Another favorite show of my mom’s was “In the Heat of the Night”.

I had no idea it was based on a film (with Sidney Poitier, no less!) until I went to college. The tv show starred Carroll O’Connor (”All in the Family”) as the Chief Bill Gillepsie and Howard E. Rollins Jr(Ragtime) as Virgil Tibbs, Chief of Detectives. It tackled similar racial issues as the film. Both works strived to show how a southern white chief (despite his racist misgivings) could learn to work and respect his black lieutenant.

The show ran for eight seasons with half of the run on NBC and the other half on CBS. Regardless of the channel, it was on in my household for most of those years. My mom still watches the re-runs. So every time I catch an episode on TV Land, I remember all the times my mom would be curled up on the couch with her “In the Heat of the Night”.