The Loot

Again, we dodge the bullet, and wake to rain in the middle of January, following a couple of the coldest days of the year.  Odd weather to say the least, and a good thing because not having a snow thrower, I am not looking forward to the shovel.   Drove Kyle to school so he would not have to deal with the bus, in the rain, with crutches.

For those following the saga, my snow thrower is the subject of a Sears rip-off where they advertised a flat rate labor charge, only to call from the service center with a charge 3-4 times higher than their advertised $64.99.  We are not done.  Kyle, who hurt his knee, is on crutches with a sprain, and it trying to get used to navigating around.  His underarms hurt, so we adjusted the crutches and added some extra padding.

This day in history “On this day in 1950, 11 men steal more than $2 million from the Brinks Armored Car depot in Boston, Massachusetts. It was the perfect crime--almost--as the culprits weren't caught until January 1956, just days before the statute of limitations for the theft expired.”

The robbery's mastermind was Anthony "Fats" Pino, a career criminal who recruited a group of 10 other men to stake out the depot for 18 months to figure out when it held the most money. Pino's men then managed to steal plans for the depot's alarm system, returning them before anyone noticed they were gone.
Wearing navy blue coats and chauffeur's caps--similar to the Brinks employee uniforms--with rubber Halloween masks, the thieves entered the depot with copied keys, surprising and tying up several employees inside the company's counting room. Filling 14 canvas bags with cash, coins, checks and money orders--for a total weight of more than half a ton--the men were out and in their getaway car in about 30 minutes. Their haul? More than $2.7 million--the largest robbery in U.S. history up until that time.

The recent movie, “The Town” revealed that a pocket of thieves with thick Beantown accents where getting more and more brazen, and securing larger and larger hauls from their heists.  These thieves dressed up as Nuns with Guns !  Unlike the Brinks job, things went terribly wrong with bullets flying and the dead and injured scattered about town.  Guess the shooting and violence make for better Hollywood movies.

As a kid, we played cops and robbers, bad guys vs good guys and all sorts of games with toy guns, cap guns, or the ones that shot those lame little flying plungers.  Now, the toys look real, and shoot real bb’s, air soft pellets, and paint.  We opted to arm the little ones with Nerf weapons as it seemed less likely that anyone would shoot an eye out…

So right after work it was off to the eye doctor with Sue, having me be the designated driver.  Sue had her eyes dilated, and her checkup was normal, except that she could use reading glasses.  This happens as you get older (don’t tell Sue I said that).  Picked a pizza and some potato croquet from Mama Lombardi’s and will be making my way to Luke’s soccer practice.  No gym tonight, as practice is from 8-10 PM and even though I could fit it in, I could use a day off.

I may stop at the Holbrook library and see how much I owe them after putting books into the return slot a few weeks late.  Better grab a roll of nickels or dimes from the job we pulled off to pay what we owe…

Photo of the day “The Loot”