European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 4, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Quality of today a Street crime a True injustice Dave Barryte Miami Herald somebody has to Dossor Riching about crime in the streets. Every Day it seems As though there arc More criminals running Loose out there and the Quality of their work is pathetic. I base this statement on a crime experience i had recently on the streets of new York City while visiting Calvin Trillin who lives in new York and divides his time pretty much equally Between being a Well known writer and trying to Park his car. This experience which i am not making up occurred As we were returning to Calvin s House at about 1 . After an evening of business related non personal tax deductible literary research. Just As we reached his door a criminal appeared from out of the darkness and attempted to Rob us. Up to that Point i have no criticism of the criminals technique. He had done an excellent Job of victim selection in terms of physical courage Calvin and i were probably the two biggest weenies in Manhattan at that hour. A competent criminal armed with any plausible weapon including Ai set of Nail clippers could have had us begging for mercy and handing Over our wallets and promising to raise additional Cash first thing in the morning by applying for second mortgages. But this criminal had a terrible plan of action. He had both hands in his jacket pockets. He was thrusting the jacket material out toward us the Way the bad Guys jacket Sticks out on to when he has a gun in his pocket and he does no to want everybody to see it. Clearly Calvin and i were supposed to think that the criminal had two guns pointing at us. Here a what the criminal said a a in la blow both of your Heads  later on in our detailed Post crime critique Calvin and i found numerous flaw in this approach. For one thing if the criminal really had two guns Why on Earth would he hide them As Calvin pointed out a you would definitely want to show your guns to a couple of Schaubs like  also two guns were definitely overkill. According to my calculations two guns figures out to one gun per hand which raises the question How was the criminal planning to take our wallets was he going to ask us to hold one of his guns for him was he going to have us stick the wallets in his Mouth if so he would have had trouble giving us our Post robbery instruction such As a a done to try following me a or a a done to try anything funny a criminal with his hands in his pockets and our wallets in his Mouth Dongoh Gary an Gogh ing Gunny me what criminal getting angry Dongoh Gary Ang Yuhing Ghanny Calvin i think he a saying a a done to i have a big tummy.�?�. Me hastily no you re very svelte really sir the criminals silliest move in my opinion was threatening to blow both of our Heads off. That would be an absurd waste of bullets. A much More efficient Way to gain our cooperation would have been to simply blow calving a head off. I would then have cooperatively handed Over calving a Wallet. So it was a poorly planned robbery. I would like to say that Calvin and i even As we were staring Down the menacing barrels of the criminals jacket pockets instantly detected All of the flaws with our computer like brains. But frankly because of the amount of literary research we. Had done that evening our brains were not so much in computer Mode As in Hubble space Telescope Mode if you get my Drift. Wes Booher nevertheless in a proud of How we handled the situation. Actually it was Calvin who took a charge. You never really know what kind of gumption a Man has what kind of spine what kind of Plain old fashioned guts until you see How he handles himself when the chips Are Down and All the marbles Are on the line. Calvin looked at the criminal and he looked at me and then drawing on inner Reserve of strength and courage he pressed the intercom Button and said a malice let us  a Alice is calving a wife. She buzzed the door lock and we opened the door and went inside leaving the criminal out there with his jacket pocket still pointing at us. He never did blow our Heads off although the next morning i wished that he had. Anyway it was a pretty sorry performance. If he is in any Way representative of the criminals out there today this is yet another area where the United states is heading Down the tubes. I Hope that the criminal if he is Reading this has enough self respect to learn from the criticisms in be outlined Here and get his act together. Although in All fairness i should warn him that if he Ever tries to Rob us agian he might be in for a Little Surprise. Because next time we re going to take Strong decisive action. Next time we re going to have Alice come out and give him a piece of her mind. A o o be a u osos Collins London England funny Etow the to Raffic if Cen t seem so. Heava. My or ving a. \ a 3 a s i k 11 i 1  8 who Wear a Toupee 1. Steve martin2. Jack Klugman 3. Don Knotts 4. Ricardo Montalban 5. Martin Landau 6. Fred Macmurray 7. Steve Allen 8. William Shatner source forbidden channels first year ratings of six classic to comedies 1. Dick Van Dyke show 1962 a 80th place 2. Cheers 1983 a 75th place 3. Barney Miller 1975 a 70th place 4. A a so 1973 46th place 5. All in the family 1971 a 34th place 6. The Mary Tyler Moore show 1971 a 22nd place source classic sitcoms Reisinger Zagreb Yugoslavia of Mother i have so much to Tell you about my  24 a sunday August 4. 1991