Being swindled by a con man in old-time, and modern Phoenix, Arizona

I've lived in the Phoenix, Arizona area for a long time (longer than I care to admit!) and I like it here. I live in Glendale, which is a suburb, and I like to get up early and go for a ride, waving at people and saying good morning. I like these people, and I worry a bit about them, too. I'll see if I can explain.

I've always had a fascination for marketing, advertising, and sales. I worked as a graphic designer professionally, and while it's really only on the fringes of that world, it's attached. Mostly I did promotional brochures, ads, that kind of thing. And I worked for good and upstanding companies, like Valley National Bank, who always did everything in an ethical way. You can be cynical about their interest rates on credit cards, but they actually tell you what you're getting yourself into. And that's different from being swindled.

Now hold on there, I'm not a con man, and never was. I've always looked like one, but I made a choice early in life that I would do just fine in life without hurting people, or stealing stuff. And we really can't help the way that we look, and I just grew into someone who would looked like a con man. And the classic con man is nice-looking, neatly dressed, well groomed, that sort of thing. I even developed a little grey at the temples in my forties, and along with my honest-looking baby-blue eyes, that completed the look. By the way, when I started teaching night classes at the local Community College, I always was annoyed that my appearance was all that the security people (who were students in law enforcement classes) needed in order to unlock doors for me and give me access to thousands of dollars of computer equipment. I always had my faculty badge handy, but no one ever looked at it, they looked at a well-dressed man carrying a briefcase, with a bit of grey at the temples. -sigh-

Like most of the people my age, I was introduced to con men by watching the movie "The Sting". It came out when I was in high school, and it made heroes out of the kind of people who could pick your pocket, and get away with it. Of course, in the movie they only stole from bad guys, which made it all right. As a pimply-faced skinny kid who was all arms and legs, I pictured myself as Paul Newman, or maybe Robert Redford. These guys were battling a scary world, and winning.

But when I grew up my fascination with all of that remained with fiction. I'd always enjoyed reading the "Saint" books, and he was a dashing con man (in the books, not the TV shows or movies). And he only stole from bad guys, outwitting them.

I grew up to be an honest man, and an honest man is very difficult to swindle, or con. I don't go for bait. You can leave your wallet on a table at a restaurant, and I'll just catch up to you with a smile and return it. People who are easily swindled won't do that, and the people who con them know it. They'll try to leverage a twenty-dollar bill into a big sting. And there have always been con men (and con women!), and always will be. If you walked up to me in old-time Phoenix asking if you needed someone to look after my horse while I went inside, I'd be more comfortable if you asked for a nickel. If you want to do it for a nothing, I'd pass on the offer. No thank you, move along. And I'd stand next to my horse until I saw that you had walked away. I might adjust the bridle, or take a chaw of tobaccy, and not look your way directly, but I'd wait for you to go away, looking for another mark.

Image at the top of this post: The Gooding Building in 1908, northeast corner of Central and Adams, Phoenix, Arizona. It's still there, although it was "modernized" in the 1950s, and the last time I went downtown it's where the Dunkin' Donuts is.

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