Daddy's Short-Lived Life of Crime

While living at 906 West Sixth Avenue as a boy, Daddy's sister introduced him to his first "moving picture show".  Like a drug addict, just one time and he was hooked.  Westerns starring cowboys Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, and Tom Mix, and the Tarzan of the Apes series, must have been sweet release for poor kids in the 1920's.  Since television hadn't been invented, the usual entertainment consisted of hide and seek, stick ball, or swimming in a nearby creek.  The Monday matinee was a double-feature which cost a dime;  Daddy didn't have any money.  It's amazing how early in life we begin to rationalize our bad choices.  Kids don't have to be taught to do wrong, it just seems to come naturally.  Working at a child care for many years, I have laughingly quoted the verse, John 8:44, to describe children..."they ARE of their father, the devil".

At the time, my grandmother was working at the Loray Mill.  From her hard-earned pay, probably about $12 a week, she set aside $1.10 for insurance.  Each payday, the insurance money was placed in an envelope with a premium book and hung on a nail by the front door.  Every Monday the insurance man came and opened the front door, took the money from the envelope, recorded the payment in the premium book, then returned the envelope to the nail.  Apparently, people back then didn't lock their doors.  My grandparents were at work, and the kids were at school, when this transaction took place.  I suppose if a thief came in to rob their house, he would have felt sorry for them and left empty-handed.

Longing to go to the Monday double feature at the Loray Theater at "Greasy Corner", Daddy thought of a way to get the money.  He decided the insurance man didn't need the ten cents in the envelope by the door as badly as he needed to see the movie.  So he took the dime after Grandma left for work, and before he left for school that day.

School was over at 2:30, but instead of going home from school, he went to the double-feature.  Oh, he had a great time...and he got home just before Grandma and Grandpa came in from work.  What a great plan, he thought!  (Daddy's daughter, Laney, had a similar "great plan"--with a similar end result--many years later; but we will save that story for another day.)

The next week, he took another dime and went to another movie...the next week, same thing, and again the next.  A month of Monday double-feature movies transpired without getting caught.  But as usually happens, his "great plan" back-fired.  Grandma came home from work early one Monday while Daddy was still at school.  The insurance man came to collect his weekly payment while she was at home.  He said, "Mrs. Mac, would you like to catch up on the fifty cents you are behind on your insurance premiums today?"  Grandma told him she wasn't behind on her insurance premiums; she put $1.10 in the envelope every week.  The man said, "There's only been a dollar in the envelope each week, Mrs. Mac.  Maybe one of your children took the ten cents and used it to buy candy?"  Grandma told him, "No, none of my children would do that."

That evening Daddy got home from the movies at his normal time, only to discover his mother was already at home.  She asked him, "Did you have a good time at the movies?"  "I haven't been at the movies", he lied.  How she guessed where he had been, or if someone told on him, is a mystery.  But she said, "Well, a little bird told me they saw you at the movies".

He was nailed...a spanking would most certainly follow.  But he had to wait for Grandpa to administer it.  Waiting...it's agony...much worse than the actual spanking itself.  I am sure he didn't sleep well that night, knowing that the wrath of his Daddy must be faced.  

The next morning, nothing happened.  He went to school as usual.  But when school dismissed at 2:30 that day, Grandpa was there to meet him.  He took him by the hand and led him downtown to Greasy Corner.  Bill Whitlow was a big ruddy-complexioned man; he was the policeman who worked the beat there.  My Grandpa took Daddy up to Mr. Whitlow and said,  "Mr. Whitlow, this is my son.  We found out he's been stealing a dime each week from our insurance envelope and going to the movies.  I want you to take a good look at this boy.  If you ever see him around Greasy Corner or the moving picture show without a note of permission to be there from his Mama or me, I want you to lock him up."   

And that was the beginning--and ending--of Daddy's life of crime!

Copyright 2011 Charlotte Laney