Monday, March 13, 2006
Bank Robbers Just Kidding
HOT DOG DAY AFTERNOON BETWEEN THE BANKS OF LEWES
Two strapping and strongly built young black men each close to 6-5 and weighing over 200 pounds ascended the steps of the Sussex Trust bank in the middle of a July afternoon, wearing neck scarfs, bandanas and masks over their faces. Ironically, a security technician had shut down the alarm system at Sussex Trust because it was in need of tweaking.
The tellers sprung into an alternative evasive plan that involved throwing hard cold cash into the trash cans. The customers were absolutely stark frozen in their tracks, startled from fright. And across the street, where a beat up Chevy Suburban sat parked with two more masked dark men inside, the Farmers Bank had pulled the blinds closed and bolted the doors shut.
John Curtin, the manager of the Board of Public Works and a licensed NCAA track official, came to me with a proposal for a summer job back in 1977. “Coach, we have to put water meters in every home in Lewes and only have two years to do it. I want you to hire six kids from the high school to work the project and to labor at the power plant. You will be their supervisor and will answer only to me. Did you ever think you would have a job supervising hole diggers?”
And so I recruited four of my track athletes, who were black like most of their teammates and a couple of white kids I had in class. I had no idea that the Board of Public Works had never had a black employee but now the rednecks had to watch their language around the water cooler and coffee maker. Watermelon and fried chicken jokes were now on hold for the entire summer.
The meters were late arriving so we started the summer cleaning, painting and sprucing up the town owned property. The first day I left the two white boys at the Power Plant and took my athletes along with me. I just didn’t want my kids subjected to any subtle forms of racism that could be so subtle that the guys exhibiting the behavior were totally unaware of it.
Our assignment was to paint the well houses that sat upon the Lewes well field on the outskirts of town. I didn’t know such places existed and I still don’t understand how water underground gets all the way up inside that giant water tower.
These structures were just little cinderblock buildings painted white. We set up inside house number one of six and I gave the boys instructions about cutting in and rolling the walls. All four looked back at me like they knew I thought they were stupid. “Hey, if you don’t like instructions just throw the paint onto the wall directly from the bucket and smooth it with your hands. I just don’t want to see and finger prints when I get back.”
“What do you mean when you get back,” Timmy said. “Your just gonna leave us here out in this hot field, ”Bruce said? “You all knew Fredman would be getting over, ”Jay say laughing. “So like where you going while we all out here painting, ”Charlie asked.
“Look guys here’s the deal. You are making good money working directly for your track coach who is the same cool guy that lead you to a state title last month. So please don’t worry about what I’m doin. You just paint, I go to Mr. Donut and eat pastries and talk a bunch of noise to anybody who will listen. Then I’m driving to the boardwalk and drinking more coffee. And if I’m in a good mood I might bring you back some donuts. Now that’s what I’m doing! Anymore questions?
I returned to the well field at 10 a.m with a dozen donuts and some cold drinks but there was no one in sight. I parked my panel truck walked around the building that was halfway painted and then walked inside. My labor gang had erected a giant bed made of old saw horses and planks of wood and they were sleeping. Just four guys lying on their backs, stiff as boards, sawing wood. I coughed lightly because I was starved for attention. Timmy opened his eyes, the rest didn’t, but he didn’t move another muscle in his body. “The first day of work and you guys just go to sleep on me? And you don’t even bother to post a lookout or even try to wake up when I come back? What kind of disrespect is that?”
Long tall Charlie kicked out his leg and knocked an empty paint can on the floor. Bruce stretched out and knocked down a second empty can. Jay sat up and said, ”Not enough paint Fredman. We ran out an hour ago. White people just try to look busy. Black people just go to sleep.”
Later in the same week, I started knocking on the doors of the town’s lawn doctors, explaining to them that we would be digging a big hole in their front yards, shutting off the water at the curb, cutting the water line and installing a meter, then turning the water back on after filling up the hole. My young and muscular digging crew never showed the slightest look of interest or concern when homeowners whined about their lawn never looking the same.
“We’ll have it back good as new I assured them. You won’t be able to tell we were ever here.” Then I’d leave and go drink coffee while my ground breaking athletes that were the first to integrate the towns utility company would be tossing ragged sod all over the place.
One guy had a front lawn like a putting green and when we finished there was this round circle that looked like it had been cut with a cookie cutter. And we had a piece left over and none of us could ever figure out how or why? “I’m calling the town and complaining about you guys,” an elderly man screamed at Bruce and Charlie. The boys just stared him down. They didn’t like dealing with white people and their stupid lawns and neither did I. There were days when we all felt like snatching out all the shrubs around the house and throwing them into the street.
The friction between the hole diggers and town’s property owners was getting worse instead of better. Digging a hole in a manicured lawn is not the best way to break down racial barriers and meet new friends. I put the “white boys” on hole digging for a couple of weeks which meant I’d have to leave two of my black kids back at the Power Plant with the rednecks. Black Power versus Red Power a virtual human wheel of Russian roulette.
But as much as my guys didn’t like digging holes in peoples front yards they nevertheless began to think of themselves a hole digging specialists and didn’t like doing the other stupid stuff I’d assign when we ran out of water meters.
“Take a few of your guys, grab some “idiot sticks” and cut a path through this field until you come to a ditch filled with water, ”John Curtin said to me, pointing into an abyss of rolling fragmites. I should have never told Bruce and Timmy to grab two “idiot sticks” from the back of the truck because they took it personally. So I grabbed a third and told them it was just like playing par three golf and was good exercise. They of course didn’t believe that but I did and anyway I was getting tired just eating donuts.
One particular windy day, I drove my four reluctant laborers to an electrical substation that was surrounded by a rusty chain link fence. Our Mission Impossible was to paint the fence with aluminum paint a brush stroke at a time. “Stay down wind from this paint, ”I said. “It has a tendency to travel in the air.”
Three hours later I went back to the futuristic looking substation, picked up my team and took them back to the power plant, there to clean up with mineral spirits. They were all covered with specks of silver paint. “You guys look like the Oakland Raiders without the uniforms,” I said. “Maybe you should all paint numbers on your backs.”
“You look like you play for Penn State, ”Bruce said referencing the Nittany Lion’s plain white uniforms. “Casper the quarterback, ”Timmy said. “Doughboy the defensive tackle, ”Charlie joked. Everybody laughed because it was time for our one-hour lunch break.
After lunch the summer sun had produced a temperature of close to 100 degrees. And the Greenhead flies had blossomed from the great marsh to begin their carnivorous feasting of every mammal in their flight path.
We gathered around the rag barrels after lunch and the boys were in no mood for more Oakland Raider jokes or sidewalk hair washings with mineral spirits. I just stood back and marveled as my guys covered their faces and hands with rags they had found in the barrel. We jumped into my 1970 three door khaki colored- non air-conditioned Chevy Suburban and headed for the job site. We pulling down Second Street where the bank clock read 99 degrees. I parked under a tree in front of Farmers Bank across the street from the hardware store and Sussex Trust bank. “You guys wait here and I’ll be back in a minute ,”I said. “I’m going to pick up two more gallons of paint.”
I took my time in Franklin Hardware and so did they, shaking my paint cans and talking about nothing in particular. I never thought about leaving a beat up looking vehicle with four large black men in masks and bandanas parked between two banks. But the banks sure thought about it!
Farmer’s Bank just shut down immediately because my cargo carrier was right outside their window. Bruce and Charlie got tired of waiting for me in the hot truck and decided to go across to Sussex Trust and get some ice water from the fountain. They came up the steps and began to push through the glass doors when they noticed people freaking out. Both Bruce and Charlie reacted to the “manacing black men “alert and pushed back out the door and went and sat in the truck.
I came out of the hardware store with a paint bucket in each hand looking like a “scales of justice” poster boy. I heading on a 45 degree angle across the street to my truck when I heard my name screamed out loud. A very angry, bordering on hysterical women was standing on the top step of the Sussex Trust bank. Mr.Frederick! Some people may think it’s funny pretending to rob a bank but we don’t! I heard that you’re a guy who thinks all kinds of things are funny but bank robbery is not funny”!
I wondered just how funny “Shut up bitch!” would have been at the moment as a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalks and was staring at me.
I got into the Surburban with my paint and drove to the substation. Nobody said a word during the five- minute ride to the outskirts of town. I parked the truck but nobody moved or said a word.
“All right get out and don’t give me that angry black men bullshit. I figure we have five minutes until the state cops get here with guns and dogs. First and last of all, the whole stupid thing is my fault. I am capable of that kind of stupidity. I never thought about leaving you guys parked between two banks wearing masks. I’ll take the first bite when the snapping shepherds get here.”
“It’s not only your fault,” Timmy said. “Bruce and Charlie thought it would be funny to walk into the bank and get a drink. I told them it was stupid but they said that you did stupid things all the time.”
We waited for the cops but they never came. And so we painted all afternoon, even me. I had no rag protection and was covered with silver paint and greenhead welts. It was my last day on the job. I told John Curtin that supervising a crew of hole-diggers was more pressure than I needed during my summer vacation.
Two weeks later I was walking past the Savannah Road elementary school when the principal shouted my name from 30 yards away. “Mr.Frederick!” “Oh no, not again,” I thought. Mrs. Labarr cut right to the point.
“Tell me first hand about how you and four large black men dressed in trash bags pretended to rob the bank at Sussex Trust.”
“They were 50 gallon lawn and leaf bags, ”I said. “But it seems no one in this town can take a joke!”
“I thought it was funny, ”Mrs. Labarr said. “The entire town is laughing about it!”
“I know a teller that ain’t laughing, ”I said. “Not everybody was born to take a joke. She just didn’t appreciate my idiot schtick.”
Two strapping and strongly built young black men each close to 6-5 and weighing over 200 pounds ascended the steps of the Sussex Trust bank in the middle of a July afternoon, wearing neck scarfs, bandanas and masks over their faces. Ironically, a security technician had shut down the alarm system at Sussex Trust because it was in need of tweaking.
The tellers sprung into an alternative evasive plan that involved throwing hard cold cash into the trash cans. The customers were absolutely stark frozen in their tracks, startled from fright. And across the street, where a beat up Chevy Suburban sat parked with two more masked dark men inside, the Farmers Bank had pulled the blinds closed and bolted the doors shut.
John Curtin, the manager of the Board of Public Works and a licensed NCAA track official, came to me with a proposal for a summer job back in 1977. “Coach, we have to put water meters in every home in Lewes and only have two years to do it. I want you to hire six kids from the high school to work the project and to labor at the power plant. You will be their supervisor and will answer only to me. Did you ever think you would have a job supervising hole diggers?”
And so I recruited four of my track athletes, who were black like most of their teammates and a couple of white kids I had in class. I had no idea that the Board of Public Works had never had a black employee but now the rednecks had to watch their language around the water cooler and coffee maker. Watermelon and fried chicken jokes were now on hold for the entire summer.
The meters were late arriving so we started the summer cleaning, painting and sprucing up the town owned property. The first day I left the two white boys at the Power Plant and took my athletes along with me. I just didn’t want my kids subjected to any subtle forms of racism that could be so subtle that the guys exhibiting the behavior were totally unaware of it.
Our assignment was to paint the well houses that sat upon the Lewes well field on the outskirts of town. I didn’t know such places existed and I still don’t understand how water underground gets all the way up inside that giant water tower.
These structures were just little cinderblock buildings painted white. We set up inside house number one of six and I gave the boys instructions about cutting in and rolling the walls. All four looked back at me like they knew I thought they were stupid. “Hey, if you don’t like instructions just throw the paint onto the wall directly from the bucket and smooth it with your hands. I just don’t want to see and finger prints when I get back.”
“What do you mean when you get back,” Timmy said. “Your just gonna leave us here out in this hot field, ”Bruce said? “You all knew Fredman would be getting over, ”Jay say laughing. “So like where you going while we all out here painting, ”Charlie asked.
“Look guys here’s the deal. You are making good money working directly for your track coach who is the same cool guy that lead you to a state title last month. So please don’t worry about what I’m doin. You just paint, I go to Mr. Donut and eat pastries and talk a bunch of noise to anybody who will listen. Then I’m driving to the boardwalk and drinking more coffee. And if I’m in a good mood I might bring you back some donuts. Now that’s what I’m doing! Anymore questions?
I returned to the well field at 10 a.m with a dozen donuts and some cold drinks but there was no one in sight. I parked my panel truck walked around the building that was halfway painted and then walked inside. My labor gang had erected a giant bed made of old saw horses and planks of wood and they were sleeping. Just four guys lying on their backs, stiff as boards, sawing wood. I coughed lightly because I was starved for attention. Timmy opened his eyes, the rest didn’t, but he didn’t move another muscle in his body. “The first day of work and you guys just go to sleep on me? And you don’t even bother to post a lookout or even try to wake up when I come back? What kind of disrespect is that?”
Long tall Charlie kicked out his leg and knocked an empty paint can on the floor. Bruce stretched out and knocked down a second empty can. Jay sat up and said, ”Not enough paint Fredman. We ran out an hour ago. White people just try to look busy. Black people just go to sleep.”
Later in the same week, I started knocking on the doors of the town’s lawn doctors, explaining to them that we would be digging a big hole in their front yards, shutting off the water at the curb, cutting the water line and installing a meter, then turning the water back on after filling up the hole. My young and muscular digging crew never showed the slightest look of interest or concern when homeowners whined about their lawn never looking the same.
“We’ll have it back good as new I assured them. You won’t be able to tell we were ever here.” Then I’d leave and go drink coffee while my ground breaking athletes that were the first to integrate the towns utility company would be tossing ragged sod all over the place.
One guy had a front lawn like a putting green and when we finished there was this round circle that looked like it had been cut with a cookie cutter. And we had a piece left over and none of us could ever figure out how or why? “I’m calling the town and complaining about you guys,” an elderly man screamed at Bruce and Charlie. The boys just stared him down. They didn’t like dealing with white people and their stupid lawns and neither did I. There were days when we all felt like snatching out all the shrubs around the house and throwing them into the street.
The friction between the hole diggers and town’s property owners was getting worse instead of better. Digging a hole in a manicured lawn is not the best way to break down racial barriers and meet new friends. I put the “white boys” on hole digging for a couple of weeks which meant I’d have to leave two of my black kids back at the Power Plant with the rednecks. Black Power versus Red Power a virtual human wheel of Russian roulette.
But as much as my guys didn’t like digging holes in peoples front yards they nevertheless began to think of themselves a hole digging specialists and didn’t like doing the other stupid stuff I’d assign when we ran out of water meters.
“Take a few of your guys, grab some “idiot sticks” and cut a path through this field until you come to a ditch filled with water, ”John Curtin said to me, pointing into an abyss of rolling fragmites. I should have never told Bruce and Timmy to grab two “idiot sticks” from the back of the truck because they took it personally. So I grabbed a third and told them it was just like playing par three golf and was good exercise. They of course didn’t believe that but I did and anyway I was getting tired just eating donuts.
One particular windy day, I drove my four reluctant laborers to an electrical substation that was surrounded by a rusty chain link fence. Our Mission Impossible was to paint the fence with aluminum paint a brush stroke at a time. “Stay down wind from this paint, ”I said. “It has a tendency to travel in the air.”
Three hours later I went back to the futuristic looking substation, picked up my team and took them back to the power plant, there to clean up with mineral spirits. They were all covered with specks of silver paint. “You guys look like the Oakland Raiders without the uniforms,” I said. “Maybe you should all paint numbers on your backs.”
“You look like you play for Penn State, ”Bruce said referencing the Nittany Lion’s plain white uniforms. “Casper the quarterback, ”Timmy said. “Doughboy the defensive tackle, ”Charlie joked. Everybody laughed because it was time for our one-hour lunch break.
After lunch the summer sun had produced a temperature of close to 100 degrees. And the Greenhead flies had blossomed from the great marsh to begin their carnivorous feasting of every mammal in their flight path.
We gathered around the rag barrels after lunch and the boys were in no mood for more Oakland Raider jokes or sidewalk hair washings with mineral spirits. I just stood back and marveled as my guys covered their faces and hands with rags they had found in the barrel. We jumped into my 1970 three door khaki colored- non air-conditioned Chevy Suburban and headed for the job site. We pulling down Second Street where the bank clock read 99 degrees. I parked under a tree in front of Farmers Bank across the street from the hardware store and Sussex Trust bank. “You guys wait here and I’ll be back in a minute ,”I said. “I’m going to pick up two more gallons of paint.”
I took my time in Franklin Hardware and so did they, shaking my paint cans and talking about nothing in particular. I never thought about leaving a beat up looking vehicle with four large black men in masks and bandanas parked between two banks. But the banks sure thought about it!
Farmer’s Bank just shut down immediately because my cargo carrier was right outside their window. Bruce and Charlie got tired of waiting for me in the hot truck and decided to go across to Sussex Trust and get some ice water from the fountain. They came up the steps and began to push through the glass doors when they noticed people freaking out. Both Bruce and Charlie reacted to the “manacing black men “alert and pushed back out the door and went and sat in the truck.
I came out of the hardware store with a paint bucket in each hand looking like a “scales of justice” poster boy. I heading on a 45 degree angle across the street to my truck when I heard my name screamed out loud. A very angry, bordering on hysterical women was standing on the top step of the Sussex Trust bank. Mr.Frederick! Some people may think it’s funny pretending to rob a bank but we don’t! I heard that you’re a guy who thinks all kinds of things are funny but bank robbery is not funny”!
I wondered just how funny “Shut up bitch!” would have been at the moment as a small crowd had gathered on the sidewalks and was staring at me.
I got into the Surburban with my paint and drove to the substation. Nobody said a word during the five- minute ride to the outskirts of town. I parked the truck but nobody moved or said a word.
“All right get out and don’t give me that angry black men bullshit. I figure we have five minutes until the state cops get here with guns and dogs. First and last of all, the whole stupid thing is my fault. I am capable of that kind of stupidity. I never thought about leaving you guys parked between two banks wearing masks. I’ll take the first bite when the snapping shepherds get here.”
“It’s not only your fault,” Timmy said. “Bruce and Charlie thought it would be funny to walk into the bank and get a drink. I told them it was stupid but they said that you did stupid things all the time.”
We waited for the cops but they never came. And so we painted all afternoon, even me. I had no rag protection and was covered with silver paint and greenhead welts. It was my last day on the job. I told John Curtin that supervising a crew of hole-diggers was more pressure than I needed during my summer vacation.
Two weeks later I was walking past the Savannah Road elementary school when the principal shouted my name from 30 yards away. “Mr.Frederick!” “Oh no, not again,” I thought. Mrs. Labarr cut right to the point.
“Tell me first hand about how you and four large black men dressed in trash bags pretended to rob the bank at Sussex Trust.”
“They were 50 gallon lawn and leaf bags, ”I said. “But it seems no one in this town can take a joke!”
“I thought it was funny, ”Mrs. Labarr said. “The entire town is laughing about it!”
“I know a teller that ain’t laughing, ”I said. “Not everybody was born to take a joke. She just didn’t appreciate my idiot schtick.”
