhole.com and came up with this masterpiece:

The family resemblance.

Again, my friends loved it.

I suppose you really were a father figure to me in some ways.  I unintentionally followed in your footsteps, studying martial arts like you and earning my Black Belt in Karate when I was 18.  I was also on my high school’s wrestling team and made it to the Ontario finals (though it was Greco-Roman style – not WWE).  I even ended up getting into acting myself and pursuing it as a career.

I’m not nearly as famous as you but I absolutely love acting.  I do a lot of theatre and a bit of film stuff.  In fact, the reason I’ve chosen to write to you now is that while performing in a theatrical production of The Melville Boys in Bancroft, Ontario recently, I was staying in a cottage with the rest of the cast and crew.  We had to bring our own bedsheets and I forgot mine so my director lent me some.  They were A-Team bedsheets.  Upon seeing the pattern on them, I got really excited and started laughing.  I had to explain the story to my cast and crew who also got a real kick out of it.  I told Mum about the sheets and she suggested it’s about time I finally send you a message.

My A-Team bedsheets

I love that despite your fame, you’ve remained a conscientious person.  You have such a tough-guy image but you seem to have a heart of gold.  I remember you telling me not to do drugs and smashing your glass of milk in your hand to emphasize the point.  You seem to genuinely care about other people and are a great role model.  You are a symbol of respect.  When I found a video of your song Treat Your Mother Right on YouTube, I couldn’t have been more impressed.  I thought it was hilarious and sweet and made me think that you must have genuinely respected my momma when you met her, which I truly appreciate.

So, although you may not remember me, you’ve played a big role in my life.   Thank you for taking the time to take a picture with me that day.  It means more to me than you’ll probably ever know.

This is what I look like now.

Love forever, your fan,

Robin Hodge