Canthook

I have a cousin named Errol.

He was named for Errol Flynn, the movie actor. He was the ultimate, when it came to fighting with a sword, starring as a sailor fighting off pirates. He set the standard by which all other Robin Hoods fall short. And he was a rascal.

In November 1942, Errol was accused of statutory rape by two girls. He was tried and found not guilty in February 1943. Decades later, it turned out that the girls were paid by a studio to make those allegations, as a ploy to drive down salary demands.

My cousin, however, was born and named after the rape charges were made public, before the trial.

The Dillinger Legend

John Dillinger robbed banks in the 1930s. When I read about him, I was fascinated, because they happened all around me. If you plot all the events on a map, you end up with, roughly speaking, a circle, with all the crimes on the rim, and none at the hub. That sounds awfully suspicious, doesn't it?

I don't know if it's still true, but a few years ago, the question most often asked of guards at the Smithsonian Institute was where the Dillinger exhibit was found. The story that went around was that when Dillinger was autopsied, a certain part of his anatomy was sent to the Smithsonian.

Wikipedia, that great fount of misinformation, reports that legends that Dillinger was particularly well-endowed arose when the photograph of his corpse showed a bulge caused by his arm, stiff from rigor mortis, covered with a sheet. The problem arises, though, that stories of his anatomy existed years before he died, according to those in my home community. The Smithsonian Institution claims that they don't have that particular artifact - but they also admit that their collection is so vast that nobody knows what all they have.

Little Miss Palin

On the 18th, Bristol Palin gave her first interview since the presidential campaign was over. She said that abstinence-only is an unrealistic means of birth control for teenaged girls, leaving open the possibility that it might work for, oh, I don't know, perhaps for nuns in their 80s. Statistically speaking, of course, couples that rely on abstinence as their primary means of birth control have more babies than those who choose any other form of birth control, including making no plans at all.

I'll not criticize Ms. Palin at all. The problem is that every generation seems to think that they invented sex. Years ago, I mentioned to Mama that I'd recently read different articles asserting that The Pill was responsible for the sexual revolution, and asserting that WWII was responsible, and asserting that the rumble seat was responsible. Mama laughed. "There were bundling boards before there were rumble seats. Nothing changed."

"Officially, the idea of a bundling board was that it turned one bed into two, and it was not scandalous that a young couple would share a bed when he couldn't get home at night. You think the bundling board actually stopped anything?"

"Every generation thinks it invented sex, and thus every generation thinks it can keep the following generation ignorant. The sexual revolution wasn't about having sex outside of marriage, it was about admitting to sex outside marriage."

According To A Friend Of A Friend

John Dillinger not only had a large, uh, anatomy, according to Mama, but he cut a wide swath. He was rather attractive, and dashing and daring, and among Mama's friends, the story was that someone claimed to have romanced him - and that the other girls were jealous. "Women want pretty babies, and they hope their sons grow up to be brave and strong, and romantic, and their daughters capable of attracting brave, strong, and romantic men."

And she wasn't just talking about single girls wanting John Dillinger's babies, but married women, quite willing to step out on their husbands, and bring home the bacon he couldn't deliver.

Nobody every thought cousin Errol was illegitimate. Shortly before his mother got pregnant, they had an archery contest at the fairgrounds, and her husband managed to win it. His friends, and hers as well, took to calling him Robin Hood, and well, Robin seemed a little effeminant for her son, but Errol sure didn't.

This All Got Started

This all got started, this talk about Dillinger, with a discussion of the current economy. Blondie and I were watching some news program, and a pundit was talking about similarities to the depression. The GOP talks about "nationalizing" banks and how it would be so horrible, and this pundit pointed out that most banks already say "National Bank of Something", and argued the FDIC amounted to making us partners in the Nation's banks. The only difference, he said, was that these days, instead of the guy tying Nell to the railroad tracks being a bad guy, it was a government employee.

We need to get the banks to start lending again, and FDR restored faith in the banks by closing all the banks when he took office; not all of them reopened, but the banks that reopened, people had faith in. Obama hasn't done that, but the problem isn't that people don't trust banks, and are keeping their money under their mattresses, it's that banks don't trust people, and are keeping their money in their vaults. FDIC solved the first problem, but can't do a thing about the second.

The Penny Auction

In the 1930s, there were a lot of farms foreclosed. Commodity prices had really fallen, and instead of amortizing a mortgage over 30 years, mortgages were due in full every year. You'd go in to see the banker, pay off the interest, and pay some on the principal, and he'd roll over the note. Unless, of course, he didn't think it was a good loan, in which case, Nell got tied to the railroad tracks. (No, I'm not sure why she got tied to the railroad tracks. That part was always unclear to me.)

When the sheriff would have the sale, sometimes, the friends and neighbors would figure that someone was getting screwed. They'd lived there for year, kept paying the mortgage down, and it wasn't right that they should lose their farm - and home - because of a year with lousy harvests and lousier prices. They'd crowd in together, keeping the strangers from getting near the sheriff, and the only bids that would be received would be pennies on the dollars. The neighbors would then chip in pocket change to make up the bid, pay off the sheriff, and then deed over the farm back to the family that had been living there.

Thirty Years Ago, History Repeats Itself

In the 1970s, the stock market was down and land prices were up, scandalously so. There's nothing like a funeral to bring a family together and tear it apart.

The will made some sense in the 1950s. The estate was to be divided evenly, with the sons getting the land, and the daughters getting the other assets. The other assets weren't worth much, though, and the land was worth a fortune. I'd never seen them when they weren't dressed like bums, but their land, well, their land was worth millions.

There was some grumbling over the will in the first place. There was no way to give the daughters an aliquot if all the land went to the sons, but things really exploded when the telephone disappeared.

Hello, Central?

There was a crank telephone on the wall, been there since the 1930s, probably, although it had been disconnected when dial telephones came in. And someone let themselves into the house and took that phone. Everybody was sure it was Henry, a son-in-law, but nobody was admitting anything, and everybody was denying knowledge.

All of a sudden, accusations were flying, and instead of using an appraisal from a local lawyer, they had to call in an appraiser from a hundred miles away, someone who knew nobody and could be fair. His appraisal of the estate was three times as high; the IRS was sure going to make a bundle on that stolen telephone. And they needed to sell off everything at auction in order to be able to pay the taxes.

They didn't crowd together

The Williams place was the first place to go on the block. Land was going for $3,000 an acre, and Cass Williams knew they couldn't afford that. Earl, the auctioneer, climbed up on the hay wagon at the head of the barnyard, and started romancing the farm. "You all know Bill and Cass Williams. Lived here since 1936, and they've taken very good care of this property. You all know what it's worth. Now, let's have a fair auction, and someone's going to have themselves a pretty fair bargain this afternoon."

There were 150 people in the barnyard, a fairly good crowd, and it included all the big farmers nearby, and the big land investors. You could tell they were hungry to buy; the saliva was spilling out of their mouths. It wasn't saliva that was spilling out of Earl's mouth; it was tobacco juice. "Now let's hear an opening bid."

Cass was inside the house, almost bent over with stomach cramps. She was crying so hard, you'd think the carpet would start making sqoosh noises when people walked by. Bill Williams was in the center of the barnyard, and he had a couple of kids hanging on to him, both of them crying as well. He raised his arm. "I'll bid $2,000 an acre."

Was He Serious?

Could he possibly think that bid would last? Land was going 50% higher than that. But Earl kept pleading with the crowd for additional bids, and nobody was willing to open the gate. Nobody wanted to be known as the man who'd tied Cass Williams to the railroad tracks. The bid stood.

They move over to the place where Dave Williams lived and farmed. It was the same scene. Nobody would put Dave and Semla out of their home either, if they were willing to pay $2,000/acre for it.

Then it was the Kwascigroh place. Nobody lived on this farm, although Bill Williams farmed it. The bidding was fast and animated. It went for $3,420/acre.

Then The Master Farmstead

The old homestead was in the next township. It took about 45 minutes to pull the hay wagon there, so they took a two hour break, and everybody headed to town to eat.

The daughters were livid. They'd been cheated, cheated, because nobody would bid against those $2,000 offers. Those farms should have sold for $3,400 or $3,600 an acre. Cass and Selma were both relieved, but Cass wasn't feeling well. Her daughter insisted that Cass take a heart pill and take a nap. She laid down, and tossed and turned, so agitated that she couldn't relax, even though the sale was over and Bill had won the auction.

At 2 PM, the Bidding Resumed

The land at the master farmstead wasn't very good. It was not as fertile, and it was poorly drained. The bidding started at $2,400 and quickly rose to $3,350, then stalled. Earl announced that Henry had won the auction.

"Not me," he proclaimed! He insisted he hadn't bid at all. I'd seen him make three bids, and I wasn't the only one. Apparently, he was trying to shill. That's not illegal, as long as you're willing to buy whatever you might get stuck with. Otherwise, it's a felony. The crowd hooted at him. Earl talked with the executor of the estate, and they decided that it was better to auction the place again rather than sue Henry, forcing him to buy land he couldn't afford.

The second time through, the land started at $1,500. At that price, Bill Williams thought he could get a mortgage on the land. The price rose, slowly, haltingly, until it settled at $2,270. Some guy in town, a restaurant owner with a couple of horses, bought it.

The Rest Of The Story

There was enough money from the inheritance that Bill Williams got his farm, mortgage free, with a little money to spare. Dave Williams had to fork over some money, but the bank was happy to make him a mortgage, and he paid it off in five years. Land prices fell, and the guy who bought the Kwascigroh place couldn't make the payments; it ended up being owned by some insurance company. The house at the master farmstead was a hovel, and the restaurateur looked at the cost of rebuilding the house, and building some corrals, and pasture. He decided to go ahead, but a month later, he had died of a heart attack, and his widow decided to sell the farm. Turned a little profit on it, too.

Earl hadn't been auctioneering very long, maybe five years, and he'd been coming on strong, getting more and more of the auction business, but all of a sudden, people stopped going to him for auctions. Henry and his wife sold their property and moved to Florida, where he managed to lose everything over the course of a year, betting on dog track racing. Last I knew, he was working a minimum wage job, greeting people at a discount store, and living in a rented mobile home.

If you're trying to figure a way out of this recession, I wouldn't count on penny auctions as being a lifesaver. At the age of 31, John Dillinger was spotted inside the Biograph theater in Lincoln Park, and rather than capture him and allow him to stand trial, Melvin Purvis, J. Edgar Hoover's homosexual boyfriend, murdered him.

On the other hand, if there's a choice between being loved and beloved and dying at the age of 31 with a reputation as a great lover, or prancing around in a dress and high heels with J. Edgar Hoover, I'm not so sure Dillinger didn't get the better of that deal. Errol Flynn, on the other hand, lived to be 50.

"All great men," Mama used to say, "are dead or dying, and I'm not feeling so great myself." She died 15 years ago, and as for me, I'm not buying any green bananas.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Bristol Palin - bundling board - crank telephone - Errol Flynn - J. Edgar Hoover - John Dillinger - Melvis Purvis - penny auction - Robin Hood - Smithsonian Institute