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They just simply called him Lefty. Thats the only name I ever knew him by. I'm not even sure he had a real name. But if you get right down to it I didn't have much to do with him anyway. Maybe it was because he had a slight physical impairment....his left arm was about 14 inches longer than his right one.
Lefty's daddy was a long haul truck driver and his sweet momma (all momma's are sweet) was the night clerk at the "Get Up and Go Motel" on old highway 38 just beyond the Dairy Queen on the left going South. Daddy was gone most of the time and momma's love was just not enough to keep Lefty on the straight and narrow road that leads to a fruitful and productive life that all parents yearn for with their children. But living at home and having few friends, at age 36 Lefty decided it was time to leave Louisville and go to work.
With Lefty's physical abnormality and he being the creative little person he was.... it was only natural that he use this extended wing for some personal benefit.
And so Lefty became an extremely successful pick pocket.... working the streets of every major city from New York to L.A.
Lefty's career ended however when he got his arm stuck in a candy machine in the Greyhound bus station in downtown St. Louis one horribly rainy night. While attempting to extract himself from this awkward predicament he severed his left arm completely off at the elbow. And thus ended the lucrative and remunerative profession of one of the most talented delinquents this side of Coney Island.
Lefty, as you might imagine, sued the bus station, the carrier, the machine manufacturer and the 18 candy and cracker companies represented in the machine. He won his case hands down (or should I say hand down) and now resides very comfortably in a nursing home, which he owns, in a Chicago suburb.
SMF/Sept/2013
