True Crime

Oh boy. I've been reading up a storm.

I couldn't wait for Doctorow's new book to come out in paperback, so I shelled out I think it was twenty-five bucks for it.

It's a great book, but I had a hard time getting used to the punctuation. There's no quotation marks. Seriously. I don't know why Doctorow decided to stop using quotation marks.

What else? Well, I've been doing a lot of research into Depression Era bank robbers. There's a lot of untold stories out there from that era.

People think that whole time began and ended with Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, "Baby Face" Nelson, the Barkers, "Machine Gun" Kelly, Bonnie & Clyde.

Well, it didn't. Not by a long shot. In fact, some of the more successful bank robbers from the 30's have been overlooked over the years because they were smart enough to avoid a lot of big violent gun battles. Like Ed Betz. I bet you never heard of him. Made millions. Hugely successful bank robber. Until he got thrown in the pokie, I mean.

Then Bonnie & Clyde, they even got a movie made about their adventures, but they didn't have much success as criminals. Their biggest take ever was something like $1500.

Hell, I probably shoplifted more than that when I was in junior high.

Kurt "big daddy" True
1 march 2006