Pocket Pickers, Old and New

“There are people who will slap you on the back with one hand, and pick your pocket with the other.” That was the catchphrase of Racket Squad a syndicated TV series from the early 50’s. The show exposed how con men run their rackets. “Captain Braddock, Captain Braddock… ready.”

https://youtu.be/s_i5XdOnowU

Scams still abound, of course. I get calls every day on the landline with fake caller ID’s. Most don’t leave voice messages, but every so often there is one saying the IRS is investigating me and I must return the call immediately. Another trick is a fake Microsoft security alert message embedded in a Web page. The scammers are in India, with their English being, I suppose, a legacy of British colonial rule.

It’s a Walt World, After All

The summer of ’65 is a source of fond childhood memories. I saw the Beatles in HELP!, and my eldest sister attended the first Beatles concert at Shea Stadium. I was captivated by an original James Bond Aston Martin DB5 that was on display over a weekend at a local shopping center, as a promotion for Thunderball.

The biggest event that summer was my family going to the New York World’s Fair. We were there for only one day, but I was enthralled by the fair and the memories remain vivid. As a kid, I knew nothing about the fair’s contentious origin or its controversial promoter, but the presence of Walt Disney couldn’t be mistaken or missed.

A WWII Mystery

The problem with old family snapshots is they don’t document themselves and, when there’s a note, it assumes knowledge on the part of the viewer. That guy in front resembled myself as a young guy, but he couldn’t have been my father, who enlisted in the Navy after turning 17 at the start of 1945, and was part of the Japan Occupation Force. The men in this picture were soldiers, not sailors.

Regardless of the family connection, whatever that may be, the questions are, what was the ship, and what happened after it reached Guam, assuming it did?

Follow-up: Were they Marines, and not Army? I’m told the caps might tell the story.

Follow-up: Mystery solved. The guy in back looked enough like my late father-in-law that I looked up his brother, also deceased, and that’s him. To my surprise, given the fatigues they were wearing, he was a Navy Seabee.