Bonnie and Clyde
It is funny how a news story can conjure up old memories. Yesterday I was reading about an auction where the Bonnie and Clyde hand guns were auctioned off for about half a million dollars. Neither gun was worth more than perhaps three hundred dollars a piece as a weapon today. But being the guns of famous outlaws has added value to the items as the legend of the lover outlaws has grown and aged.
The story took me back to the small town of Hastings MI, and the sesquicentennial celebration in 1969 or 1970. I was about ten at the time and had gone to town with my cousin David Lancaster to wander the streets and do whatever young boys could back then on a hot summer day. The main street of Hastings was crowded with vendors and merchants who had set up shop in front of their businesses as well as the carnival like shows scattered around up and down the main street. One of these trailers drew the attention of my cousin an I.
On the outside of the trailer were painted pictures of the macabre items that awaited just beyond the fifty cent admission. We both seemed to lock on to two items that were advertised. One the last electric chair used in the state of Michigan. And the car that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow died in. We both gladly parted with the price of admission and entered the trailer. Inside there were long tables with old crime artifacts from murders long forgotten, along with pictures of victims and the wrongdoers under glass.
We blew past these items and headed straight for the car a gray 1934 Ford that looked like my mothers cheese grater. Forty years later I can now only guess at how many bullet holes were in that car, but I would guess somewhere in the neighborhood of one hundred. Everything from the large holes made by the Thompson sub machine gun .45s to the smaller .30 cal pistol and buckshot. From mid hood to just behind the door frame and from the roof to the running boards was shredded. Some marksman had centered a tight pattern of .30 cal rounds in the middle of the drivers door. The door was left open revealing the interior of the car. The blood stained interior was evidence that the two had met with a sudden and tragic end.
Beside the car was the electric chair, a sign made claim it was the last to ever be used in the state of Michigan. A velvet rope was placed in front of it to keep people at a distance. However, since no one else was inside the trailer boyish inquisition took over and I had to check I out first hand. Climbing into the seat I jokingly went “BZZZZZZZZZ”. Which made Dave laugh and got the attention of the man outside the trailer. I quickly retreated to the correct side of the rope before he stuck his head inside to see what we were doing.
As a side note to this I encountered the final chapter of my Bonnie and Clyde story thirty years later while driving truck. Driving to Dallas I had pulled of the road late at night to sleep. Parking in a little cafe's lot just off the highway. The following morning I went inside ate breakfast and as I was paying noticed the faded old yellowing new papers framed behind the counter. They were original accounts of the ambush that ended the crime spree of Bonnie and Clyde. I told the girl I had seen the car as a boy. Then to my surprise she told me the site was only a short way down the road. The site of the ambush just a short walk away?
I couldn't resist the temptation to visit the site and walked down the quite country road to the site with its simple historical marker. On the battered old marker were written these few words. “On this site May 23, 1934 Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed by Law Enforcement Officers”.
