One of my favorite books to read when growing up in the mid 70’s was “Bloodletters and Badmen” by Jay Robert Nash. If you have ever read this book and are aware of its content you might find that opening sentence a little alarming due to the fact that I discovered this book in our basement when I was about eight years old. There is some pretty gruesome stuff in this book for the adult reader much less a child and there is probably even more now as it has been updated over the past several decades.

   I found myself fascinated with reading about the exploits of the gunmen and criminals from the Old West and the Depression Era, everyone from the James boys and the Younger brothers to Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Bonnie and Clyde.

   To a young boy there seemed to be something heroic or mythological about these people, who they were and how they got to a point in their lives where they became these notorious, larger than life characters that filled movie screens and book pages. It seemed dangerous and exciting, this world they lived in. Robbing from the rich, sometimes giving to the poor, six shooters and machine guns, saloons and saloon girls, escaping from jails, train robberies, etc.

   When I started acquiring things with my own money I started to see these characters for the flawed and faulted human beings they really were. They weren’t heroes, despite any noble intentions they might have had about putting right perceived wrongs they felt had been done to them or their loved ones. They were robbers, thieves and in some cases, killers. They hurt people by stealing their possessions, money, or taking their lives or the lives of loved ones.

   This brings me to the story of the Barefoot Bandit. If I was a pre-teen or teenager I would probably think the things this young man did were pretty cool and I would more than likely find myself daydreaming about what it would be like to steal a plane and fly it to a Caribbean island, crash land it and walk away and then steal a powerboat and get chased and shot at by the police. And then of course you get caught and now the real circus starts. You get a cute nickname, people are talking about you, writing and singing songs (Jimmy Buffett?) about you, putting your name and image on everything from t-shirts to coffee mugs, paparazzi fighting to take your picture, people across the globe have heard about you. At this point you would probably have an agent, a book deal, a reality TV show and or movie deal in the works. Exciting, huh?

   It would be if I was eight years old again but reality is I’m not and this kid isn’t a hero and shouldn’t be given any more press than a common criminal that has been apprehended. I would bet that the people he stole from have an unromantic view of him and his crimes. Not only did he steal from them, in some cases he destroyed the things he stole. The things that these people worked very hard to pay for or may still be paying for.

   We have come to embrace the folk hero, the anti-hero if you will, whether a real person like D.B. Cooper, or fictional like Walter White from Breaking Bad, because let’s face it, its fun to fantasize about doing the things they have done, things that we would never do in a million years unless maybe we knew we could get away with it. He probably thought he would get away with doing these things forever but when you’re an adult forever may turn out to be as soon as tomorrow and in his case it was.

   Capt. Patrick

Time to lighten the mood with a “Hidden In Plain Sight” bonus feature.

Click the link below to watch and listen as Greg, Bill and I discuss “Whale Poo”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRFvr4kxFks

Click this link to hear “Pretty Story” ——> Pretty story

You’ll love it or my name isn’t Mermaid Toni!