Five miles east of our little farm, across a valley that shelters the old Lincoln Highway, lies the Conkle farm. Mrs. Conkle achieved a level of fame back in the 30’s when she cooked up some ham an eggs for Pretty Boy Floyd, a Oklahoma citizen known to carry concealed weapons and make bank withdrawals without the proper paperwork.
Pretty Boy, the legend goes, treated Mrs. Conkle with a great deal of respect and paid handsomely for her culinary efforts that day. She took no pleasure when, a few minutes later, Mr. Floyd was shot and wounded on the hill behind her farmhouse.
Pretty Boy’s demise is a matter in dispute. The daughter of the East Liverpool police officer that shot him told me her daddy did not intend to kill the elusive bank robber merely to wound him, which is exactly what he did. Pretty Boy’s end came, as the French say, by means of a coup de grace administered by a federal agent.
Bank robbery, recent history tells us, is not confined to nattily dressed Okies. These days, it seems, its become the domain of bank officers, corporate ceos, hedge fund operators, ect. promoted by an insidious federal policy that seeks to provide poor folks with rich folks’ housing at taxpayers expense. These people stole more money before lunch than Pretty Boy did in his entire career.
None of our contemporary bank robbers have ended up "executed" by federal agents on a wooded ridge in southeastern Ohio. Indeed, as punishment for their criminal behavior the Congress and Bush Administration have thrown rivers of money at them. As punishment for aiding and abetting this trillion dollar fraud our congressional representatives were re-elected by "the people," in a stunning example of the failure of "democracy."
Woody Guthrie, a fellow Oklahoman, wrote a song about Pretty Boy and one of his well-crafted lines goes,, "Some people rob you with a six gun, others with a fountain pen," which seems more appropriate these days then when Woody sang it seventy years ago.
