Being a con man in old-time Phoenix


I've always known that I would have made a good confidence man. That is, someone who steals from people by making them trust him. In a long life I've known a lot of people like that, but it was never for me. I found my life jogged along quite nicely by being who I was, an honest, if somewhat innocent, person from the Midwest. I've done just fine that way, and plan on continuing to be that man for as long as I can.

From Artful Dodgers to people who do "the Sting", you know that they're out there. People who will look you right in the eye and lie, and cheat, and steal. And many times these people prey on people's best instincts, to be kind, to help others. I'm sure you know what I mean.

I grew up in a very protected world, in Minneapolis, and then threw myself into the great big world once I graduated from high school. I've lived in places with petty thieves, and even serious criminals. When I moved to California my eyes really opened to these people, and I started to get a little paranoid. Yes, I have trust issues. Just because someone is well-dressed, and has an open, honest face doesn't mean that I will hand them my wallet.

That being said, I often wonder what it would have been like to live in a world with none of these people, you know, like Phoenix "back in the day". But of course they were there, too.

It's Christmastime as I write this, which seems to bring out the con men (and women!) in droves. My email is always filled with things that are obvious cons, maybe someone who says that they're a friend of mine and just needs me to send money through Western Union to some country I've never heard of, so they can get home. I'm sure you've seen that.

But I don't want to live in a world of distrust, and fear. I know that the vast majority of people out there are good and honest. I don't hold someone's personal appearance against them, even if they have an honest, open face. They really can't help looking suspicious!

I've spent a lot of time walking around Phoenix, both IRL (In Real Life) and in my imagination. And I see people who could be figuring out a way to hurt me, or people who would rush to my help if I needed it. And I choose to see the latter, even though I always keep an eye on my wallet!
History Adventuring on Patreon

 Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

  1. kirkdooleyDecember 11, 2019 at 3:20 PM

    Sadly, the first thing I learned after moving to Phoenix to go to school at DeVry Tech (an experience that I could write a book about, except nobody would believe it) is TRUST NO ONE, not even your mother. (ESPECIALLY your mother.)

    No matter how cynical you may be, in Arizona, it's dammed hard to keep up.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more