- You are so young you don’t know what the heck I am talking about when I peck out “Banker’s Hours”.
- You are so old (like me) that you once knew what “Banker’s Hours” meant but you have forgotten what “Banker’s Hours” (and a lot of other stuff) means.
Banker’s Hours goes
back to a time when banks were housed in Large Stone
Block Buildings. This was done to convey to their customers that their
money was being kept in a Large Well-Built Secure Building.
Almost as importantly, it was done so people who did not have any money in the
bank would want to put their money in the bank when they got some money to put
in a bank because it was a Large Well-Built Secure Building.
Then things started to change. Banks started popping up in
once vacant lots housed in trailers with the wheels removed and offering
toasters as a reward for putting your money in their flimsy bank. The wheels
had been removed to convey stability to present and future bank customers.
Customers looked at the Banking Trailer with the Wheels Removed and said to
themselves, “Well, that’s not as confidence building as a Large Stone Block
Building but the absence of wheels does fill me with confidence that my life-long
savings will be safe in there and everyone needs an extra toaster because next
time someone I know gets married I have a toaster to give to him/her”.
------------
Back in the old days described above, banks were only open
from 9am to 2pm. Did you just say, “What! Why did they only open 5 hours a day?
That’s crazy!” The Banking Industry had very good reasons for their Short
Workday…
· They
had lots of administrative chores they needed to get done before they could go
home.
· Banker
people today have lots of Apps to help them get through the day. In the old
days there were no Apps, so they needed to get started on all the things that
Apps would have done for them if there had been Apps. I can almost hear them mumbling
to themselves, “I wish I had an App for this!”
· Since
they only worked 5 hours there was not enough time to sharpen their pencils, so
they sharpened their pencils for the next workday before they went home. They
could not put pencil sharpening off till the next morning because they had to
get coffee before they started working the next morning.
· They
had to pick up all the coins that they had dropped on the floor each day.
· A
short workday offered less hours of bank robbing opportunity for bank robbers
to rob banks.
Bank Robbing used to be Big Business. Stop and think about
it. How many famous modern day bank robbers can you name? Hardly any right?
Back in the old days bank robbing was a popular way to make a living…
- John Dillinger (Vicious Bank Robber)
- Baby Face Nelson (Notorious Criminal with a Small Face)
- Pretty Boy Floyd (Notorious Criminal with a Pretty Face)
- Machine Gun Kelly (Flamboyant Criminal)
- Jesse James (Civil War Bandit)
- Sundance Kid (Harry Longabaugh)
- Butch Cassidy…Butch Cassidy's first criminal offense was minor. Around 1880 he journeyed to a clothier shop in another town but found it closed. He broke into the shop and stole a pair of jeans and some pie, leaving an IOU promising to pay on his next visit.
- Willie the Actor Sutton
************
Willie the Actor Sutton (years ago I read Willie’s autobiography) was a very interesting Bank Robber and most of the rest of this Blog Posting will be Copy & Paste from what others and him have written about him.
You might think this Blog is getting too long but actually
you ought to thank me because I have shortened it quite q bit.
Willie Sutton
From
Wikipedia
- William Francis Sutton Jr. was an American bank robber.
- During his forty-year robbery career he stole an estimated $2 million.
- He spent more than half of his adult life in prison.
- He escaped from prison three times.
- For his talent at executing robberies in disguises, he gained two nicknames, "Willie the Actor" and "Slick Willie".
Early life
- He was born in Irishtown, Brooklyn.
- He did not attend school after the 8th grade.
Career In Crime
- He became a criminal at an early age.
- He was an accomplished bank robber.
- Throughout his long professional criminal career, he did not kill anyone.
- He dispensed mounds of legal advice to any convict willing to listen.
- Inmates considered him a "wise old head".
- When incarcerated at "The Tombs" (Manhattan House of Detention) he did not have to worry about assault because Mafia friends protected him.
- Gangsters and many incarcerated organized crime inmates, enjoyed having him for companionship.
- He was witty and non-violent.
- He usually carried a pistol or a Thompson submachine gun.
- He once observed, "You can't rob a bank on charm and personality".
- In an interview in the Reader's Digest, he was asked if the guns that he used in his robberies were loaded. He responded that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt.
- He stole from the rich and kept it.
- He was captured and recommitted in June 1931, charged with assault and robbery.
- He failed to complete his 30-year sentence, however, escaping on December 11, 1932, using a smuggled gun and holding a prison guard hostage.
- With the guard as leverage, Sutton acquired a 45-ft ladder to scale the 30-ft wall of the prison grounds.
- On February 15, 1933, Sutton attempted to rob the Corn Exchange Bank and Trust Company in Philadelphia.
- He came in disguised as a postman, but an alert passerby foiled the crime but he escaped.
- On January 15, 1934, he and two companions broke into the same bank through a skylight.
- He conducted a Broadway jewelry store robbery in broad daylight, impersonating a postal telegraph messenger.
- His other disguises included a police officer, messenger and maintenance man.
- He was apprehended on February 5, 1934, and was sentenced to serve 25 to 50 years in the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia for the machine gun robbery of the Corn Exchange Bank.
- On April 3, 1945, he was one of 12 convicts who escaped the institution through a tunnel.
- The convicts broke through to the other side during daylight hours and were spotted immediately by a passing police patrol.
- The 12 men were forced to quickly flee the scene, with all being quickly apprehended.
- He was recaptured the same day by a Philadelphia police officer.
- Sentenced to life imprisonment as a fourth time offender, Sutton was transferred to the Philadelphia County Prison in Pennsylvania.
- On February 10, 1947, he and other prisoners dressed as prison guards carried two ladders across the prison yard to the wall after dark.
- When the prison's searchlights hit him, Sutton yelled, "It's all right” and no one stopped him.
- During February 1952, Sutton was captured by police after having been recognized on a subway and followed by Arnold Schuster, a 24-year-old Brooklyn clothing salesman and amateur detective.
- Schuster later appeared on television and described how he had assisted in Sutton's apprehension.
- Albert Anastasia, Mafia boss of the Gambino crime family, disliked Schuster because he was a "rat" and a "squealer."
- Anastasia ordered the murder of Schuster, who was then shot dead outside his home.
- Judge Peter T. Farrell presided over a 1952 trial in which Sutton was convicted of the 1950 robbery of $63,942 (equal to $835,668 presently) from a bank of the Manufacturers Trust Company in Queens.
- He received a sentence of 30 to 120 years in Attica State Prison.
- While in prison, he wrote "I, Willie Sutton", a book about his life and career.
- In December of 1969, Judge Farrell ruled that Sutton's good behavior, along with his deteriorating health, justified commuting his sentence to time served.
- At the hearing he responded, "Thank you, your Honor. God bless you," and wept as he was led out of the court building.
- In 1976, he published his second book, “Where the Money Was”.
- After his release, Sutton delivered lectures on prison reform and consulted with banks on theft-deterrent techniques.
- He made a television commercial for New Britain Bank and Trust Company in Connecticut for their credit card with picture identification on it.
- His lines were, "They call it the face card. Now when I say I'm Willie Sutton, people believe me”.
A famous apocryphal story is that Sutton was asked by a reporter
why he robbed banks. According to the reporter, he replied, "Because
that's where the money is". The quote evolved into Sutton's
law,
which is often invoked to medical students as a metaphor for emphasizing the
most likely diagnosis, rather than wasting time and money investigating every
conceivable possibility.
In his autobiography, Sutton denied originating the pithy
rejoinder…
“The irony of using a bank robber's maxim as an instrument
for teaching medicine is compounded, I will now confess, by the fact that I
never said it. The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently
felt a need to fill out his copy. I can't even remember where I first read it.
It just seemed to appear one day, and then it was everywhere. If anybody had
asked me, I'd have probably said it. That's what almost anybody would say ...
it couldn't be more obvious.”
However, he also said:
"Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I
was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in
my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I'd
be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that's all".
Would you have loved to buy him a beer just listen to him tell stories. I know I would.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe: At the top of this Foolishness, I said I was a Professional Blogger. Are not Professionals supposed to get paid? Why don't I get money for my Blog? I don't. Not only do I not get paid but I am reduced to giving away copies of my Little Read Book. Oh well, that's what I get for Self-Publishing my book. Once you run out of relatives and friends your sales dry up. If I had known I needed more friends to buy my book, I would have been nicer to people.
If you feel sorry for me, go to Amazon and BUY A COPY or two. Or wait me out and I will probably give you a copy or two.
