A Bad Year For Gangsters

A Bad Year For Gangsters

In the 1920s and 30s crime was keeping all law officers,  including the FBI, busy During Prohibition, bootlegging (illegally supplying alcohol) ran wild. When  the law was repealed, those  most dedicated to a life of crime turned to bank robbing.

lBy 1945  some had become notorious.Two especially bad ones were   BonnieParker and Clyde Barrow. They and their gang operated  mostly in Texas and killed nine  law officers and  a few civilians.  They were killed in Lousianna in 1934. Years after their death, they were romanticized in a ballad sung by British singer George Flake.

Charles (((Pretty Boy) Floyd was another to meet his fate in 1934, He was a back robber and  somewhat  popular with  the public because he often destroyed mortgage papers while committing the robbery.  This relieved many borrowers from further payments. He was killed in  a shootout with the FBI.

John Dillinger was also a bank robber.. His two escapes from jail made him a popular subject  for the media, In 1934 he was killed in Chicago by the FBI  after being identified by his escort who who a red  dress.

Babyface Nelson (((Lester Joseph Gillis also known as George  Nelson) got  the nickname “Babyface” because of  boyish features and small size. He was hunted as both a bank robber and murderer. His main claim to fame was his association with John Dillinger. He died in1934 in a shootout with the FBI. 

With the death of  these five  criminals, the nation felt relief, but the reign of gangsters was not over.  Ma Barker reportedly ruled her sons’ gang ruthlessly and was killed  inn 19935.  Machine Gun Kelly was still alive, but in jail  He and his gang were kidnqpers, among other crimes, and were successful in collecting ransoms from two different kidnappings.  He was captured and jailed .After 21years there, he died of a heart attack.

Congress took action in 1934 and passed the National Firearms  Act   banning machine guns  and  other firearms adapted to automatic fire.

Thanks to the Lloyd Sealy Library for furnishing this information from its records of the Great Depression.

    

Old Friends Are Like Gold....both are worth hunting for

.https://rockingwithdannie.blogspot.com/2024/06/friends-are-like-gold.html 

This sweet lady was the baby sitter for our first child...eighty years ago .She was one of six children who lived next door during  www11 and had plenty of experienced from caring for her youngest sibling,  a little  boy a few years older than our child.

When the war ended,  our families  parted, promising to stay in touch,   but failed to  do so,   as is often the case. So the years went  by and the Internet  and  Google entered my life. so did nostalgia, so I played with my new tools and began a search for anyone with their last name. And I found someone, ‘way up north, the oldest daughter of the family, now listed as the spouse of a fellow with the winning horse in a notable horse show  She had married the ensign she was dating while we were neighbored–a nice ending to a wartime romance.

Further googling took me to my long ago baby sitter,  all grown up with five daughters and living  in  California.     Several phone conversations  folowed as we shared the years gone by.

Another high point was getting to visit with Alice and Louis, her parents and our good neighbor of long ago, at their 50th wedding celebration. 

I love Google.

                

,

Bees,  Kids and a Tub 

 

This old tub survived years of washdays on the farm and finally retired to the barn. Years later it  moved to the city where it ended up in my back yard. It lay there for years, upside down so it wouldn’t catch rainwater and become a haven for mosquitos.

Then one year the back yard  was chosen for the annual Easter egg hunt. When the youngsters  were turned loose to hunt the hidden eggs they rushed to all the most likely places before spying the old tub lying nearby, slightly tilted with one edge a few inches off the ground.

The little egg hunters rushed in a  herd to the tub. When someone lifted it there were no eggs– instead a hive of angry honey bees.  The kids learned their little legs couldn't outrun an angry bee and got a few stings. All were soon forgotten as the hunt for more eggs  continued. The bees quickly regrouped into a tight swarm  and left to form another hive in a safer place. 

Bees are important pollinators and today they are in trouble because of something called hive collapse.The cause is unknown, but a widely used insecticide is suspected. Can we help? Maybe. Buying organic fruits and  vegatables could help, but the price is often prohibitive. Another way is to contact your congressperson. We  can also encourage the growth of wild flowers such as blue bonnets, cone flowers, sunflowers and goldenrod.. Also lantana, butterfly weed and redbud,  to name a few.  The bee requires a balanced  diet just as we humans do.

Assuming that you’ve forgotten your nigh school biology just as I have,  the  hive consist of three classes of bees: the queen, whose only duty is to lay eggs, the male bees called drones and the worker bees, all female. Besides foraging for pollen which they carry home in little  baskets on their legs, and nectar  which is carried in special glans, sometimes making ten  trips daily, these little females also serve as guards at the hive’s entrance and have hive  cleaning duties. It’s no surprise the  they seldom live longer  than six months.

The more I learn about a hive’s society the more  I  admire  the little  bee–.even its grim custom of  forcing the drones out of the hive when cold weather arrives.