Piccolo meets an old school bank robber

Just a post about an interesting character I met.

A little over 10 years ago, I had business in Baltimore. When I was headed home, I needed gas. I pulled into the basic 7-11 gas station and convenience store.

My eye caught something that looked a little odd. It was an old man that appeared to be in his late 70s and there was something of a disoriented air about him. It caught my interest, so I wandered over to see if he was OK.

He seemed pretty sharp, so I figured he wasn’t some sort of Alzheimer’s case that had wandered off from home. The first thing that came to mind was that he was some sort of expatriate type, say a missionary type that had spent the last forty years in Africa.

Something was odd, yet my instinct told me that he would do me no harm. I asked him where he was going and he produced an address. I broke out my atlas and found it wasn’t very far out of my way. I treated him like a one-legged hitchhiker and told him to hop in.

After I gassed up, I got in myself and told him I’d take him where he was going if he’d tell me why he seemed to be so disoriented.

He told me that he had just gotten out of the Federal pen, which surprised the hell out of me. He didn’t look like a tough guy.

When I asked him why he had been there, he simply said “Bank robbery and failure to show the proper respect to Federal officers during the subsequent discussion.”

“After robbing a bank, you lipped off to the G-men?” I asked, dubiously.

“The discussion was conducted with Tommy guns,” he replied, dryly and I felt a little stupid.

I was smart enough not to ask him why he robbed a bank, lest I get Willie Sutton’s famous answer: “Because that’s where the money is.”

I drove the guy right to where he was going and over the two hour ride, we swapped notes. He told me about the bank robbery and the subsequent getaway and shoot-out, and in return I told him a little about life on the sea.

The most interesting part of our ride together was finding out what he did know about life as a free man and what he didn’t know. He knew all sorts of things one wouldn’t expect a convict to know, yet he didn’t know how to use a credit card to pump self service gas.

When we discussed legal matters, I felt that I was talking to a fairly competent lawyer. I’ve heard there are pretty good law libraries in prisons and it was pretty obvious he was well read, both in matters of law and in general.

The man was pretty bright, and although I was mildly surprised to see he was fairly well educated, I really wasn’t astonished. I just figured he’s put his life in jail to good use.

It was interesting to note that he knew Windows 95, then the current operating system, better than I did and he told me how to fix my broken computer. When I got home, I found out he was right.

I taught him a few odds and ends. He actually wanted to know how to drive an automatic transmission, never having driven one. He seemed disappointed in a way that it was that easy.

I wondered why he wasn’t in some sort of a halfway house, but in conversation, I sort of figured out that he was let out in some kind of custody of his family deal. He was going to his son’s house, and mentioned he had a sister that lived nearby.

His grandson was in the landscaping business and he was going to work there. I guess at his age, he’d be planting flowers and doing light duties. I didn’t delve into it, though.

When we got near his exit, he handed me directions and I drove him to his door. I figured I’d give the old timer his privacy, so when someone answered the door and I figured he was at the right place, I drove off.

It was interesting meeting a man that had spent more time in prison than I had on the planet, and it was well worth the twenty minutes I spent driving out of my way.

No moral, no judgment, just an interesting person I met on the way home once.

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It's 3 am. Do your childeren know where you are?
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1530. Someone sneaked up behind me and put a string around my head.

I shrugged and without looking up said, " 57cm, European, 7 1/8 US."

He said nothing and walked out. Betcha I get ANOTHER hat for my collection.
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