Grand Theft Pocketbook & The Fat-Lady Exposée

I turned to a life of crime during my grade school years. (No, that is not a mug shot. It is my official Fifth Grade Photo.)

One day I desired something so necessary for me to have that I can’t even remember what it was. I had no money, but knew where to get some. My mother’s pocketbook was sitting on the dresser in her bedroom and she was elsewhere.

Breaking into Mama’s Purse Bank & Trust was not difficult. I unsnapped a latch, threw back a flap and was in the vault. I didn’t take any paper money, bills being too easily missed. I fished about in the dark recesses of the bag and scooped out a fistful of loose change. It was enough and she would never notice.

I closed her purse and headed downtown with my loot.

Guilt quickly overtook me. I was like the killer in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. I didn’t hear a heartbeat, but I could hear the money clink, or thought I could. Clink-clink-clink! I could definitely feel it in my hand. Clink-clink-clink! My palm began to sweat.

By the time I reached the little street that connected Millrace Alley and Lancaster Avenue I was a basket case of regret. Tears were streaming down my face. I was so ashamed of what I had done I threw my handful of pilfered coins as far down that little alleyway as I could. I was Judas throwing the blood money into the Temple. I didn’t run to the park and hang myself, of course. I ran home to my bedroom where I cried a bit longer.

I don’t know why I threw the money away. I could have taken it home and snuck it back into her purse. I was just so overwhelmed with guilt I had to get rid of it.

As I originally suspected, my theft went undetected. I never heard anything about any missing coins. The experience ended any thought I had of stealing again. Well almost, until another of the Seven Deadly Sins enticed me into shoplifting, but that comes later.

I was a rather hopelessly honest person. (I still am.) It was a good thing I was because I was getting opportunities that less honest people would have welcomed. I would buy a comic book, get home, and find a different comic book I wasn’t charged for had stuck to the back of the first and the clerk at Newberry’s hadn’t noticed. Oh goody, I got a free comic book! But I didn’t keep it. I walked back to the five and dime and returned it, explaining what happened.

What a good boy am I, I thought.

“What a good boy are you,” they would say.

If I received too much change I would point it out. One time at Hutchison’s Drug Store I got change back of four dollars and some cents, when I had only handed the clerk a dollar. I said, “You gave me the wrong change.”

The cashier got angry. “I gave you the right change. Go on, don’t try pullin’ that.”

I kept insisting and he kept getting nastier about it. Finally he realized what I was saying and he apologized. He told me I was an honest kid and he gave me a quarter for being so. See, honesty does pay. (I can hear the cynic say, “Yeah, but you could have had four dollars and change. That cynic is probably a Congressman today.)

I had more than one argument about such under charging. Cashier’s always assumed you were claiming they shortchanged you. None would believe you didn’t just pocket the money if they handed back too mich.

I even went back to places at times because they simply forgot to charge me at all. For instance, there was a little eatery in the center of town called Sweetland Candy Co., although I always knew it as just plain Sweetland. They sold ice cream and sodas as well as candy. There was a fountain with stools and in the middle of the floor were some tables and chairs. I ate in there with three friends one day on the way home from school and when the waitress brought the checks everyone got a chit but me. They paid and we all walked out. The next day I went back, told the person at the register what I had the day before and paid.

I could be loudly honest in my observation at times. Do you recall my comment about being  in the shoemaker's when a man with the large birthmark over half his face walked in? I made such a faux pas again while with my mother and grandmother on a shopping trip. There was a pregnant woman in the store and I said to my mom…no, I shouted to my mom, “Look at that fat

lady.”

(Right: A “fat lady”, C. 1950s – “I Love Lucy”.)

It would have been worst if it was a fat lady in my opinion, but my mother was deeply embarrassed. She apologized to the lady. The upshot of my brutal “calling ‘em as I see ‘em” was I learned a little about the birds and the bees; maybe just the birds.

People pretended S-E-X didn’t exist in the 1950s. The “Fat Lady” obviously proved it did. My mother felt the need to clarify when fat wasn’t fat since one shouldn’t speak of such things in public. She sat me down at home, but she didn’t give me “The Talk”. She gave me half the loaf.

“That woman wasn’t fat,” she explained, “she was going to have a baby.”

“Huh?”

“You see,” she went on, “women have the baby inside their belly and after it gets big enough it comes out and that’s how you are born.”

Now I had a secret a lot of my peers didn’t. When we were babies we were inside our mommy’s belly. If I asked any questions, she didn’t answer them, but I don’t think I asked anything. I took her at her word. I guess I thought when a woman decided she wanted to be a mommy she simply wished it in her mind and it happened. That made more sense than that stork business.

She didn’t tell me how the baby got inside. She didn’t tell me that daddies had any role to play in this. She didn’t tell me how the babies got out. I figured they must come out the rectum as gross as that sounded. That’s the problem with knowing a little, you begin to speculate and usually get things wrong. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Her not explaining more did not prepare me for what my body was going to do a couple years later, and I could have used that knowledge.
She did tell me not to tell anybody about where babies were before they were babies.

After my mom's little talk I began wondering what was different about boys and girls “down there”. My mother was very clear that only women grew babies inside, so that was one difference.

I played with a number of girls who were somewhat Tomboys, but still there were some differences. Girls had longer hair. Girls wore dresses and boys wore pants (see photo left of Patty Lilly with me and her little brother, 1950, she with long hair and a dress). But those were differences I could see. So why did teachers get upset if a girl hung by her legs from the Jungle Gym and her dress fell down over her head? And why would seeing a girl’s underpants cause us boys to point and giggle?

 For that matter, how come there was a Boy’s Room and a Girl’s Room? Was there something under my clothes associated with going to the bathroom that girls should not see and vice versa?

This was a riddle to me.

In fact, there was a riddle going around the playground at the time. “Why is a fire truck red?”

 “You’d be red too if you went around with your hose hanging out.” (Snicker, snicker!)

Except, I didn’t snicker because I didn’t get it. That is how naïve and ignorant I was about my body when I was 10. If I was in the dark about the functions of my own body, I was really deep in a cave about those of the female. Someday I would understand my grandfather’s joke about the “two Band-Aids and a cork” and the “hose hanging out” riddle, but not yet.

Why did I feet a tension whenever around a girl? Why did I want to be near Mary Jane Chudleigh so much? Why did I smile when she let me put my arm around her? Why did I look at her and feel my heart beat faster? I didn’t feel these things with my male friends. I didn’t want to put my arm around Stuart. My heart didn’t beat faster when Ronald entered the room.

It was going to be a long journey before I understood the why. It was going to be a harmful one as well because mother gave me less than half the story. I would have to learn the other half the hard way.

Back to the Good Ol' Days of Cash

This is a sad post to write because it carries with it a lost of trust in places I want to trust.

I check my balances every day. This morning I checked the balance in a credit card account of mine and the first odd thing was the balance was over the limit. Now I knew I was near the limit, but didn't think I had made any purchases that would pull it over.

I opened the detail and right at the top of the list were three strange transactions. Each had the same date and each was paid to the same name, Sunshine something or other. Miami appeared at the end of the name. Two transactions were for $100 and the other was $87 and change. I knew this was nothing I bought.

Although it was only around six o'clock in the morning I immediately called the card company and very quickly was actually speaking to a real person. I told them of the three suspicious entries, which they could see on their computer. She told me they were from a gas station. I never heard of Sunshine Gas Station. I told her it said something about Miami and she said this was the home company headquarters.

They put a hot stop on the card, closed my account for my security and issued me a new card. Of course it will take 10 business days to receive my new card. She told me the Fraud Division would investigate the transactions and look at video in hopes of identifying the crooks.

This does not make one feel very secure and there is also some inconvenience involved. At least I won't lose the money. However, that matter of trust  is going to be hard to overcome.

You see, it is a matter of what I use this card for. I am a Senior on Social Security. Social Security does not pay you on a date certain. It pays you on a day, such as the fourth Wednesday of the month. This creates a cash flow problem. The fourth Wednesday can float almost a week from month to month. The fourth Wednesday can be as early as the 22 if the first Wednesday of a month is the 1, but shift one day and have Thursday be the first and your check won't come until the 28th.

However, one's bill tend to be pinned to a specific date and they don't float.

This would not be a problem except my wife and I eat out often. This was causing me a cash flow problem and I would have to take money from other accounts now and again to keep in the black. Then one day I got smart. If I pay for the meals with this credit card, I can pay the total amount at a set date when I know I have the money and the cash flow problem is solved.

But now I have that trust problem. You see, I generally only use this card to pay for our restaurant meals and we tend to only go to a couple of regular dining spots. So, how did these crooks get my card number? As much as I hate to think that there was someone dishonest on the staff of one of these restaurants where we have eaten for years, it is possible and also a common ruse. After all, at a restaurant the wait person takes your card out of your sight when you pay your chit. It would be easy to write down the number and security code during this absence from your sight. Also, someone could have a small scanner in their pocket and simply swipe your card and record the data.

Now we did have an odd thing this past week. Last Thursday we went out to our favorite spot. While we were there a vicious thunderstorm struck the area. The lights went out in the restaurant for a brief time. All the TVs lost their feeds and for a bit their computers were down. When we came to paying for the meal we were told by the wait person that they had lost the Internet. They would have to write my information. This was on July 3. The transaction date of the fraudulent transactions was July 5. I do not want to accuse anyone or anyplace, so maybe this was mere coincidence.

A few days later, just to add to the oddity, I received a call from the card company's fraud department to verify recent transitions. The ones they gave me when I asked were of this restaurant and correct amounts. I thought maybe the call was triggered by the charge from there coming in on a written format rather than electronically. I wonder about the coincidence of that call as well.

At any rate, now having lost trust in my dining institutions I am falling back to the good ol' days when I was young. I will carry cash and pay with cash rather than chance anymore credit card shenanigans. It's sad to say we come to this, but we have.

50 Years Ago Today: Reflections on a Friday

November 22, 2013, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. This piece was written the evening of November 22, 1963. It describes that afternoon when we learned of this. John Kennedy had been President for less than three years at that time and was concerned about the election year coming up. When you read the article keep in mind that JFK was not liked by everyone, in fact, it was not at all certain he would win re-election in 1964. Don't be shocked that there was joking and even expressions by some of being glad this happened. This is not a fiction, but simply a recording of what occurred when the news came in to the office here I worked and the reactions of those around me.

REFLECTIONS ON A FRIDAY

November 22, 1963, Malvern, Pa.

         Lunchtime, I sat at my desk with the Philadelphia Daily News across its top. The headline read

“Baker’s Pal’s Widow Denies Suicide Link.” A picture of a woman was on the left.  On the right was one of Jackie Kennedy, with the President standing just behind her. She was speaking in Houston, Texas.

One o’clock, and I was supposed to be back on the job, but I went out to cash my paycheck and do a little shopping with my friend, Dave Claypoole, and was late to eat. I skipped the news and turned to the editorial page to read the letters. Even the usual crackpot letters were dull. I flipped further back and read the comics. My lunch was finished so I stuffed the paper into a drawer, put my empty soda bottle in the wastebasket and returned to sorting the index cards I had been working on before lunch.

As I sorted, a simple matter of putting them in numerical order, I planned for the coming weekend.  First, we would get groceries. Then I would get a haircut while my wife, Lois Jean, shopped. Saturday I would get up early to change a bad tire on our car and then I would take Lois Jean bowling. In the evening we would go to a drive-in movie. Sunday I hoped to get my studies finished and work on a story I was writing.

As I outlined my weekend, time was flying on its way through the afternoon. I was tired of looking at numbers and glanced at the wall clock. It was eleven minutes until two o’clock. At almost the same moment, Bob Keifer, a fellow worker, came by my desk. We had become good friends during the year and he often stopped at my desk with a new joke.

“Did you hear? They shot Kennedy.”

I waved away his joke with my hand. “Aw, come on, Bob.”

But he circled around to the side of my desk. “I’m not kidding.” He had a strange smile on his face

 So I still didn’t believe him.

“They’ve shot Kennedy. If you don’t believe me, ask Bill.”

I decided to take him up on this dare. Bill Mayberry was fanatical about John F. Kennedy. He had worked as a volunteer for Kennedy during the election and he never ceased praising the President. He had a large picture of Kennedy taped to his desk and a habit of whistling, “Hail to the Chief”.

“That’s Jack’s favorite song,” he would tell us.

I walked briskly, although not with urgency, toward the front of the mailroom where Bill had his desk. Before I reached him, I overheard a conversation between two mail boys. I did not catch the actual words, but I did hear something about the President and a shooting.

Now I could see Mayberry. He was sitting still with an expression as if his brain had short-circuited. I wanted to know what had happened, but I could not approach Bill after seeing his face. I went over to the mail boys. I did not notice who was saying what.  It was a jumbled, boiling conversation. Much of the afternoon was that way.

Sometime in this same general period, covering three minutes perhaps, the mail truck returned from a trip around the company offices. It passed by me.

“Is he dead?” somebody asked.

“I heard he was in serious condition,” said a voice behind the truck.

Bill stood and moved into the open area of the room. He was shaking his head slowly. He might have said something. I don’t recall if he did.

Someone else was speaking.

“I hear he’s dead. And his wife and some governor are in critical condition.”

I turned toward the sound, never seeing who was speaking. I asked, “They got his wife?” I felt a quick shiver in my backbone.

“That’s what I heard,” said a voice.

“I heard they missed him,” said another unseen. Voices were in the air, like spirits come to confuse mortal men.

A new mail boy named Jim Curtain entered the room, chattering like a small boy announcing information he isn’t supposed to have, saying over and over, “They got him with machine guns. I heard he was sprayed with bullets.”

Mayberry confirmed the rumor in a low murmur.  “He was shot.”

Curtain was flitting about an older boy named John Pal, asking John about a certain caliber of Browning rifle. “That’s a machine gun, isn’t it? It’s an automatic. Don’t you have to use a tripod to shoot it?”

Still at this point, no one really believed it had happened. At least, no one believed the worse. We were beginning to accept the rumor the President had been fired at, but we doubted the rumors of his death or injury was true.

It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes since Bob Keifer had first stopped at my desk when it crossed my mind to call my wife. She might have the TV on and know more than we did. I got the company operator on Mayberry’s telephone.

 “Is this a personal call or…”.

“Personal, yes.”

“I’m sorry,” she seemed angry, “we can hardly get business calls out under the circumstances let alone personal.”

I hung up and walked to my own section. I could not work without knowing more about the rumors. The deaf man, who ran a stuffing machine, George Taylor, asked me what had happened.

“They shot the President,” I told him.

“Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.”

I returned to the front of the mailroom and Bill Mayberry had left for lunch.  The latest rumor was the President and his wife were alive and all right, as well as some Senator who had been wounded. There was a knot of mail boys talking at the front of the room. I saw Bob Keifer and, I believe, John Pal. George Johl was working not too far away. George was another close friend. He was a family man, holding down two jobs and going to night school, and a Negro with strong loyalty to Kennedy.

I went to the group and said to Bob, “I wonder if Bill will be heading out for revenge?”

“He went home to get his gun,” said Bob, then he turned to George Johl.  “See what you caused, see what your people caused?”

Suddenly bad taste had taken a hold of the room. It was strange, people telling cruel jokes at such a time, but I think it was because we wouldn’t accept the idea such a thing could happen. It must  just be a bad-taste joke as well.

A Federal Mailman came through the supply room from outside dragging a dirty gray bag of mail. He was grinning.  He dropped the bag and pointed at Bob Keifer.

“Why’d you do it?”

Bob kind of laughed, eyes wide, throwing up  his palms. “I didn’t do it.”

“Sure,” said the mailman. He looked at the rest of us. “He did it,” he said. “You did it.” No one spoke. he looked around. “I’m kidding. But I know who did it.”

“Who?” asked one of the girls.

“His wife was going to,” said the mailman, looking at her, “she would have.”

I was stunned by the broad grin on the mailman’s face as he explained how Jackie hated Jack and had plotted his death. “I’m glad it happened, the mailman said.”

I stood and listened. I wanted to slug the man, but one doesn’t do that in real life, do they? The mailman left.

I murmured to Bob, adding my own prejudice to the rumors, “And you wondered what Johnson was doing?”

Bob had asked only the other day what the vice-president was doing these days.  Johnson’s invisibility was a common joke. Now I was hinting that he had been plotting this crime. But perhaps, considering the rivalry and the location, it wasn’t so uncommon to say such a horrible thing.

Now speculation about the motives and who might have done it multiplied. Somebody thought it was a Cuban plot. Bob felt it had been a Negro group in Brooklyn.

“The Black Muslins?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said.

“They’re not just in Brooklyn,” I told him.

“I know,” he said.  “They’re everywhere.”

An idea came to me. “Hey,” I said, “Edwin Walker! Isn’t he down there in Dallas?”

“Yeah, that’s his territory,” said Bob.

“Could be those nuts. Look at what happened with Stevenson.” [Note: On October 24, 1963 U. N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson arrived at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium to make a speech and was attacked by a large mob of General Edwin Walker's followers.]

Speculation was beginning to repeat itself. I decided to visit my friend Dave Claypoole in the payroll department to see if he had heard anything. It seemed an eternity until an elevator arrived in the lobby.

I took the elevator, which was crowded. There were three women and at least as many men in it. As we ascended everybody was silent until we reached the fourth or fifth floor and then one of the women mentioned something about the President being wounded in Dallas.

“He’s dead,” said a man.

“Uoh!” gasped the woman. “He’s dead?”

“That’s what I heard outside,” said the man.

Another man nodded his head. “I understand he was shot three times in the head.”

I got off and found Dave in his office. We both went down to the cafeteria and had a cup of coffee. I leaned against the machine that dispensed the coffee.

“Bad news. This is bad news,” I said.

All of a sudden I was shaking. I could feel it in my legs and stomach. It was a quivering, as if I was outside on a cold day.

A woman walked toward us, as if seeking news.

Dave tossed his arms up and open, speaking in a louder than normal voice. “Well, is this our chance to take over?”

The woman gave him a look of distaste. She hurried away. His words panicked me. I spun toward him. I began pacing with my hands in my pockets, trying to get rid of the cold I felt. I was shaking my head, sucking in on my lower lip. “What a sense of humor,” I said.

“I’m surprised it got you so shook up,” he said. “You didn’t agree with Kennedy’s policies.”

“But he is the President.”

We went back upstairs. I was still shaking. A woman passed us. “It’s true,” she said, “that was my mother. She said she heard he’s dead.”

The girl just inside the payroll room spoke, “I have a friend who use to work on the Inquirer. She knows someone there. Somehow she got through to them. They say he’s dead.” She told us somebody else was critical and we thought she said Jackie.

I left Dave and caught a down elevator. People got on and off. Two men were talking, smiling, joking. Other people were calm and normal. One carried coffee. Everybody hadn’t heard yet.

Back in the mailroom, I found Bob. “Let’s see what Russ says?” We found Russ Weeks, who just returned from lunch.  He had a radio and most of the mailroom was grouped around him.

Russ was just breaking away from the group when we got there.  His radio was not working. “He died, I understand,” he said.

It seemed certain by this time that the President had been shot and was probably dead.  It was confused whether anyone else had been shot.

Someone told Russ that Mayberry had left.

“Did he? Has anyone checked to see if he chartered a plane to Dallas?”

“No, but he went home to get his gun.”

Russ shrugged. “It’s a shame he got shot on a Friday,” he said over his shoulder, “otherwise, we might have least got a day off out of it.”

It was useless to try to work, but equally as useless to stand around. I started back to my desk again and was stopped by George Taylor.

“Ya know,” he said, “they were goin’ ta have steak. Somehow the Pope had made it a special Friday so they’d have meat. I don’t know what was the reason, but the Pope made it so they could eat meat.”

“I’ve heard they have certain Friday’s they can eat meat.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Catholic so’s I don’t know what they called it, but the Pope said they could have meat today.”

“I’m not either,” I told him.  “I don’t know myself.”

“Well, ya know,” George lowered his voice; “the chef down there at the place in Dallas wanted to put this large special steak aside for Kennedy. The Secret Service wouldn’t let him. They told him to put it with the others. You cook up 3,000 steaks and we’ll pick one out.”

I kept nodding.

George went on. “Ya know, it’s funny. Just two days ago this turkey farmer wanted to give him a forty-pound turkey. Kennedy told ‘em to give it back to the man who raised it.”

Russ Weeks came in the back door. He stopped between us.

“They got the radio on out there,” he said. “One of the priests they called to perform the Last Rites said he’s dead. It’s still unofficial, though. But why would a priest lie?” He went up front.

George leaned toward me. “What he say?”

I told him. George shook his head. I followed Russ to the front. The mail girls were chatting to one side.

“I think if he was dead, Bill’s wife would have called,” said one.

"Not necessarily,” I told her, “you can’t get through. I tried to call my wife and they wouldn’t let me through.”

Jim nodded. “That’s likely.”

Somebody else, "You can’t even get a dial tone,”

Jim and I went over to Russ, who began talking right away.

"It used to be when something like this would happen, the newspaper would get out extra editions. I remember when you used to hear boys calling ‘extra, extra’ up and down the street. But now…”

I said the papers put out so many editions they didn’t need extras. But Russ had his own explanation.

“TV and radio get it so fast that the papers aren’t necessary to inform the people anymore. We were at the Cathey Teahouse when we heard. The waiters came around to each table and said the President had been shot. They said they would turn on the TV for news. It was something. The whole place went silent. The waitresses moved slowly, trying to be very quiet. Everybody just sat and listened.”

“I wish we’d get the story clear,” I mumbled.

“I don’t know how they feel upstairs,” said Russ, “but I think we should be allowed to go home.”

Mayberry’s wife called, getting through somehow, and after Russ told her Bill had left and hung up, he, Jim and I began talking about whom might have done it.

“I don’t think it was a Cuban," Russ said. “I think the anti-Castro Cubans hated Kennedy more that the pro-Castro.”

“I hope it’s a nut,” I said, “I hope it’s just some nut.”

They agreed. Russ spoke. “If the guy was with some group it would be bad. If it was a colored guy, they’ll be a lot of colored people killed. If it was a white guy doing it for the Negroes it’ll be just as bad. If it’s a Cuban, a lot of people’ll want to wipe out Cuba. I don’t think we would invade Cuba, but a lot of people would want us to.”

“That’s why I hope a nut did it on his own.”

“But if this is a group, I’m afraid there will be a lot of violence,” said Russ.

A new report reached us. It said the President was dead, the Governor of Texas was critical, Johnson was having a heart attack and was probably wounded. It was also reported that a German Musser rifle had been found on the sixth floor of some building. Three shell casings were nearby and one unfired bullet was in the rifle. It was believed this meant the assassin meant to get Johnson too.

Bill Mayberry returned and reported they had caught the assassin.

“He’s twenty-five and white,” he said.

More and more people knew. It was about three o’clock. There was anger and joy, rumor and speculation. I asked to go home and was allowed. I caught the train and the entire trip I read and reread the headline on the Evening Bulletin:

SNIPER KILLS KENNEDY

Burglary or Is This Anyway to Solicit a Yard?

So as we left for dinner a few night ago we saw the police cars before a neighbor's house two doors up. He was on the front yard with two officers. "Hmm, wonder what that is about?" we wondered.

The person is a retired school teacher. I'll tell you how bad times have become. First thought came to my wife's mind was a drug bust. There's been a couple nearby recently. I was even worse. First words out of my mouth were, "Child porn on the computer?" Terrible thing to think of a neighbor, but that's what you see in the news so much these days, some former worker with children arrested for child pornography. No matter where our evil thoughts went, what it was was a burglary.

Didn't know that yet. Looked online and in the paper next day, but nothing about our area in the crime reports. How often do we see a curious situation and never find out what the reasons were? A number of times actually.

The next night my daughter comes home from work announcing as she enters, "Why are the police all over the street."

I looked out and there were a couple cop cars up in front of that neighbor's again. Now a couple hours later, when we had guests stop by, the police were gone.

My visitors didn't stay long, maybe a half hour, and I walked them out to the street as they left. The police were back again. Two officers were across the street talking with the occupants. Meanwhile, I spent sometime talking with my friends, who were my pastor and two elders from my church. They didn't look the stereotypical such. We're not your grandmother's church, I guess. One elder had arrived by Harley-Davidson and they're big fellows with tattoos and such. And while we are gabbing the police amble down and motion me over.

"You live around here?" asks the uniformed officer. The other must be a detective.

"Right here," I say, pointing to my house.

He takes my name, birth date, telephone number and blood pressure. Naw, he really didn't take that last. He tells me there was a burglary two doors up. Then he asks if I saw a person mowing the lawn there a few days ago. No, I hadn't. He didn't tell me anything else. He did ask if I'd seen anything suspicious lately.

Why, yes I did, yes I did.

Maybe it's nothing, but I told them anyway.

It was the other day, I am on the computer and my wife calls me. "There are guys going around people's homes with clipboards."

I  rushed out to see and sure enough I saw a guy wandering from the side of the house on the corner. He indeed had a clipboard and seemed to be making notes. My wife told me there was a guy next door all the way into the backyard. While she says this the fellow came from that house and went to the driver's side of a white car parked on the street.

I hurried back to the computer room to snatch my glasses and my camera. As I returned I saw the white car pulled past our place and stopped and a fellow walking down our driveway. "Did he knock on the door?" I asked my wife.

"No," she said.

I was just going out my front door when the white car drove off with the two guys. I decided to follow and catch them and ask what they were doing. I drive after, but I lost them. They must not have stopped anywhere in the neighborhood. I wanted to get a picture of the car and license. We didn't know there had been a burglary yet, but this was suspicious behavior nonetheless.

As I was returning from my fruitless search for the clipboard guys, I notice the lady in the corner house in her yard. I go to her and ask about the clipboard guys.

"They were Scott's Yard care," she tells me. "They were real pushy, too."

I went in my house and called Scott's Lawn Care and asked if they had crews out surveying yards. The lady who answered said they did.

I said, "Their car didn't have any name on it."

She said, "Our sales crews don't use the trucks." She continued, "They knock on the door and leave a flyer."

Okay, but no one knocked on my door and there was no flyer left. I don't like people walking about my house making notes on a clipboard. I liked the idea even less when that cop told me there was a burglary two homes away.

Next day I went across to the corner house and asked if they left her a flyer. "No," she said. "He held something out, but when I reached for it he snatched it back. 'You're keeping it?', I asked and he said, 'Yeah.'"

As I left her I saw the neighbor across the street was out and about. He's a long time friend so I wandered over and told him my tale.

"They came up the drive," he said, "and I said , 'No, not interested.' They didn't want to take no for an answer, but I don't need them bothering me."

"Did they give you a flyer?"

"No. They said if I you wouldn't hear them out they couldn't give you one."

Is that anyway to try to sell your services, if indeed these guys were really from Scott's. If they were, I suggest Scott's rethink their training. If they weren't, I hope Scott's takes note they are being misrepresented by some people who may be casing neighborhoods for other purposes.