The Gang's All Here

Kate "Ma" Barker was famous for heading up her family business; mostly kidnapping, the occasional bank robbery, some protection rackets. Then she teamed up with Alvin "Creepy" Karpis in Saint Paul. The Barker-Karpis gang terrorized the capitol city for a few years. On this day in 1933, the gang robbed the offices of the Swift meat packing company in South Saint Paul, grabbing $30,000.00 in payroll cash and assorted cold cuts.

St. Paul was known as a haven for gangsters in 1920s. The mayor and police chief had a gentleman's agreement with mobsters: the gangs from Chicago and St. Louis and Kansas City could hang out in St. Paul as long as they paid a token bribe to city officials and promised not to cause too much trouble. It worked for a while, but after the Swift robbery the gang felt some heat and moved to Wisconsin, where they presumably stole cheese to go with the meats.

Here's a cute song about stealing, followed by a Brautigan poem on the same theme. It's especially appropriate because the new school year starts in a week or so and right after that our little town holds its annual celebration called (clumsily) "The Defeat of Jesse James Days'"

The memoirs of Jesse James
-- Richard Brautigan

I remember all those thousands of hours
that I spent in grade school watching the clock,
waiting for recess or lunch or to go home.
Waiting: for anything but school.
My teachers could easily have ridden with Jesse James
for all the time they stole from me.