Milestones

Hello anybody. Here's latest installment of what I hope will be collaborative communication exercise. Read and respond--via Comment key below or to my e-mail address, dickmate@mhcable.com. Dick May THE TIP. When Eurotis (sic.) Horace Darling delivered coal for Walt Henderson back in late 1920’s and early 1930’s, a good customer was GreeneLand’s star gangster, Jack “Legs” Diamond. After Otie dumped his truckload down chute at house in Acra, Legs would sling him a $10 tip. Which in those days was a fortune. Of which Walt wanteda cut. Which Otie adamantly refused. That sawbuck amounted to a third of a month’s wages. And Otie was battling to support a wife and (eventually) 11 sons. RUBBED OUT: Petty philanthropist and part-time GreeneLander John T. Nolan, a.k.a. aforementioned “Legs” Diamond; at Kenmore night club in Albany; by revolver shots to skull at point blank range; after sanguinary career as bootlegger, dope trafficker, gangster chief, killer; on this date (Dec. 18) in 1931. Muscle man for mob boss Arnold Rothstein, guarding high-stakes poker games (and liquidating big winners), and guarding truckloads of bootleg whiskey (and hijacking some of same). Distributor of bootleg lager emanating, by long underground pipe, from Barmann (no joke!) brewery in Kingston. Thrice wounded by fellow gangsters prior to career finale. Touted as “dude of all gangsters,” “most shot-at man in America” (Saturday Evening Post). “most publicized of public enemies” (in tabloid Press, pop magazines, Warner Bros. movie, Broadway musical…). On fatal night, “laughing in alcoholic glee at his latest victory over the law,” Legs “marched from the arms of titian-haired dancer Kiki Roberts"--principal dancer at Hotsy Totsy Club--into the fatal revolver blast of Manhattan underworld assassins…” (New York Daily News). “He advanced the cause of joyful corruption and vice. He put the drop of creature on the parched tongues of millions. He filled the pipes that pacify the troubled, loaded the needles that puncture anxiety bubbles” (William J. Kennedy, Legs, 1975). STRANGLED. GreeneLand jail inmate who, Daily Maul opines (11/5/04), died “after he accidentally hung [sic.] himself inside his cell.” Not easy to do. And, says State Police Investigator Dave Darling, not true. Gary Wilgias used cell bars and clothing to achieve self-strangulation. ARRESTED. According to a radio newscast out of New Hampshire, some alleged pornographers were arrested in town of Fellows Balls. Oops! It was Bellows Falls. INJURED: Australian visitor Mungo McCallum,who lost control of rental car when driving north on Highway 9W, piled into tree just after passing business sign touting Lady Rooter. As Mungo explained to State troopers, in his homeland, rooting is not done on or in pipes. Nor is it done, as matter of course, in grandstands. “Rooting’s like, well, having a naughty, mate….”