Imagine just simply taking something because you wanted it or it was left within arms reach and you could just reach out your hand, wrap your itching fingers around the thing, clutch and then slide the item right into your pocket?
Imagine just walking into bank, shooting off a couple of rounds of exploding, raucous bullets, presenting a formidable figure with legs spread apart, rifle in the crook of your arm, a jaunty smile or your seriously cute face and demanding:
"Everyone hit the floor! This is a stickup!"
Imagine.....
Knowing...
Just knowing that you are the one in complete control of that bank full of townsfolk. That they all know your name and fear you.... that you hold their very lives in the palm of your hand to do with as you wish...
Knowing without a shadow of a doubt that you would walk out of that building with a big cotton sack stuffed with bills and coins and that nobody would even dream of lifting a finger to stop you...
Knowing that your honey lady was waiting....
Gunning the motor of the last car you stole in the last town, just after the last bank job...
Knowing that when you reached that car with your sack stuffed full of bills and coins and that when you jumped onto the conveniently wide running boards that your honey lady would pull the clutch and that the shiny black Ford would successfully screech away from the scene of the crime and barrel off down some country road to oblivion and safety...
Knowing that there were a hundred other Fords just like this shiny black one in the country and that the cops wouldn't really know which one was yours and which one was not....
...And having the balls to write the man who built the shiny black Ford to tell him how happy you were with his product....
I will type here what this letter says verbatim, just in case you can't read the writing:
Tulsa Okla
10th April
Detroit Mich.
Dear Sir,
While I still have got
breath in my lungs I
will tell you what a dandy
car you make. I have drove
Fords exclusivly when I could
get away with one. For sustained
speed and freedom from
trouble the Ford has got ever
other car skinned and even if
my business hasn't been
strickly legal it don't hurt any
thing to tell you what a fine
car you got in the V-8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow
This letter is stamped as received on April 13 in 1934 and is on display at the Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michigan.
Who says there isn't honor among thieves?
I wonder if they would have ever thought they'd make it to a museum?
This photograph of the letter was shot with my Nikon P-90 digital camera and downloaded directly from the camera and then to this blog. My aim is to take my reader along with me on the journey, so although I am aware of my framing of the shot, content and quality, I am most interested in sharing the experience.
6 comments:
Oh, wow! What an endorsement! I never had given thought to what kind of a car they drove for those robberies! Great find, Lucy! Thanks for sharing!
ha. a crook with some class...smiles.
Somehow I don't think Ford will ever use that letter in an advertising campaign but it is VERY cool. I had no idea something like this even existed. Very cool.
jj
I can see the new ad campaign now. I am surprised they haven't used it. I wonder if he wrote to the Remington gun makers too. Lol.
I learn something new each day! Thanks for the mini history lesson, Lucy!
Wow, that is so interesting. He certainly was a man who took risks and had the guts to brag about it.
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