Number 617


As the twig is Bentz, so grows the tree


Dear Editor, Gangsters Can't Win,

All my life I wanted to be a master criminal. I didn't want to be a chump and work. I wanted to steal jewels and money, live the high life, have expensive cars and fast women...or is that expensive women and fast cars? Anyway, that was the type of life I wanted to lead. No one could dissuade me from my goal to someday steal a million dollars and live the life of a king.

Then a friend gave me a copy of your Gangsters Can't Win number two and told me in no uncertain terms, "This could be you!" I have been forced to see the error of my ways. Reading the story of Eddie Bentz, his capture and punishment, has made me take a hard look at myself and realize that my dream of criminal glory was wrong, so wrong.

I owe it all to Gangsters Can't Win because now I know that...err, well, gangsters can't win! Crime does not pay! (Oops, sorry, am I plugging your competition?) I am a better person today because I read the story of Eddie Bentz, and now I think a life of crime is a dead-end road full of potholes and you fall into one of those potholes and it's so deep you can't get out and you cry and scream for your mommy and she won't come because you're a wicked, wicked boy who's gonna end up in prison, you mark my words, and she's got the whole damn family against you and...whew. Well, I think you get the picture.

I think all boys and girls should have to read Gangsters Can't Win, even if some sexy mean girl wearing knee-high spike-heeled leather boots with spurs has to stand over them with a whip and make them read it because it's for their own good.

Your friend and reader for life,

Pappy